A77608:439
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.
Fourthly, That Obedience that accompanies Salvation, is a ready, free, willing, and cheerful Obedience. First; It is ready Obedience. Psal. 27. 8. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Psal. 119. 60. I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy Commandments. Psal. 18. 44. As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me; the strangers shall submit themselves unto me. I have read of one who1 readily fetched water near two miles every day, for a whole year together, to pour upon a dry stick, upon the bare command of a Superior, when no reason could be given for the thing. O how ready then doth Grace make the Soul, to obey those Divine commands that are backed with the highest, strongest, and choicest Arguments! Secondly▪ As that Obedience that accompanies Salvation, is ready Obedience; so it is free and willing Obedience. ⟨p. 435⟩Acts 21. 13. Then Paul answered, 2What mean ye to weep, and to break mine heart? For I am willing, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus. The beamings out of Divine love and glory, make gracious souls willing in the day of his power, Psal. 110. 3. Those Divine principles that be in them, make them willingly obey, without coaction or compulsion. So 2 Cor. 8. 3. The Macedonians were willingly obedient, or as the Greek hath it, They were volunteers,3 not only to their power, but beyond their power. All the motions and actings of Christ towards his people, for his people, and in his people, are free; He loves them freely, he pardons them freely, he intercedes for them freely, he acts them freely, and he saves them freely; and so they move and act towards Christ freely; they heat, they pray, they wait, they weep, they work, they watch, freely and willingly, that Spirit of Grace and