Notes on *Heaven on Earth*

Heaven on Earth: A Treatise on Christian Assurance, Thomas Brooks, 1654, (Banner of Truth)

Main Idea/Takeaway

• Assurance is the gift not of having grace but of knowing you have grace, and though it is not required for salvation, it is the highest experience of salvation this side of heaven. 

Interaction 

• Brooks' dedication. (9-13)

• Assurance is explained in short. (14)

• “State of grace” “Reflex act of gracious soul” Assurance is not to have grace but to be sure you have grace. This assurance is not required for salvation, it is the highest experience of salvation this side of heaven. (15)

• The believer prays Rom. 8:15 not on the basis of his strong faith, but because it’s just true. God is "Abba Father”. (30)

• See Owen on waning analogy.(36)

• But does it? What is meant “living purely upon Christ””Holy art” contentment. (38)

• In this way, when we preach the glory of Jesus we are preaching for the assurance of his people.(39)

• Only ultimately is this the case. If a lash is something other than a lash in its moment then it's not a lash. Lashes become lessons. (82)

• So assurance should be pursued, but not as a thing itself. Not in a shortcut kind of way. We must pursue it through holiness, i.e., "grace & holiness for communion with God and conformity to God. (87)

• How is the experience of acting grace different from the experience of assurance? (150)

• What is the "actings of grace?" Availing oneself to the means of grace? Appropriating the grace of God in experience? That is, to live in the knowledge of grace, that I am loved by God because of God alone? (150)

Table of Contents

Epistle to the Saints

Preface: The Nature of Assurance

I. Proofs that Believers May in This Life Attain Unto A Well-Grounded Assurance Of Their Everlasting Happiness and Blessedness

II. Weighty Propositions Concerning Assurance

III. Hindrances and ImpedimentsThat Keep Poor Souls From Assurance; With the Means and Helps to Remove Those Impediments and Hindrances

IV. Motives to Provoke Christians to be Restless Till They Have Obtained A Well-Grounded Assurance of Their Eternal Happiness and Blessedness

V. Ways and Means of Gaining a Well-Grounded Assurance

VI. The Differences Between a True and a Counterfeit Assurance, Between Sound Assurance and Presumption

VII. Answers to Several Special Questions About Assurance

Favorite Quotes by Chapter

Epistle to the Saints

• "I could wish it better for your sakes, yet such as it is I do in all love and humility present you with, desiring the Lord to make it an internal and eternal advantage to you." (10)

• "Assurance is a believer's ark, where he sits, Noah-like, quiet and still in the midst of all distractions and destructions, commotions and confusions." (11)

• "The life of a Christian is rather via (journey) than vita (life), a step towards life rather than life." (12)

• "Books may preach when the author cannot, when the author may not, when the author dares not, yea, and which is more, when the author is not." (12)

Preface: The Nature of Assurance

• "The being in a state of grace will yield a man a heaven hereafter, but the seeing of himself in this state will yield him both a heaven here and a heaven hereafter; it will render him doubly blest, blest in heaven, and blest in his own conscience." (14)

• "Now assurance flows from a clear, certain, evident knowledge that I have grace, and that I do believe. Now this assurance is the beauty and top of a Christian's glory in this life." (14-15)

• "To have grace, and to be sure that we have grace, is glory upon the throne, it is heaven on this side of heaven." (15)

I. Proofs that Believers May in This Life Attain Unto A Well-Grounded Assurance Of Their Everlasting Happiness and Blessedness

• "The Bible is a Christian's magna charta, his chief evidence for heaven. Men highly prize, and carefully keep their charters, privileges, conveyances, and title-deeds of their lands; and shall not the saints much more highly prize, and carefully keep in the closet of their hearts, the precious Word of God, which is to them instead of all assurances for their maintenance, deliverance, protection, confirmation, consolation, and eternal salvation." (18)

• "Faith, in time, will of its own accord raise and advance itself to assurance. Faith is an appropriating grace; it looks upon God, and saith with David, "This God is my God for ever and ever, and he shall be my guide unto the death," Ps. 48." (21)

• "We must not only strive after assurance, but we must strive and shew all diligence to the attaining of that rich and full assurance which will scatter all fears and doubts, which will make a soul patient in waiting, courageous in doing, and cheerful in suffering, and which will make a heaven in a man's heart on this side heaven, and make him go singing into paradise, in despite of all calamities and miseries." (25)

• "How can they rejoice and glory in God, that do not know whether he will be an everlasting friend or an everlasting enemy to them, whether he will always breathe out love or wrath upon them?" (28)

• "Christians, are not your mercies greater than your miseries? Yes. Are your greatest sufferings comparable to the least spark of grace or beam of glory revealed in you or to you? No. Will not one hour's being in the bosom of Christ recompense you for all your trouble and travail? Yes?"

