B36604:386
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.
UP then from your Beds of sloth, awake from your security, O ye Saints; get upon your Watch-Towers, tremble in your selves, that ye may rest in the Day of Evil, Hab. 2.1, 3, 16. Put on the whole Armour of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, and when you have done all to stand, Eph. 6. O let it never be said of your Dwellings. as it is of the Tabernacles of the wicked. Job 21.9. Their Houses are safe from fear.
Augustus hearing of one that was deeply in debt, who yet slept heartily, sent for his Pillow, supposing there was some strange virtue, in that Pillow. I wonder what Pillow you have gotten, O ye drowsy Saints, that you can sleep so quietly upon it, now that all things about you are conspiring trouble, and threatening danger. Can you sleep like Jonah, when Seas of wrath are tumbling and roaring round about you, and threatening to entomb you, and all your enjoyments? Behold, The Stork in the Heavens knows her appointed time, Jer. 8.7. and hath not God made you wiser then the Fowls of the Air, Job 35.11. It may be the sound of some present Judgment may a little startle you, like a sudden clap of Thunder in the Air; but how soon doth Sloth and Security prevail and over come you again ⟨p. 130⟩They say Poison by being habituated, may be made Innocent: We are so used to, or rather hardened under calamities, that nothing moves or effectually awakens us. Lord! What will the end of these things be? Wilt thou surprise thy people at unawares? Shall thy judgments find them secure, and leave them desperate? O that God would persuade you to gather your selves together, yea to gather together, (not in an unlawful and seditious way) but in the way of duty, before the Decree bring forth, and the day pass as the chaff,