A77608:569
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, A well-grounded Assurance makes a man as bold as a Lyon, it makes him valiant and gallant for1 Christ and his cause, in the face of all dangers and deaths. After the Holy Ghost was fallen upon the Apostles, and had assured them of their internal and eternal Happiness, O how bold, how undanted, how resolute were they in the face of all oppositions, afflictions, and persecutions! as you may see from the second of the Acts (of the Apostles) to the end of the Acts. So Assurance had this operation upon Davids heart, Psal. 23. 4, 6. compared, Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: Well David, but how doth this Assurance of yours operate? Why saith he, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: So Moses having an Assurance of the recompense of reward, he fears not the wrath of the King; for 2he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. ⟨p. 553⟩Heb. 11. 26, 27. So in Heb. 10. 34. And 3ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in your selves, that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance. O that Knowledge, that Assurance, that they had in their own hearts of enjoying in Heaven a better and a more enduring substance, made them bear cheerfully and gallantly, the spoiling of their worldly goods. Though the Archers, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, do shoot sore at a Soul under Assurance, yet his Bow will still abide in strength. Assurance will make a man to break a Bow of Steel, to trample down strength, and to triumph over all oppositions and afflictions. Colonus the Dutch Martyr, called to the Judge that had sentenced him to death, and desired him to lay his hand upon his heart, and asked him whose heart did most beat, his or the Judges. Assurance will make a man do this, and much more for Christ, and his Cause.
Fourthly, A wel-grounded Assurance makes a man as bold as a Lyon, it makes him valiant and gallant for