• "Joy and rejoicing is a consequent and effect of assurance." (29)

• "How can they rejoice and glory in God, that do not know whether he will be an everlasting friend or an everlasting enemy to them, whether he will always breathe out love or wrath upon them?" (29)

• "Joy and rejoicing is a consequent and effect of assurance." (29)

• "Luther: " The whole Scripture." saith he, " doth principally aim at this thing, that we should not doubt, but that we should hope, that we should trust, that we should believe, that God is a merciful, a bountiful, a gracious, and a patient God to his people." (32)

II. Weighty Propositions Concerning Assurance

• "Christians, this you are always to remember, that though the enjoyment of assurance makes most for your consolation, yet the living purely upon Christ in the absence of assurance, makes most for Christ's exaltation." (38)

• "Now though this full assurance is earnestly desired, and highly prized, and the want of it much lamented, and the enjoyment of it much endeavored after by all saints, yet it is only obtained by a few. It is a mercy too good for most men's hearts, it is a crown too weighty for most men's heads. Full assurance is optimum maximum, the best and greatest mercy; and therefore God will only give it to his best and dearest friends." (39)

• "It is one mercy for God to love the soul, and another mercy for God to assure the soul of his love." (39)

• "It is one thing to be an heir of heaven, and another thing for a man to know or see himself an heir of heaven." (39)

• "It is one thing to be an heir of heaven, and another thing for a man to know or see himself an heir of heaven." (39)

• "Assurance is requisite to the well-being of a Christian, but not to the being; it is requisite to the consolation of a Christian, but not to the salvation of a Christian; it is requisite to the well-being of grace, but not to the mere being of grace. Though a man cannot be saved without faith, yet he may be saved without assurance." (41)

• "God loves to act in such ways of grace towards his suffering ones, as may stop the mouths of their enemies, and cause the hearts of his friends to rejoice." (70)

• "This soul will never be quiet, till it sees God face to face, till it be quiet in the bosom of God. The more a saint tastes of God in an ordinance, the more are his desires raised and whetted, and the more are his teeth set on edge for more and more of God." (78)

• "Afflictiones benedictiones, afflictions are blessings. God's corrections are our instructions, his lashes our lessons, his scourges our schoolmasters, his chastisements our admonitions!" (82)

• "Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory that is due to his name; and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. Usually the most praying souls are the most assured souls." (84)

• "Praying souls, remember this. It is but weakness to think that men shall reap as soon as they sow, that they shall reap in the evening when they have but sowed in the morning." (90)

III. Hindrances and Impediments That Keep Poor Souls From Assurance; With the Means and Helps to Remove Those Impediments and Hindrances

• "The only ground of God's love is his love. The ground of God's love is only and wholly in himself." (96)

• "If thou has anything to say, say it to my Christ; he is my comfort and crown, my joy and strength, my redeemer and intercessor, and he shall plead for me." (105)

• "Why, then, O doubting souls, will you make your sense and feeling the judge, not only of your condition, but of the truth itself? What is this but to dethrone God, and to make a god of your sense and feeling?" (109)

• "A heart that is full of the world, is a heart full of wants." (115)

• "The pleasure and sweetness that follows victory over sin is a thousand times beyond that seeming sweetness that is in the gratifying of sin." (120)

• "It is not a man's whining and complaining over sin, but his mortifying of sin, that will make his life a paradise of pleasure." (120)

• "He that shuns not the occasions of sin, tempts two at once, Satan and his own heart; he tempts Satan to tempt him to taste of forbidden fruit, and he tempts his own heart to feed upon forbidden fruit." (125)

IV. Motives to Provoke Christians to be Restless Till They Have Obtained A Well-Grounded Assurance of Their Eternal Happiness and Blessedness

