B36604:228
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.
Get right notions and apprehensions of your enemies. Rule. 4 We are apt to magnify the Creature, as if he could do more than he can, and thereby disable our selves from doing what we should. Possess your fouls with the belief of these five things concerning them. (1) That they are poor weak enemies, Isa. 40.15, 17, 22. but as a swarm of Gnats in the air. See how God describes them, Isa. 51.13, 14, (2) That little power they have is limited by your God, who hath the bounding and ordering of it, John 19.11. Psal. 76.10. (3) They carry guilt upon them, which makes them more timorous then you. Isa. 8.12. Their fear is a strange fear. (4) They only use carnal weapons against you which cannot touch your souls. If they were praying enemies that could engage God against you, they would be formidable Enemies indeed; but this they cannot do. The largest Commission that any of them ever had from God, extended but to the bodies and bodily concernments of the Saints, Luke 12.4, 5. They cannot thunder with an arm like God, nor blot your name out of the book of Life, nor take away your part out of the New Jerusalem; therefore fear not man. (5) Your Enemies are Gods Enemies; and God hath espoused your Cause and Quarrel. The more cruel they are, the kinder he will be to you, John 9.34, 35.
Get right notions and apprehensions of your enemies. Rule. 4 We are apt to magnifie the Creature, as if he could do more than he can, and thereby disable our selves from doing what we should. Possess your fouls with the belief of these five things concerning them. (1) That they are poor weak enemies, Isa. 40.15, 17, 22. but as a swarm of Gnats in the air. See how God describes them,