B36604:48
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.
To what grievous Sufferings did the Lord give up those precious Servants of Christ, the Waldenses and Albigenses, who received the Light of Reformation about the Year 1260. when the Fogs of Antichristian Darkness had overspread the Earth; a People sound in Judgment, as appears by their Letters, Catechisms, and Confessions which are extant; a People of a simple, plain, and inoffensive behaviour; yet with what fury and rage did that impious Pope Pius prosecute them to destruction? driving them into the Woods and Mountains, except the Aged and Children that could not flee, who were murdered in the way: Some famished in the Caves and Clefts of the Rocks, others endured the Rack for eight hours together; some beaten with Iron Rods, others thrown from the tops of high Towers, and broken to pieces.
To what grievous Sufferings did the Lord give up those precious Servants of Christ, the Waldenses and Albigenses, who received the Light of Reformation about the Year 1260. when the Fogs of Antichristian Darkness had overspread the Earth; a People sound in Judgment, as appears by their Letters, Catechismes, and Confessions which are extant; a People of a simple, plain, and inoffensive behaviour; yet with what fury and rage did that impious Pope Pius prosecute them to destruction? driving them into the Woods and Mountains, except the Aged and Children that could not flee, who were murdered in the way: Some famished in the Caves and Clefts of the Rocks, others endured the Rack for eight hours together; some beaten with Iron Rods, others thrown from the tops of high Towers, and broken to pieces.
What bloody Shambles and Slaughter-houses have France, Ireland, and England been made by Popish cruelty? More might be related out of each Story, than a tender-hearted Reader is able ⟨p. 9⟩to bear the rehearsal of: But what God hath done, he may do again; we are not better than our Fathers, dismal Clouds of indignation are gathering over our heads, charged with double destruction, should the Lord please to make them break upon us; we cannot imagine the rage of Satan to be abated, now that his Kingdom hastens to its period,