B36604:393
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.
Oh! how glad would your Ministers be, if you might conquer, and overcome in the day of temptation, whatever become of their lives and liberties! Yea, and if they be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, they can rejoice, and joy with you all. Such is their zeal and longing after your security and welfare. But if still you remain an unready people, and do become a prey to temptation, Oh how inexcusable will you be!
Oh! how glad would your Ministers be, if you might conquer, and overcome in the day of temptation, whatever become of their lives and liberties! Yea, and if they be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, they can rejoyce, and joy with you all. Such is their zeal and longing after your security and welfare. But if still you remain an unready people, and do become a prey to temptation, Oh how inexcusable will you be!
4. Remember how ready the Lord Jesus was to suffer the hardest and vilest things for you. He had a bitter Cup put into his hands to drink for you, into which the wrath both of God and man was squeezed out. 1Never had man such sufferings to undergo as Christs. Whether you consider (1) the dignity of his person, who was in the form of God, and might have stood upon his Peerage and Equality with him, he is the sparkling Diamond of Heaven, Acts 7.56. The Darling of the Fathers Soul, Isa. 42.1. glorious as the only begotten of the Father, John 1.14. yea glory it self, James 2.1. yea, the very brightness of glory, Heb. 1.3. He is the delicia Christiani orbis, fairer than the Sons of men: And for him to be so debased, below so many thousands