B36604:282
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.
THE hazards and dangers of Christians, in times of Persecution, arise not so much from their Sufferings, as from the Temptations that always attend and are by Satan planted upon their Sufferings: for the most part, Sufferings and Temptations go together, Heb. 11.37. And therefore, it behoves such as are, or expect to be called to Sufferings, to dive into the Mysteries of Temptations, and be well acquainted with the Enemies Designs upon them. So was Paul, and so he supposes all others to be, that engage in the same Cause; We are not ignorant of his Devices, 2 Cor. 2.11. There is a manifold advantage redounding to suffering Saints thereby.
THE hazards and dangers of Christians, in times of Perfecution, arise not so much from their Sufferings, as from the Temptations that always attend and are by Satan planted upon their Sufferings: for the most part, Sufferings and Temptations go together, Heb. 11.37. And therefore, it behoves such as are, or expect to be called to Sufferings, to dive into the Mysteries of Temptations, and be well acquainted with the Enemies Designs upon them. So was Paul, and so he supposes all others to be, that ingage in the same Cause; We are not ignorant of his Devices, 2 Cor. 2.11. There is a manifold advantage redounding to suffering Saints thereby.
1. He that is well acquainted with the Methods of Temptation, will be the better able to descry the first approaches and beginnings of it; and a Temptation discovered, is more then half conquered. It is a special Artifice of Satan, to shuffle in his Temptations as undiscernibly as may be into the Soul; for he knows, that in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird, Prov. 1.17