A77608:290
Heaven on Earth
Heaven on earth or a serious discourse touching a well-grounded assurance of mens everlasting happiness and blessedness. Discovering the nature of assurance, the possibility of attaining it, the causes, springs, and degrees of it, with the resolution of several weighty questions. By Thomas Brooks, preacher of the Gospel at Margarets Fishstreet-Hill.Heaven on earth or a serious discourse touching a wel-grounded assurance of mens everlasting happiness and blessedness. Discovering the nature of assurance, the possibility of attaining it, the causes, springs, and degrees of it, with the resolution of several weighty questions. By Thomas Brooks, preacher of the Gospel at Margarets Fishstreet-Hill.
London: printed by R.I. for John Hancock, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And therefore Death is not a terror, but a delight unto him; he fears it not as an enemy, but welcomes it as a friend. As Crookback Richard the Third, in his distress cried, A Kingdom for a Horse, a Kingdom for a Horse: So souls that want assurance when they come to die, will cry out, A Kingdom for Assurance, a Kingdom for Assurance. And as Severus said, If I had a thousand worlds, I would now give them all for ⟨p. 262⟩Christ; So a Soul that wants Assurance when he comes to enter upon a state of eternity, will cry out, O had I now a thousand worlds, I would give them all for assurance; whereas the assured soul would not for a thousand worlds but die. When his glass is out, and his sun is set, he cries not out, as that Lady did, A World, a World, for an inch of time; but rather, why is it, why is it Lord, that thy chariots be so long a coming?
And therefore Death is not a terror, but a delight unto him; he fears it not as an enemy, but welcomes it as a friend. As Crookback Richard the Third, in his distress cried, A Kingdom for a Horse, a Kingdom for a Horse: So souls that want assurance when they come to die, will cry out, A Kingdom for Assurance, a Kingdom for Assurance. And as Severus said, If I had a thousand worlds, I would now give them all for ⟨p. 262⟩Christ; So a Soul that wants Assurance when he comes to enter upon a state of eternity, will cry out, O had I now a thousand worlds, I would give them all for assurance; whereas the assured soul would not for a thousand worlds but die. When his glass is out, and his sun is set, he cryes not out, as that Lady did, A World, a World, for an inch of time; but rather, why is it, why is it Lord, that thy chariots be so long a coming?
Eighthly, Assurance will very much sweeten that little oil that is in the1 Cruse, and that handful of meal that is in the Barrel. Assurance will be sauce to all meats, it will make all thy mercies to taste like mercies, it will make Daniels pulse to be as sweet as Princes