B36604:191
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. By committing the business to Christ, and leaving the matter with him; and so quitting the Soul of all those anxieties and perturbations, ⟨p. 73⟩which are the very burden and weight of affliction, Psal. 37.5. For certainly, that which sinks us in days of trouble, is rather from within, from our unruly, seditious and clamorous thoughts, than from the troubles themselves with which we conflict: But by committing the matter to God, the Soul is quickly brought to rest.
2. By discovering much present good in our troubles; the more good Faith discovers in a trouble, the more supportable and easy it makes it to the Soul. Now Faith brings in a comfortable Report, that they are not only evils, as the troubles of the wicked are, Ezek. 7.5. but have an allay and mixture of much good, Heb. 12.10. Isa. 27.9.
2. By discovering much present good in our troubles; the more good Faith discovers in a trouble, the more supportable and easie it makes it to the Soul. Now Faith brings in a comfortable Report, that they are not only evils, as the troubles of the wicked are, Ezek. 7.5. but have an allay and mixture of much good, Heb. 12.10. Isa. 27.9.