A77608:87
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, God hath by promise engaged himself to assure his people of their happiness, and blessedness, The 1Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly. If he will with-hold no good thing, then certainly he will not always withhold assurance, which is the great good thing, the only thing, the chiefest thing, the peculiar thing that believers seek after. So in that thirty fourth of Ezek. 30, 31. Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel are my people, saith the Lord God. And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, ⟨p. 10⟩are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God. So in that, John 14. 21. 23. He that hath my Commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest my 2self to him. If any man love me (saith Christ) he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. Now hath the Lord spoken it, and shall it not come to pass? Men say, and unsay, they eat their words as soon as they have spoken them: but will God do so? Surely no, He is faithful that hath promised. All the Promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, that is, they are stable and firm, and shall really be made good. The Promises are a precious Book, every leaf drops Myrrh and Mercy: Therefore, set down and suck at these breasts, warm thy self at this fire: God hath been always as good as his word; yea, he hath sometimes been better then his word; he hath ever performed, and he hath over performed; he promised the children of Israel only the Land of Canaan, but he gave them, besides the ⟨p. 11⟩whole Land of Canaan, two other Kingdoms which he never promised. Ah! how often hath God prevented us with his blessings? and hath given3 us in such mercies, as have been as far beyond our hopes as our deserts? How hath God in these days of darkness and blood, gone beyond the prayers, desires, hopes, and confidences of his people in this Land? and beyond what we could read in the Book of the Promises. Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst: he promises honour, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss; he promises life, and pays with death: