B36604:363
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.
Suppose you have much Grace, Consid. 2 yet have you not strong Corruptions, and may you not meet with strong temptations also? He that hath less of other Graces then you may have more humility and self-denial then you, and so may stand, when you fall. Great enlargements are often attended with great temptations of Pride, &c.
Whatever measures of Grace you have arrived at, yet all is not able to secure you from falling, Consid. 3 if God withhold or withdraw his aids and influences. Abraham had more Faith then you, and yet he fell into a sin contrary to that very Grace wherein he so excelled others, Gen. 20.2. Job had more patience then you: which of you could behave your selves as he did, had you been in the like circumstances as he was, Chap. 1.2. He is renowned for it in Scripture, Jam, 5.11. yet he fell into that sin which was contrary to this Grace also, Chap. 3. Moses had more meekness then you: Now the man Moses was the meekest man upon the Earth. If you be but reproved, and that justly for your faults, how Waspish are you? Yet see how this Grace failed even in him, in an eminent trial of it, Numb. 11.13, 14, 15. Adam was much more advantaged in this respect, then you, being made upright, and no corruption inherent in him, yet he fell: The Angels more again, yet they fell. Oh when will you learn the vanity of self-dependence!
Whatever measures of Grace you have arrived at, yet all is not able to secure you from falling, Consid. 3 if God withold or withdraw his aids and influences. Abraham had more Faith then you, and yet he fell into a sin contrary to that very Grace wherein he so excelled others, Gen. 20.2. Job had more patience then you: which of you could behave your selves as he did, had you been in the like circumstances as he was, Chap. 1.2. He is renowned for it in Scripture, Jam, 5.11. yet he fell into that sin which was contrary to this Grace also, Chap. 3. Moses had more m•ckness then you: Now the man Moses was the meckest man upon the Earth. If you be but reproved, and that justly for your faults, how Waspish are you? Yet see how this Grace failed even in him, in an eminent trial of it,