Preparation for sufferings. Or The best work in the worst times Wherein the necessity,…

Yet all this notwithstanding, it often falls out by the provocations of his Sons and Daughters, that the Lord gives them up into the hands of their Enemies, for the correction of their evils, and the manifestation of his own glory. Seneca (though a Heathen) could say, that God loves his people with a Masculine love, not with a Womanish Indulgence and Tenderness: If need require, they shall be in heaviness through manifold temptations, 1 Pet. 1.6. He had rather their hearts should be heavy under adversity, than vain and careless under prosperity; the choicest Spirits have been exercised with the sharpest sufferings, and those that now shine as Stars in Heaven, have been trod under foot as Dung on the Earth, 1 Cor. 4.11. Unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked and buffeted, and have no certain dwelling places, and labour, working with our hands; being reviled we bless, being persecuted we suffer it, being defamed we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things unto this day. The eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews is a Compendium of the various and grievous sufferings of the Primitive Saints: They were tortured, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the Sword, they wandered about in Sheepskins and Goat-skins, being afflicted, destitute, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy; they wandered in Deserts, and in Mountains, in Dens and Caves of the Earth. And since the Earth had dried up those Rivers of precious blood, whereof the Sacred Records make mention, what ⟨p. 8⟩Seas of Christian blood have since those days been shed by bloody Persecutors? Histories inform us, that in the ten Primitive Persecutions, so many of the Saints and Martyrs of Jesus have been slain, as that you may allow five thousand a day to every day in the whole Year. Those bloody Emperors sported themselves with the deaths of Gods dearest Saints; many precious Christians were burnt by night at Rome, to serve as Torches to light their Enemies in their passage through the Streets; eight hundred thousand Martyrs are mentioned within the space of thirty Years, since the Jesuits arose out of the Bottomless Pit.

Yet all this notwithstanding, it often falls out by the provocations of his Sons and Daughters, that the Lord gives them up into the hands of their Enemies, for the correction of their evils, and the manifestation of his own glory. Seneca (though a Heathen) could say, that God loves his people with a Masculine love, not with a Womanish Indulgence and Tenderness: If need require, they shall be in heaviness through manifold temptations,