B36604:57
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.
Secondly, §2By these trials their sincerity is cleared, to the joy and satisfaction of their own hearts; many a doubt and fear which had long entangled and perplexed them is removed and answered: when adversity hath given them proof and trial of their own hearts, one sharp trial wherein God helps us to be faithful, will do more to satisfy our fears, and resolve our doubts, than all the Sermons that ever we heard in our lives could do.
Secondly, §2By these tryals their sincerity is cleared, to the joy and satisfaction of their own hearts; many a doubt and fear which had long intangled and perplexed them is removed and answered: when adversity hath given them proof and tryal of their own hearts, one sharp tryal wherein God helps us to be faithful, will do more to satisfie our fears, and resolve our doubts, than all the Sermons that ever we heard in our lives could do.
Thirdly, §3These sufferings and trials of the Church are ordained to free it of abundance ⟨p. 13⟩of Hypocrites, which were its reproaches as well as burden, Amos 9.9, 10. Affliction is a Furnace to separate the Dross from the more pure and noble Gold. Multitudes of Hypocrites, like Flies in a hot Summer, are generated by the Churches prosperity; but this Winter weather kills them; many Gaudy Professors grow within the enclosure of the Church, like beautiful Flowers in the Field, where they stand, during its peace and prosperity, in the pride and bravery of their gifts and professions; but the wind passeth over them, and they are gone, and their places shall know them no more; to allude to that in Psal. 103.16. Thunder and Lightning is very terrible weather, but exceeding useful to purify and cleanse the Air.