B36604:114
Preparation for sufferings. Or The best work in the worst times Wherein the necessity,…
Preparation for sufferings. Or The best work in the worst times Wherein the necessity, excellency, and means of our readiness for sufferings are evinced and prescribed; our call to suffering cleared, and the great unreadiness of many professors bewailed. By John Flavel minister of Christ in Devon.Preparation for sufferings. Or The best work in the worst times Wherein the necessity, excellency, and means of our readiness for sufferings are evinced and prescribed; our call to suffering cleared, and the great unreadiness of many profesours bewailed. By John Flavel minister of Christ in Devon.
London: printed for Robert Boulter, 1681
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.
1. For first, No man can suffer for Christ, until he be able to deny himself. See Mat. 16.24. Self-denial goes in order of Nature before Sufferings. Beloved, in a Suffering hour the Interests of Christ and Self meet like two men upon a narrow Bridge, one must of necessity go back, or the other cannot pass on: If you cannot now deny Self, you must deny Christ. The Yoke and Dominion of Self must cast off, or else Christs Yoke and Burden cannot be taken on.
It is confessed that Self may not only consist with, but be a Motive to some kind of Sufferings: Ambition and Applause may carry a man far this way; Pride is a Salamander that it seems can live in the flames of Martyrdom, 1 Cor. 13.3. but to be a Servant to Self, and a true Sufferer for Christ, are incompatible. Self may make you the Devils Martyrs, but Grace only can make you Christs Martyrs. So that let a man be seemingly carried for a while with never so high a Tide of Zeal for Christ, yet if Self be the Spring that feeds it, those self-ends like so many little Ditches joined to the Banks of a River, shall suck and draw away the Water into themselves, that the lofty Stream will sink and come to nothing ere it have ran far: So then of necessity Self must be dethroned in the hearts of Christs suffering Servants.
It is confest that Self may not only consist with, but be a Motive to some kind of Sufferings: Ambition and Applause may carry a man far this way; Pride is a Salamander that it seems can live in the flames of Martyrdom, 1 Cor. 13.3. but to be a Servant to Self, and a true Sufferer for Christ, are incompatible. Self may make you the Devils Martyrs, but Grace only can make you Christs Martyrs. So that let a man be seemingly carried for a while with never so high a Tide of Zeal for Christ, yet if Self be the Spring that feeds it, those self-ends like so many little Ditches joyned to the Banks of a River, shall suck and draw away the Water into themselves, that the lofty Stream will sink and come to nothing e're it have ran far: So then of necessity Self must be dethroned in the hearts of Christs suffering Servants.