Seasonable counsel, or, Advice to sufferers

This therefore is one reason why we should (that suffer for Christ) commit the keeping of our Souls to God, because, a doubt about the well-being ⟨p. 35⟩of that, will be a clog, a burden, and an affliction to our spirit; Yea, the greatest of afflictions whilst we are taking up our Cross and bearing it after Christ. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and the fear of perishing is that which will be weakening to us in the way.

This therefore is one reason why we should (that suffer for Christ) commit the keeping of our Souls to God, because, a doubt about the well-being ⟨p. 35⟩of that, will be a clog, a burden, and an affliction to our spirit; Yea, the greatest of afflictions whilest we are taking up our Cross and bearing it after Christ. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and the fear of perishing is that which will be weakning to us in the way.

Secondly, we should commit the keeping of our Souls to God, because the final conclusion that merciless men do sometimes make with the servants of God, is all on a sudden. They give no warning before they strike. We shall not need here to call you to mind about the Massacres that were in Ireland, Paris, Piedmont, and other places: where the godly in the night, before they were well awake, had, some of them, their heart blood running on the ground. The savage Monsters crying out, kill, kill, from one end of a street, or a place, to the other. This was sudden, and he that had not committed his Soul to God to keep it, was surely very hard put to it now; but he that had done so, was ready for such sudden work. Sometimes ⟨p. 36⟩indeed, the Axe and Halter, or the Faggot, is showed first; but sometimes again it is without that warning. Up, said Saul to Doeg the Edomite, and slay the priests of the Lord, 1 Sam. 22.11-19