• "Assurance is that heavenly crystal that quickens souls, and that casts a beauty and a glory upon souls; and this makes the devil mad." (132)

• "Ah! were their souls fully assured that God had loved them freely, and received them graciously, and justified them perfectly, and pardoned them absolutely, and would glorify them everlastingly, they could not but love where God loves, and own where God owns, and embrace where God embraces, and be one with every one that is one with Jesus." (147) 

V. Ways and Means of Gaining a Well-Grounded Assurance

• "Seeing that God looks not for any penny or pennyworth, for any portion or proportion in the creature to draw his love, but he will justify, pardon, and save for his name's sake, Isa. 55. 1, 2; seeing all the motives that move God to shew mercy are in his own bosom; seeing they are all within doors, there is no reason why the vilest of sinners should sit down and say, There is no hope, there is no help, Deut. 7. 7, 8; Ps. 68. 18." (155)

• "Remember, reader, that a little heart-knowledge, a little experimental knowledge, is of greater efficacy and worth than the highest notions of the most acute wits. He doth well that discourses of Christ, but he doth infinitely better that, by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ. It was not Adam's seeing, but his tasting, of forbidden fruit that made him miserable; and it is not your seeing of Christ, but your experimental tasting of Christ, that will make you truly happy. As no knowledge will save but what is experimental, so let no knowledge satisfy you but what is experimental, Ps. 34. 8." (183)

• "I can live only in Christ, who is my life, my love, my joy, my crown, my all in all. Oh, the hearing of Christ affects me, the seeing of Christ affects me, the taste of Christ affects me, the glimmerings of Christ affect me; the more I come to know him in his natures, in his names, in his offices, in his discoveries, in his appearances, in his beauties, the more I find my heart and affections to prize Christ, to run after Christ, to be affected with Christ, and to be wonderfully endeared to Christ." (184)

• "The more I know him, the more I like him; the more I know him, the more I love him; the more I know him, the more I desire him; the more I know him, the more my heart is knit unto him." (184)

• "Divine and heavenly knowledge brings a man near to God; it gives a man the clearest and fullest sight of God; and the nearer any man comes to God, and the clearer visions he hath of God, the more low and humble will that man lie before God. None so humble as they that have nearest communion with God."(188)

• "No man that is saved is saved upon the account of the strength of his faith, but upon the account of the truth of his faith. In the great day Christ will not bring balances to weigh men's graces, but a touch-stone to try their graces; he will not look so much at the strength as at the truth of their graces." (215)

• "The work of repentance is not the work of an hour, a day, a year, but the work of a life-time." (225)

• "The daily mercies and experiences that they have of the love of Christ, of the care of Christ, of the kindnesses and compassions of Christ working more and more towards them, cannot but raise their affections more and more to him. As fire is increased by adding of fuel unto it, so is our love to Christ upon fresh and new manifestations of his great love towards us." (243)

VI. The Differences Between a True and a Counterfeit Assurance, Between Sound Assurance and Presumption

• "A well-grounded assurance doth always beget in the soul an earnest and an impatient longing after a further, a clearer, and a fuller enjoyment of God and Christ." (289)

• "A well-grounded assurance of a man's own eternal happiness and blessedness will make him very studious and laborious to make others happy." (292)

• "So when Christ and assurance come to be set up in the soul, all the idols of Satan and a man's own heart are cast down, and cast out as an abomination." (294)

• "It is impossible for a soul not to love Christ, that knows he is beloved of Christ." (296)

• "Ah! this assurance causes the strong waters of consolation to overflow the soul. Assurance raises the strongest joy in the would." (296)

VII. Answers to Several Special Questions About Assurance

• "Humility is both a grace, and a vessel to receive grace. God pours in grace into humble souls, as men pour liquor into an empty vessel." (309)

• "Therefore, as you would have your assurance strengthened and maintained, walk humbly with your God; I say again, walk humbly, walk humbly with your God, and you shall wear the crown of assurance to your grave." (310)

• "Your happiness lies in your union with God, in your communion with God, in your interest in God, and not in your seeing and knowing your interest; your joy and comfort lies in your seeing and knowing your interest in God, but your everlasting happiness lies in your being interested in God. The welfare and happiness of the child lies in the interest that he hath in his father, but the joy and comfort of the child lies in his seeing, in his knowing, of his interest in his father."(312)

