A77608:338
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.
Now the seventh Means to get a1 well-grounded Assurance of your everlasting happiness, and blessedness, is, to grow and increase more and more in grace, 2 Pet. 1. 5. to 11. Add to your Faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge, &c. to v. 11. for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. By entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of Christ, is not meant a local entrance into Heaven; for Heaven is no where called the Kingdom of Christ, but the Fathers Kingdom, the opposition, ver. 9. showeth clearly that it is meant of Assurance. Now the way to full Assurance is by adding grace to grace: The Greek word that ⟨p. 316⟩is here rendered add, hath a greater emphasis, it signifies to link our graces together, as Virgins in a Dance do link their hands together. O we must be still a joining grace to grace, we must still be adding one grace to another; We must still be a leading up the dance of graces. Great measures of grace carry with them great evidence2 of truth; little measures, carry with them but little evidence; great measures of grace carries with them the greatest evidence of the souls union and communion with Christ, and the more evident your union and communion with Christ is, the more clear and full will your Assurance be.
Now the seventh Means to get a1 well-grounded Assurance of your everlasting happinesse, and blessednesse, is, to grow and increase more and more in grace, 2 Pet. 1. 5. to 11. Add to your Faith, vertue; and to vertue, knowledge, &c. to v. 11. for so an enterance shall be ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting Kingdome of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. By enterance into the everlasting Kingdome of Christ, is not meant a locall enterance into Heaven; for Heaven is no where called the Kingdom of Christ, but the Fathers Kingdome, the opposition, ver. 9. sheweth clearly that it is meant of Assurance. Now the way to full Assurance is by adding grace to grace: The Greek word that