B36604:272
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.
First, Though life be very dear, yet Jesus Christ is ten thousand times dearer than thy Life: If thou be a Saint, he is the Life of thy Life, and the length of thy days; and in comparison of him, and his glory, Saints should, and have despised and slighted their Lives, Luke. 14.26. Rev. 12.11.
Secondly, Die you must; and if by shrinking from Christ, you should protract a miserable Life for a few days longer, in the mean time losing that which is better that life, Psal. 63.3. Mat. 10.39. Oh when you lie upon your Death-bed, you will wish, that you had obeyed Gods Call, and so have departed in peace.
Thirdly, If you have cordially covenanted with Christ (as all sincere Believers have done) then have you yielded up your lives to him, to be disposed for his glory, Rom 14.7. So that look, as Christ both lived and died for you; so, ought you to live as Christ: And all the excellency you see in life, consists in that reference and subserviency it hath to his glory. I say then, if you have understandingly and cordially transacted in a Covenant-way with him, your care will not be, so much how to shun Death, as by what Death you may most glorify God, John 21.19. And certainly, you can never ⟨p. 99⟩lay them down upon a more honourable or comfortable account than in his cause, and for his sake. It was a great trouble to Luther, that he carried his blood to his Grave.