B36604:135
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.
They have been so well satisfied of the reality of that which the World calls a Fancy, that they have chosen rather to embrace the Stake, than deny it. The constancy of Christians, in cleaving to Religion, was common to a Proverb among the Heathen; who when they would express the greatest difficulty, would say, You may as soon turn a Christian from Christ, as do it. Surely no wise man would sacrifice his Liberty, Estate, Life, and all that is dear, for a Conceit. (6.) It's reality appears in its uniformity in all those on ⟨p. 52⟩whom it is wrought: They have all obtained like precious Faith, 2 Pet. 1.1. They are all changed into the same Image, 2 Cor. 3.18. Three thousand persons affected in one and the same manner at one Sermon, Act. 2.37. Could one and the same Conceit possess them all together? Take two Christians that live a thousand miles distant from each other, that never heard of one another, let these be persons examined, and their Reports compared, and see if they do not substantially agree; and whether as Face answers Face in Water, so their Experiences do not answer one to the other? which could never be, if it were a groundless Conceit. (7.) And lastly, it's manifest, it is a reality, and puts a real difference betwixt one and another, because God carries himself so differently towards them, after their Conversion; now he smiles, before he frowned; now they are under the Promises, before they were under the Threats and Curses: and what a vast difference will he put betwixt the one and other in that great day? See Mat. 25. Surely, if these nominal Christians did but differ in Conceit, not really from others, the Righteous Judge of all the Earth would not pass such a different Judgment and Doom upon them.
They have been so well satisfied of the reality of that which the World calls a Phansie, that they have chosen rather to imbrace the Stake, than deny it. The constancy of Christians, in cleaving to Religion, was common to a Proverb among the Heathen; who when they would express the greatest difficulty, would say, You may as soon turn a Christian from Christ, as do it. Surely no wise man would sacrifice his Liberty, Estate, Life, and all that is dear, for a Conceit. (6.) It's reality appears in its uniformity in all those on