B36604:308
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.
But how shall the suffering Saint so manage himself in a Suffering hour, as not to be captivated by temptations? This brings me upon the second thing I promised; viz. to prescribe some Rules for the escaping or conquering of those temptations that are incidental to a suffering state. And first:
Labour to cut off the advantages of temptations before they come. It's our inordinate love to life, Rule. 1 estate, liberty, and ease, that gives the temptation so much strength upon us. Do not overvalue them, and you will more easily part from them, R•v. 12.11. O mortify self-love, and creature love; let your beart be loosened and weaned from them, and then the temptation hath lost its strength.
Labour to cut off the advantag•s of temptations before they come. It's our inordinate love to life, Rule. 1 estate, liberty, and ease, that gives the temptation so much strength upon us. Do not overvalue them, and you will more easily part from them, R•v. 12.11. O mortifie self-love, and creature love; let your beart be loosened and weaned from them, and then the temptation hath lost its strength.
Secure to your selves an interest in the heavenly glory. Rule. 2 When once you clearly see your propriety in the Kingdom above, you will set the lighter and lower by all things on earth. That is a pregnant Text to this purpose, Heb. 10.34. It's our darkness and uncertainties about those, that make us cling so fast to these.