B36604:296
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.
3. When it is a Spiritual Temptation, which rises undiscernably out of a Christians Duties. This is the less suspected, because Temptations usually come from the strength and liveliness of Corruptions; but this, from the Slaughter and Conquests we make of them. Duties, and enlargements in them, which are the Poison of other Lusts, proves the Food and Fuel of this, 1 Cor. 4.7, 8. And how much the more covert and close any Temptation is, by so much the more dangerous it is.
3. When it is a Spiritual Temptation, which rises undiscernably out of a Christians Duties. This is the less suspected, because Temptations usually come from the strength and liveliness of Corruptions; but this, from the Slaughter and Conquests we make of them. Duties, and enlargements in them, which are the Poyson of other Lusts, proves the Food and Fewel of this, 1 Cor. 4.7, 8. And how much the more covert and close any Temptation is, by so much the more dangerous it is.
2. The strength and efficacy of temptation lies ⟨p. 104⟩much in the skill and policy of Satan in the management of it: And hence they are called wiles, methods, and devises, 2 Cor. 2.11. Ephes. 6.11. and himself an old Serpent, Rev. 12.9. And amongst the rest of his deep and desperate stratagems these following are remarkable.