B36604:99
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.
By attending to these things, a Christian may give a near guess at the Judgments that are approaching a Nation, and so order himself accordingly, Eccles. 8.5. A wise mans heart discerns both time and judgment. And this is (even in the Judgment of God) a choice point of Wisdom. Whereas on the contrary, heedless and careless ones, that regard not these things, are branded for Fools, and upbraided with more brutishness than the Beasts of the Field, or Fowls of the Air, Mat. 16.3. Jer. 8.7. The Stork in the Heavens, the Swallow, Turtle, and Crane, observe ⟨p. 33⟩their Seasons of departing, and returning, upon the approach of the Winter and Spring, and that by a natural instinct, whereby they prolong their lives, which else must perish. But though God hath made Man wiser than the Fowls of the Air, and Beasts of the Earth, which by instinct will quit colder Climates, or run to the Hedge when Winter or Storms approach; yet the Heavens may be astonished at this, to see Nature cast by sin so far below it self, and that in reasonable Creatures.
By attending to these things, a Christian may give a near guess at the Judgments that are approaching a Nation, and so order himself accordingly, Eccles. 8.5. A wise mans heart discerns both time and judgment. And this is (even in the Judgment of God) a choice point of Wisdom. Whereas on the contrary, heedless and careless ones, that regard not these things, are branded for Fools, and upbraided with more bruitishness than the Beasts of the Field, or Fowls of the Air, Mat. 16.3. Jer. 8.7. The Stork in the Heavens, the Swallow, Turtle, and Crane, observe ⟨p. 33⟩their Seasons of departing, and returning, upon the approach of the Winter and Spring, and that by a natural instinct, whereby they prolong their lives, which else must perish. But though God hath made Man wiser than the Fowls of the Air, and Beasts of the Earth, which by instinct will quit colder Climates, or run to the Hedge when Winter or Storms approach; yet the Heavens may be astonished at this, to see Nature cast by sin so far below it self, and that in reasonable Creatures.