B36604:365
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.
Nothing more provoketh the Lord to withdraw his Spirit, and let you fall, Consid. 4 then this sin of self-confidence ⟨p. 122⟩doth, Luke 14.29, 30, 31. God will teach you by sad experience your own weakness and what frail and vain things you be, if you will learn it by no other means.
If God permit you to fall (as doubtless he will if you be self-conceited) then the more eminent you have been, Consid. 5 or are for Grace, the more will the Name of God be reproached by your fall. This will furnish the triumphs of the uncircumcised, and the lamentations of your Brethren, and make them say, How are the mighty fallen! What dismal consequents will attend your fall!
Have you not sad experience of your own weakness from day to day in your lesser trials? Consid. 6 Have you not said in some smaller conflicts, as David once did? My feet were well nigh slipped. O me-thinks this should teach you to look more to God, and less to self. If you have run with footmen, and they have wearied you in the Land of piece; think sadly, how you shall contend with Horses in the swellings of Jordan. Do not you see that you are but Feathers in the wind of Temptation? Consult your former experiences, and they will tell you what weaklings you are.
Have you not sad experience of your own weakness from day to day in your lesser trials? Consid. 6 Have you not said in some smaller conflicts, as David once did? My feet were well nigh slipt. O me-thinks this should teach you to look more to God, and less to self. If you have run with footmen, and they have wearied you in the Land of pece; think sadly, how you shall contend with Horses in the swellings of Jordan. Do not you see that you are but Feathers in the wind of Temptation? Consult your former experiences, and they will tell you what weaklings you are.