B36604:73
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.
Sixthly, The general decay of the Life and Power of Godliness amongst them that were left, foreboded destruction at the door; this is both a provoking sin, and a fore-running sign of National calamity, Hosea 4.18. Their drink is sour: A Metaphor lively expressing the deadness and formality of the peoples in the worship of God; it was like sour or dead drink, which hath lost its spirit and relish, and is become flat; such were their duties, no spiritual life, affection, or savour in them; they heard as if they heard not, and prayed as if they prayed not; the Ordinances of God were to them as the Ordinances of Men, of which the Apostle saith that they perish in the using.
Sixthly, The general decay of the Life and Power of Godliness amongst them that were left, foreboded destruction at the door; this is both a provoking sin, and a fore-running sign of National calamity, Hosea 4.18. Their drink is sowre: A Metaphor lively expressing the deadness and formality of the peoples in the worship of God; it was like sowre or dead drink, which hath lost its spirit and relish, and is become flat; such were their duties, no spiritual life, affection, or savour in them; they heard as if they heard not, and prayed as if they prayed not; the Ordinances of God were to them as the Ordinances of Men, of which the Apostle saith that they perish in the using.
Seventhly, To conclude, Mutual Animosities, Jars and Divisions, were to them manifest symptoms of National calamities and desolations; for then Ephraim envied Judah, and Judah vexed Ephraim, Isa. 11.13. Hosea 9.7. The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come, Israel shall know it: The Prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquities, and the great hatred.