A77608:517
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.
The fourth requisite in Prayer, is this, viz. Your Prayer must be ad bonum, 1to a good end, it must be to the glory of God, and to the internal and eternal advantage of your own, and others souls. The chiefest end, the white, the ⟨p. 502⟩mark, at which the soul must aim in Prayer, is Gods glory. Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. When God crowns us, he doth but crown his own gifts in us; and when we give God the glory of all we do, we do but give him the glory that is due unto his Name: For he works all our works in us, and for us. God measures all mens actions by their ends; if the end be good, all is good; if the end be naught, all is naught: The end determineth the action. All actions of worship, are good or bad, as the mark is at which the soul aims. He that makes God the object of Prayer, but not the end of Prayer, doth but lose his Prayer, and take pains to undo himself. God will2 be all in all, or he will be nothing at all; he will be Alexander or Nemo, he will be both the object and the end of Prayer, or else he will abhor your Prayer. Those Prayers never reach his ear, they are never lodged in his bosom, that are not directed to his glory: The end must always be as noble as the means, or else a Christian acts below himself, yea, below his very Reason.
The fourth requisit in Prayer, is this, viz. Your Prayer must be ad bonum, 1to a good end, it must be to the glory of God, and to the internal and eternal advantage of your own, and others souls. The chiefest end, the white, the ⟨p. 502⟩mark, at which the soul must aim in Prayer, is Gods glory. Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. When God crowns us, he doth but crown his own gifts in us; and when we give God the glory of all we do, we do but give him the glory that is due unto his Name: For he works all our works in us, and for us. God measures all mens actions by their ends; if the end be good, all is good; if the end be naught, all is naught: The end determineth the action. All actions of worship, are good or bad, as the mark is at which the soul aims. He that makes God the object of Prayer, but not the end of Prayer, doth but lose his Prayer, and take pains to undo himself. God will