B36604:28
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.
His next discouragement was at Caesarea, where Agabus (whom Dorotheus affirms to be of the seventy two Disciples, and had before prophesied of the Famine in the Reign of Claudius, which accordingly came to pass) takes ⟨p. 3⟩Paul's Girdle, and binding his own hands and feet with it, said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that oweth this Girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles, ver. 11. And surely he was not ignorant what he must expect when ever he should fall into their hands; yet neither could this affright him from his duty.
But then, last of all, he meeteth with the sorest trial from his dearest friends, who fell upon him with passionate entreaties, and many tears, beseeching him to decline that Journey: O they could not give up such a Minister as Paul was! This even melted him down, and almost brake his heart; which yet was easier to do, than to turn him out of the path of Obedience: Where by the way we may note two things;
But then, last of all, he meeteth with the sorest tryal from his dearest friends, who fell upon him with passionate entreaties, and many tears, beseeching him to decline that Journey: O they could not give up such a Minister as Paul was! This even melted him down, and almost brake his heart; which yet was easier to do, than to turn him out of the path of Obedience: Where by the way we may note two things;
First, That Divine Precept, not Providence, is to rule out our way of duty.