B36604:294
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.
1. Strange and unusual Temptations, I mean not such as none have been troubled with before us; for there is not a Dart in Satan's Quiver, but hath been let fly at the Breasts of other Saints, before it was levelled at ours, 1 Cor. 10.13. But by strange and unusual, I mean such, as the People of GOD are but rarely troubled with, and possibly we were never exercised with before. These are the more dangerous, because they daunt and amaze the Soul, and ordinarily beget despondency, even as some strange Disease would do, that we know not what to make of, nor can learn that others have been sick of.
1. Strange and unusual Temptations, I mean not such as none have been troubled with before us; for there is not a Dart in Satans Quiver, but hath been let fly at the Breasts of other Saints, before it was levelled at ours, 1 Cor. 10.13. But by strange and unusual, I mean such, as the People of GOD are but rarely troubled with, and possibly we were never exercised with before. These are the more dangerous, because they daunt and amaze the Soul, and ordinarily beget despondency, even as some strange Disease would do, that we know not what to make of, nor can learn that others have been sick of.
2. Mark them for most dangerous Temptations, that are ad•pted and suited to your proper sin, or constitution evil: For certainly, that is the most dangerous Nick and Crisis of Temptation when it tries a man there. Now if he be not truly gracious, he falls by the Root irrecoverably, Luke 22.5, 6. Or if sincere, yet without special assistance, and extraordinary vigilance, he falls scandalously, 2 Sam. 11.2. compared with