B36604:13
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.
We read the Histories of the Primitive Sufferers, but not with a Spirit prepared to follow them. Some ⟨image 4⟩Censure them as too prodigal of their blood, and others commend their Courage and Constancy; but where are they that sincerely resolve and prepare to be followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises? Heb. 6.12. or take them for an Example of suffering affliction and of patience, Jam. 5.10.
We read the Histories of the Primitive Sufferers, but not with a Spirit prepared to follovv them. Some ⟨image 4⟩Censure them as too prodigal of their bloud, and others commend their Courage and Constancy; but where are they that sincerely resolve and prepare to be followers of them, who thro faith and ptaience inherit the promises? Heb. 6.12. or take them for an Example of suffering affliction and of patience, Jam. 5.10.
It is as much our interest, as it is our duty to be seasonably awakened out of our pleasant, but most pernicious drowsiness. Troubles will be so much the more sinking ⟨image 4⟩and intolerable, by how much they steal upon us by way of surprisal. For look as expectation deflowreth any temporal comfort, by sucking out much of the sweetness thereof before hand, and so we find the less in it when we come to the actual enjoyment: So the expectation of evils abates much of the dread and terror, by accustoming our thoughts before hand to them; and making preparation for them: so that we find them not so grievous, amazing and intolerable when they are come indeed.