• "Happiness lies not in any transient act of the Spirit, as assurance is, but in the more permanent and lasting acts of the Spirit." (312)

• "But this is the believer's blessedness, that his condition is always good, though he doth not always see it to be good; that his state is always safe, though it be not always comfortable." (313)

• "Assurance is a peculiar mercy; it is a flower of paradise that God sticks only in his children's bosoms. Assurance is a mercy-sweetening mercy; it is a mercy that puts the garland upon all our mercies." (318)

• "Holiness differs nothing from happiness, but in name. Holiness is happiness in the bud, and happiness is holiness at the full. Happiness is nothing but the quintessence of holiness." (319)

• "The holy soul is happy in life, and blessed in death, and shall be transcendently glorious in the morning of the resurrection, when Christ shall say, Lo, here am I, and my holy ones, who are my joy; Lo, here am I, and my holy ones, who are my crown; and therefore, upon the heads of these holy ones will I set an immortal crown. Even so, Amen! Lord Jesus." (320)

Notable Content

• Nine special seasons when assurance is enjoyed: 1.) At conversion 2.) Before engaging in hard or dangerous service 3.) During times of waiting 4.) During times of suffering 5.) During “hearing” and “receiving” times 6.) During times of personal afflictions 7.) During seasons of prayer 8.) Before conflicts with Satan 9.) After conflicts with Satan.

• Brooks on experimental knowledge. (183)

Notes on *The Care of Souls*

The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart, Harold Senkbeil (Lexham Press, 2019)

Main Idea/Takeaway

Our primary habitus as pastors is to know Jesus and give him to others through Word and sacrament.

• "The classical texts of pastoral care have always called the cure of souls a habitus, a pastoral temperament or character worked by the Holy Spirit through his means."

• "Genuine habitus: doing all you've been given to do in the full realization that you're only an instrument for the Lord to do his work through you."(22)

• "This, I'm convinced, is the sole power for consistent ministry as pastors. We love because we have first been loved- then we in turn love others as we ourselves have been loved. We are, in a very real sense, only channels or conduits for the love of Christ that enfolds us, impels us and compels us for faithful work in service of the Great Shepherd who has laid down his life for us all." (121)

• "Our job is not to usher in perfection, but to bring people to Jesus and him to them." (180)

• "Your job is merely to bring people to Jesus and Jesus to people." (194)

Interaction 

• We are commending the person, Jesus. (14)

• Give them Jesus. (17)

• Guilt is as objective, specific, internal response to sin committed. Shame is something you wear- its the identity you take on in the aftermath of sin that either you committed or was committed against you." (140)

• When it comes to sexual desire, our calling is chastity. There's no neutral ground. It's either virtue or vice. Either fidelity (if married) or abstinence (if single)- the calling to virtue. It is a positive call- "live this way!" Not merely negative against the sin/vice- "don't do that!" (177)

• The liturgy our local church on Sundays is meant to give shape to our whole Christian lives. (188)

Table of Contents

I. The Pastoral Craft: One Farm Boy's Story

II. What is a Pastor? The Classical Model

III. The Cure of Souls: Attentive Diagnosis

IV. The Cure of Souls: Intentional Treatment

V. Sheep-Dogging and Shepherding: The Noble Task

VI. Guilt and Shame

VII. Holiness and the Cure of Souls

VIII. Drawing Near to God: Proximity and Holiness

IX. Invisible PowersL Spiritual Warfare

X. Christ's "Other Sheep": Mission and the Care of Souls

XI. The Shepherding of Shepherds

XII. Always Be Steady: Equilibrium in Ministry

Conclusion: Joy in Office

Favorite Quotes by Chapter

Preface

• "This is the secret for sustainable pastoral work: You need to realize that you've got nothing to give to others that you yourself did not receive. Jesus loves you first, then you love him back by loving his sheep and lambs in his name and stead." (xx)

I. The Pastoral Craft: One Farm Boy's Story

• "Pastors do not teach mere ideas or concepts; by their ministrations they bring Jesus himself into the hearts and lives of people ravaged with guilt, burdened with shame, and struggling under a boatload of pain in all its dimensions: physical, emotional, and spiritual."(14)

