A77608:33
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.
Sirs, I beseech you remember that it was Cato, a Heathen, that said, That 1account must be given, not only of our labour, but also of our leisure; and in affirming this, he affirms no more then what the Scripture speaks. But O what a sad account then have some to make? Well, as Cleopatra said to Mark Anthony, It is not for you to be fishing for Gudgeons, but for Towns, Forts, and Castles: So say I, Right Honourable, and Beloved, It is not for you to spend your time about poor low contemptible things, but about those high and noble things that make most for the interest of Christ, and the good of your Country. It was Titus, a Pagan Emperor, that uttered this memorable and praise-worthy Apothegm (Amici, diem perdidi,) my Friends, I have lost a day, when he had spent it in company without doing good. The Egyptians drew the Picture of Time with three Heads, to represent the three differences, The first of a greedy Wolf gaping, for time past, because it hath ravenously devoured even the memory ⟨image 9⟩of so many things past recalling: The second, of a crowned Lyon roaring, for time present; because it hath the principality of all action for which it calls aloud: The third, of a deceitful Dog fawning, for time to come; because it feeds fond men with many flattering hopes to their own undoing. I have read of a man, who upon his dying bed would have given a world for time, he still crying out day and night, call time again, call time again; So a great Lady of this land on her death bed cried out, time, time, a world of wealth for an inch of time. One Hermanus a great Courtier in the Kingdom of Bohemia, being at point of death, did most lamentably2 cry out, That he had spent more time in the Palace then in the Temple, and that he had added to the riotousness and vices of the Court, which he should have sought to have reformed, and so dyed to the horror of those that were about him. I have been the longer upon this, because I have been a sad Spectator of mens misspending their time, and trifling away golden opportunities, at Sea as well as at Land, and though I thus speak (knowing that this Treatise ⟨image 10⟩[…] ⟨image 10⟩