B36604:391
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.
3. This will best answer the Grace of God, in affording you such choice helps and advantages as you have enjoyed. How long have you enjoyed the free liberty of the Gospel, shining in its lustre among you? This Sun which to some other Nations hath not risen, and to divers on whom it hath shined, yet it is but as a Winters Sun, remote, and its Beams but feeble: But you have lived as it were under the Line, It hath been over your heads, and shed its richest influences upon you. Yea, Gods Ministers, who are not only appointed to be Watchmen, Ezek. 3.17. but Trumpeters to discover danger, Numb. 10.8. these have faithfully warned you of a day of trouble, and given you their best assistance to make you ready for it. And is not their joy, yea life bound up in your stability in such a day of Trial? Doth not every one of them call upon you in the words of the Apostle, Phil. 4.1. Therefore my Brethren, dearly Beloved and longed for, my joy and Crown, so stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved. Will it not cut them to the very heart, if after all their spending labours among you, they still leave you unready? Enemies still to ⟨p. 133⟩the Cross of Christ, impossible to be reconciled and persuaded to suffering-work for Christ.
3. This will best answer the Grace of God, in affording you such choice helps and advantages as you have enjoyed. How long have you enjoyed the free liberty of the Gospel, shining in its lustre among you? This Sun which to some other Nations hath not risen, and to divers on whom it hath shined, yet it is but as a Winters Sun, remote, and its Beams but feeble: But you have lived as it were under the Line, It hath been over your heads, and shed its richest influences upon you. Yea, Gods Ministers, who are not only appointed to be Watchmen, Ezek. 3.17. but Trumpeters to discover danger, Numb. 10.8. these have faithfully warned you of a day of trouble, and given you their best assistance to make you ready for it. And is not their joy, yea life bound up in your stability in such a day of Tryal? Doth not every one of them call upon you in the words of the Apostle,