B36604:230
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 an high estimation of Jesus Christ, Rule. 6 and all his concernments. They that value him highest, will adventure for him farthest. Magnanimous Luther how inestimable a value did he set upon the Truths of Christ! Ruat Coelum, &c. Let Heaven rush, rather than a crumb of Truth should perish. Thou wilt never be a man of zeal and courage for Christs interest, until that interest of Christ have swallowed up all thine own Interests. No sooner is the Soul acquainted with, and interested in Christ, but he heartily wishes well to all his affairs and concernments, Psal. 45.3, 4. This is that which puts mettle and resolution for Christ into the soul.
Beware you be not cheated with Maxims of carnal policy, mistaken for Christian prudence. Rule. 7 Many are so: And they prove destructive to all true zeal and courage for Christ. Never was Religion professed with greater plainness and simplicity, then by the Primitive Christians: And never was there an higher Spring-tide of courage and zeal for God, then in those days. We are apt to call it prodigality, and are grown wiser to husband our lives and comforts, better then they did. But indeed our Prudentials have even swallowed up our Religion. It's true, there is such ⟨p. 86⟩a thing as Christian prudence; but this doth not teach men to shun all costly and difficult duties, and prostitute Conscience to save the Skin. But a man of understanding walketh uprightly, Prov. 15.21.
Beware you be not cheated with Maximes of carnal policy, mistaken for Christian prudence. Rule. 7 Many are so: And they prove destructive to all true zeal and courage for Christ. Never was Religion professed with greater plainness and simplicity, then by the Primitive Christians: And never was there an higher Spring-tide of courage and zeal for God, then in those dayes. We are apt to call it prodigality, and are grown wiser to husband our lives and comforts, better then they did. But indeed our Prudentials have even swallowed up our Religion. It's true, there is such