By John Flavel.
Preparations for Sufferings, or the Best Work in the Worst Times.
Wherein the Necessity, Excellency, and Means of our readiness for Sufferings areevinced and prescribed; our Call to suffering cleared, and the great unreadiness of many professors bewailed.
In Sixteen Chapters.
By John Flavel.
About the Author:
John Flavel (1627-1691) was an English Presbyterian minister and author, known for his devotional writings and sermons. He served as a pastor in the town of Dartmouth, England, and was a prominent figure in the Puritan movement of the 17th century.
Acts 21:13
Then Paul answered, “What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the LordJesus.”
Taken from the Epistle to the Reader:
It is not the design of this Manual to scare and affright any man with imaginary dangers, much less to sow jealousies, and foment the discontents of the times; it being a just matter of lamentation that all the tokens of God’s anger produce with many of us no better fruit but bold censures and loud clamors, instead of humiliation for our own sins, and the due preparation to take up our own cross, and follow Christ in a suffering path, which is the only mark and aim of this tract.
We read the histories of the primitive sufferers, but not with a spirit prepared to follow them. Some censure them as too prodigal of their blood, and others commend their courage and constancy; but where are they that sincerely resolve and prepare to be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises? Hebrews 6:12. or take them for an “example of suffering, affliction, and “of patience,” Jam. 5:10. It is as much our interest as it is our duty to be seasonably awakened out of our pleasant but most pernicious drowsiness. Troubles will be so much the more sinkingand intolerable, by how much the more they steal upon us by way of surprisal.
For look, as expectation deflowers any temporal comfort, by sucking out much of the sweetness thereof before-hand, and so we find the less in it when we come to the actual enjoyment: So the expectation of evils abates much of the dread and terror, by accustoming our thoughts before-hand to them, and making preparation for them:
So that we find them not so grievous, amazing, and intolerable when they are come indeed. This was exemplified to us very lively by holy Mr. Bradford the martyr, when the keeper’s wife came running into his chamber, saying, ‘O Mr. Bradford, I bring you heavy tidings, for tomorrow you must be burned, your chain is now buying, and presently you must go to Newgate.’ He put off his hat, and looking up to Heaven, said, O Lord, I thank you for it; I have looked for this a long time; It comes not suddenly to me, the Lord make me worthy of it. See in this example the singular advantage of a prepared and ready soul.
Reader, The cup of sufferings is a very bitter cup, and it is but needful that we provide some what to sweeten it, that we may be able to receive it with thanksgiving; and what those sweetening ingredients are, and how to prepare them, you will have some direction and help in the following discourse; which has once already been presented to the public view; and that it may at this time also (wherein nothing can be more seasonable) become farther useful and assisting to the people of God in their present duties, is the hearty desire of
Your and the Church’s Servant in Christ,
JOHN FLAVEL
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