Preparation for sufferings. Or The best work in the worst times Wherein the necessity,…

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 ⟨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.

Look upon the in-side of Troubles for Christ, Rule. 8 as well as upon the outside of them. If you view them by an eye of sense, there appeareth nothing but matter of discouragement. To look on the out side of a Prison, Banishment, or Death, is affrighting and horrible: But then if you look into the inside of these things by Faith, and see what God hath made them to his people, how joyful and comfortable they have been in these conditions; what honey they have found in the carcass of a Lion, what songs in the Stocks and Dungeons, what glorying in tribulation, and an hundred fold reward even in their Sufferings: O then that which looked like a Serpent at a distance, will appear but as a Rod in hand. Ho […] have found themselves quite mistaken in t[…]prehensions of sufferings; and been more […] ome out of a Prison, then they were to go in […] you did but see your supports, and the comforts that Souls ordinarily meet with in their troubles for Christ, you would not look on them as such formidable things.