• "Wherever pastors bring the words and mysteries of Jesus, they bring Jesus himself, and he personally does the comforting." (14)

• "Whenever and wherever pastors do this work of Jesus, Jesus himself is present, even though he remains unseen." (15)

• "So then, effective and faithful pastoral ministry in each succeeding era must remain intimately connected with its essential core- the divinely given presence of Christ Jesus and the truth of his word by which alone we live. The challenge for pastors in every generation is to link the person and work of Jesus to every shifting era by means of his unchanging word- not to contextualize the message, but to textualize people into the text of Scripture, you could say." (17)

• "The essence of pastoral work is to bring the gifts of the Good Shepherd to his sheep and lambs. And here's the well from which you can draw inexhaustible grace every day as a pastor: In the church the Holy Spirit daily and richly forgives all your sins along with the sins of all believers." (19)

• "That's what it means to be a servant of Christ. You get your hands dirty among his earthly- and earthy- people. But you do it because you have life in your hands to give them." (25)

• "So right up front, let's start with this foundational definition: As a pastor you're above all else a true servant of Christ and steward of God's mysteries. Let that identity- that habitus- dictate everything you do and say in ministry. Then you yourself will be well served as you serve others in Jesus' name."(26)

• "What you might consider mundane routine is the very heart of your calling: to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ and to administer his life-giving sacraments. Preaching, baptizing, communing may be ordinary and God-ordained- but they are never dull." (29)

• "Have you come to realize that by your own reason or strength you can accomplish absolutely nothing in the ministry." (29)

• "Christianity is nothing more than the life and truth that God has disclosed and transmitted through the incarnate flesh of Jesus, his eternal Son." (31)

• "Pastors impart teaching that comes from the Holy Spirit of God and they bring that divinely given teaching to people who have received the Holy Spirit by faith." (33)

• "To be an agent and emissary of Jesus energizes and empowers you for active work as his servant. Just think: Christ Jesus, your Savior and your Lord, has called and commissioned you to love and serve the very sheep and lambs for whom he shed his blood and gave his life." (35)

II. What is a Pastor? The Classical Model

• "The text of sacred Scripture is at the heart of all pastoral work; the core of what we do in the diagnosis and sure of souls revolves around the word of God in written and verbal form because these in turn flow from Christ, who is the word of God made flesh." (45)

• "One divine word- incarnate, spoken, written- this is the word that you and I bring to God's people yet today as we go about the care of souls. And in that word there is life- the life of Christ for all humanity. That's why everything we do as pastors we do by means of the word of God." (56)

• "All ministry with the written word is ultimately the ministry of the one word of the Father made flesh for us and for our salvation."(56)

III. The Cure of Souls: Attentive Diagnosis

• "So the process of the cure of souls has two phases: attentive diagnosis followed by intentional treatment." (67)

• "Whenever someone is asking for my help I give them my rapt and undivided attention." (72)

• "Probably the most important skill to acquire is the art of listening to the conscience- listening accurately and spiritually, beneath the surface." (77)

• "Let's interact conversationally, responding to questions naturally and then asking our own questions appropriately." (79)

IV. The Cure of Souls: Intentional Treatment

• "Two things are indispensable, then, when it comes to serving as a spiritual physician: being attentive and being intentional. Faithful diagnosis and cure includes both. First we pay attention in Jesus' name, accurately assessing what threatens faith. Then we speak in Jesus' name, intentionally treating the underlying ailment with his healing word." (99)

• "All prayer is essentially answering speech; we as the children of God repeat back to him the word he has spoken to us. The first step in such word-based prayer is simply to echo what he has told us, repeating back to him what he has promised or commanded in that word." (106)

• "The Lord God, who has (insert his creative, redeeming and sanctifying power here) give you his blessing that you may (find required help, comfort, strength, etc.) for (purpose)- and the blessing of God Almighty: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" be with you now and forever." (109)

V. Sheep-Dogging and Shepherding: The Noble Task

• "There's nothing more important than to know Christ- that is, to believe in him and so receive life eternal in the life still to come as well as like in all its fullness already now. Everything else in all the world is peripheral to that; this alone is central." (125)

• "The New Testament word for conscience is syneidese. From its cognates this word means "to know together with," referring to a soul's perception of its standing before God. Conscience is not so much a moral compass as it is an umpire, or the capacity to see oneself as God sees you. It's conscious sensitivity toward God's judgment and grace." (128)

