B36604:115
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.
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.
But now it is real Grace only that deposes ⟨p. 41⟩Self, and subjects its Interests to Christs; for Sanctification is nothing else but the dethroning of exalted Self, and the setting up of Christs Interest above it in the Soul. This is it that alters the property of all a man hath, and superscribes them with a new Title, Holiness to the Lord,