B36604:117
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.
All that he is or hath, is by Grace subordinated to Christ; and if once subordinated, then no more opposed to him subordinata non pugnant. This is it that makes him say, I care not what becomes of me or mine, so Christ may be glorified. Let Christ be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death, Phil. 1.20.
By Conversion Christ enters the Soul, 1as an Army doth an Enemies Garrison by Storm; and when he is possest of it by Grace, he presently divides the whole spoil of Self betwixt himself and his Church. This is the first that evinces the necessity of a Work of Grace to prepare the heart for Sufferings.
2. And then in the next place, It is as evident that a man can never be fit to suffer hard things for Christ, until his Spirit be enlarged, raised, and ennobled, so that he be able to despise Dangers, and look all Difficulties in the face. That low and private Spirit must be removed, and a public Spirit must possess him. ⟨p. 42⟩If a man be of a feeble and effeminate Spirit, every petty Danger will daunt and sink him; Delicacy and Tenderness is as unsuitable to a Christian as to a Soldier, 2 Tim. 2.3. They that mean to enter into the Kingdom of God, must resolve to make their way through that Brake of Troubles betwixt them and it,