• "Our task as spiritual physicians is to treat bad consciences, continually delivering the healing balm of the living word of God and his life-giving sacraments." (129)

VI. Guilt and Shame

• "Remember, guilt has to do with behavior, shame has to do with being and identity. Believing himself to be disqualified as a son, he hoped to be hired as a servant instead." (140)

• "Baptism happens only once. But its significance goes on and on. For the rest of their life, every baptized child of God goes on dying and rising every day. Dying to sin but rising to righteousness, the sin addict dies and is raised again and again to live no longer as a slave but as a son within the Father's house." (149)

• "Once hiding in shame and broken by guilt, the soul emerges to live and love in wholeness and purity, made right again and purified by the shed blood of Jesus, the holy, sinless Lamb of God who was made to be sin for us that in him we might be made the righteousness of God." (152)

VII. Holiness and the Cure of Souls

• "In all your work, then, be conscious that you are nothing more- and nothing less- than an emissary of Jesus Christ." (157)

• "Sexual chastity is the gift of God's Spirit by which the powerful force of sex is first contained and then redirected, harnessed, you might say, for godly purposes. So abstinence apart from marriage and faithfulness within it is not the impossible dream, but a blessed reality for the man who in co-operation with the Holy Spirit uses his masculinity in service of God and his neighbor." (175)

VIII. Drawing Near to God: Proximity and Holiness

• "When I speak of liturgical living I mean that everything we have to give as Christians we first receive from God by entering repeatedly into his presence." (188)

• "What's true in Christian worship is also true in Christian living. There's a liturgical shape to the Christian life as well as our worship." (188)

• "Just as you and I cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ our Lord- or even come to him, so we cannot by our own works or effort make ourselves holy. Ours is an inherent, but derived holiness." (191)

IX. Invisible PowersL Spiritual Warfare

• "You've got to pay closer attention to invisible things. Behind every complication and difficulty encountered by pastors and churches, yes by every Christian, lurk the machinations and intentions of the Evil One. The devil is the sworn enemy of Christ and his church." (197)

• "Word and prayer go together for any Christian, but especially for pastors. That's why a rich life of prayer and meditation is essential" (202)

• "Jesus shows us in the Our Father how to pray as he does. He lists all the primary concerns: God's name, his kingdom, his will, our daily bread, and the forgiveness of our sins. Then significantly he concludes with two petitions that focus our attention on the spiritual battle that we're daily engaged in." (204)

X. Christ's "Other Sheep": Mission and the Care of Souls

• "Pastors are increasingly pressured to make a choice. They can either be an evangelist or a shepherd, a missionary or a pastor. Likely you've faced some pressure on this yourself either overtly or subtly, asked to choose between two options that are actually false alternatives." (221)

• "Too many sermons stop short of preaching Jesus; they are content to preach about Jesus instead." (227)

• "Christians are not called to be secret agents operation incognito, but witnesses for their Lord and Savior by their words and example." (230)

XI. The Shepherding of Shepherds

• "Everyone needs a disciplined approach to prayer." (242)

• "First the Spirit instructs us by his word and then he calls forth our reflection, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession in answer to that word." (250)

XII. Always Be Steady: Equilibrium in Ministry

• "Take courage, then, for the task before you. A pastoral habitus brings enduring joy. The work may seem exhausting, but repose awaits: rest eternal, sight unending, love undying, praise eternally resounding." (274)

Conclusion: Joy in Office

• "Love and joy are inseparably bound together in the inscrutable will of God." (279)

• "When God's love is in motion, there is joy even in the midst of sorrow." (280)

Notable Content

• Four Guideposts for Pastoral Conversation: (79-91)

  1. Faith

  2. Providence

  3. Holiness

  4. Repentance

• How to Bless:

  • As a servant of Christ you're authorized to bestow by means of a blessing any promise God makes in his word. Each blessing begins with God because he is always the actor, and the suffering soul the recipient. For example: "The Lord God, who has (insert his creative, redeeming and sanctifying power here) give you his blessing that you may (find required help, comfort, strength, etc.) for (purpose)- and the blessing of God Almighty: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" be with you now and forever." (109)