A77608:34
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.
Thirdly, Take no Truths upon trust, but all upon trial, 1 Joh. 4. 10. Beloved, 1believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God; because many false Prophets are gone out into the world. This age is very full of Impostors, therefore try the spirits, as Lapidaries do their stones, or as Goldsmiths do their metals; a Bristol stone may look as well as an Indian Diamond, and many things glister besides gold. It was the glorious commendations of the Bereans, That they searche• 2the Scriptures daily whether those things that Paul and Silas had delivered were so, and this act of theirs made them more Noble, then those of Thessalonica. Christian Nobility is the best and truest, where God himself is the top of the Kin, and Religion the root, in regard whereof, all other things are but shadows and shapes of nobleness. A Father that had three Sons was desirous to try their discretions, which he did by giving to each of them an Apple, ⟨image 11⟩that had some part of it rotten: The first eats up his rotten and all; the second throws all his away, because some part of it was rotten; the third picks out the rotten, and eats that which was good; the third was the wisest. Some in these days swallow down every thing, rotten and sound together; others throw away all Truth, because every thing that is presented to them, is not truth; but surely they are the wisest that know3 how to choose the good, and refuse the evil.
Thirdly, Take no Truths upon trust, but all upon tryall, 1 Joh. 4. 10. Beloved, 1beleeve not every spirit, but trie the spirits whether they be of God; because many false Prophets are gone out into the world. This age is very full of Impostors, therefore trie the spirits, as Lapidaries do their stones, or as Goldsmiths do their metals; a Bristol stone may look as well as an Indian Diamond, and many things glister besides gold. It was the glorious commendations of the Bereans, That they searche