B36604:304
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.
And this is the second thing wherein the efficacy and strength of temptation lies.
3. Lastly, it lies in that secret correspondency Satan holds with our bosom enemies. Were it not for this domestic Traitor, he could not surprise us so easily: As you see in Christ, he could do nothing, because he found nothing to fasten a temptation on. He was like a Chrystal glass filled with pure Fountain water: So that though he should have been agitated and shaken never so much by temptation, yet no filthy sediment could appear; but now ⟨p. 106⟩we have an enemy within that holds intelligence with Satan without; and this would prove a Devil to us, if there were no other Devil to tempt us, Jam. 1.14, 15. It's a Fountain of temptation in it self, Matth. 15.19. and the chief instrument by which Satan doth all his tempting work, 2 Pet. 1.4.
3. Lastly, it lies in that secret correspondency Satan holds with our bosome enemies. Were it not for this domestick Traitor, he could not surprise us so easily: As you see in Christ, he could do nothing, because he found nothing to fasten a temptation on. He was like a Ch•ystal glass filled with pure Fountain water: So that though he should have been agitated and shaken never so much by temptation, yet no filthy sediment could appear; but now ⟨p. 106⟩we have an enemy within that holds intelligence with Satan without; and this would prove a Devil to us, if there were no other Devil to tempt us, Jam. 1.14, 15. It's a Fountain of temptation in it self,