Preparations for Sufferings
by John Flavel, published by the Banner of Truth Trust in their Puritan Paperbacks series, paperback, 169 pages, £5.50.
John Flavel, son of Rev Richard Flavel, was born at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in 1630. He was educated at University College, Oxford, and ministered for six years at Deptford before being called to Dartmouth in 1656, where he died in 1691, aged 61. In 1662 the Act of Uniformity was passed, prescribing the form of public prayers and the administration of the sacraments and requiring episcopal ordination for all ministers. Adherence to the Act was required to hold office in either government or church and, as a result, Flavel along with 2000 other clergymen who could not in conscience subscribe were expelled from their charges. For a period of 25 years he continued to labour in the cause of Christ amid persecutions and various obstructions, preaching as the opportunity afforded in private dwellings, in open fields and even on the shore at low tide, until in 1687 the royal licence was granted to worship God without being molested. He then resumed his public labours in a new church erected by his affectionate and faithful congregation.
Flavel was therefore well acquainted with suffering in the cause of his Saviour when, in 1682, he published this exposition of Paul’s words, “For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13), showing how vital and necessary a thing it is to make preparation for the possibility of sufferings. In John 15, Jesus warns His disciples that “the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” In our own land, Christians have enjoyed a long period of peace from persecution, but there are signs that to suffer “for righteousness’ sake” may once again be a feature of the Christian life. This book not only provides an excellent preparation for persecution but also for meeting with other adverse providences.
In his Epistle to the Reader, Flavel writes, “It is not the design of this manual to scare and affright any man with imaginary dangers, much less to sow jealousies and to 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 clamours, instead of humiliation for our 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. . . . The cup of sufferings is a very bitter cup, and it is but needful that we provide somewhat to sweeten it.” His subtitle for the book is, “The Best Work in the Worst Times”.
This small book begins with opening up the text, explaining Paul’s “loving and gentle rebuke of his followers, his quieting and calming argument”. The “doctrine” is deduced: “That it is a blessed and excellent thing for the people of God to be prepared, and ready for the hardest services, and worst of sufferings, to which the Lord may call them”.
The subsequent chapters deal with God “hedging in” His people by His providence in a suffering path, to let us know that in so doing He illustrates His own glory and promotes His people’s happiness. He forewarns of approaching dangers, “to leave the incorrigible wholly inexcusable, that those who have no sense of sin, nor care to prevent ruin, might have no cloak for their folly when judgements overtake them”.
Flavel demonstrates the value of a prepared heart and what a blessed thing it is to be bound, or to die, for Christ as Paul was. There must be a sound, real work of grace in the heart to fit a person for suffering for Christ. “This work of grace consists in the real change of the whole man by the Spirit of God, whereby he is prepared for every good work.” Flavel goes on to describe this work of grace and the necessity of getting clear evidences in order to be ready for sufferings. He directs believers to be diligent about the public means of grace, “for the Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Ps 87:2); to attend sacramental seasons; to cleave to Christ, who is the Author and Finisher of faith; and to cry to Him: “Lord, increase [my] faith” (Lk 17:5). Faith animates prayer, and prayer increases faith. “Beware of sense,” he writes, “which is the supplanter of faith. If you live upon things earthly, you put your faith out of its office.”
In the final chapter he tells us that “unless the heart be mortified to all earthly enjoyments, they will appear great and glorious things in your eye and estimation; and if so, judge what a task you will have to deny and to leave them all in a suffering hour. It is corruption within that puts the lustre and glory upon things without: it is the carnal eye only that gazes admiringly after them” (2 Cor 5:16).
Flavel writes about the hazards of temptations and Satan’s “artifice to shuffle his temptations as indiscernibly as may be into the soul”. “Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird” (Prov 1:17).
The author emphasises the necessity of prayer, depending constantly and entirely upon the Spirit. All saints are to go to Christ for supplies, to receive of His fullness. “We are no match for the one who conquered Adam hand to hand in his state of integrity.”
The book concludes with words of exhortation and comfort, and a reminder of how ready the Lord Jesus was to suffer the hardest and most vile things for His people. He who was glory itself, the very brightness of glory, had a bitter cup of wrath put into His hands. And yet He lovingly and willingly drank it up. “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind” (1 Pet 4:1).
Flavel’s final comment is to say, “As you expect to finish your course with joy, be diligent in the use of all means, to prepare and make yourselves ready to follow the call of God, whether it be to bonds, or to death, for the name of the Lord Jesus”.
This little book is full of wise words of advice with scriptural supports for every argument. It is humbling and yet encouraging to read of our responsibilities and duties so clearly set out by such an eminent man of God. Our shortcomings are laid bare in Flavel’s volume but we are encouraged to be earnest at the throne of grace to enable us to walk in the strength of the Lord amidst all the miseries of this life, and to have that wonderful thing, “preparation for sufferings”.
F R Daubney
An Ark For All God’s Noahs in a Gloomy Stormy Day
by Thomas Brooks, published by the Banner of Truth Trust in their Puritan Paperback series, paperback, 283 pages, £6.25.
This is a timely publication for our dark day, when God’s judgements are abroad in the earth. The book is based on several of Brooks’ sermons on Lamentations 3:24, “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him”. Those who have appreciated, for example, the author’s Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices will value this book also.
Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), about whom little is known, studied at Cambridge and was a Puritan minister in London from about 1640 to his death. Prior to his London years he was at sea, probably as a chaplain with the fleet. A measure of his ability is that he preached before Parliament several times. Although he was one of the ejected ministers under the iniquitous Act of Uniformity of 1662 he continued preaching in his parish in a new location. He therefore ministered through the 1665-66 Great Plague, from which many thousands in the city died, and also during the Great Fire of London in 1666.
John Reeves, a brother minister and close friend, said of him after he died that he was a person “of a very sweet nature and temper: so affable, and courteous, and cheerful . . . of a very great gravity . . . of a very large charity, . . . of a wonderful patience . . . of a very strong faith in the promises of both worlds [earth and heaven]”.
One writer says of Brooks, “His writings exude spiritual life and power and are particularly comforting for true believers. If limited to the purchase of a few sets of Puritan works, be sure to buy and read Brooks.”
He had a modest view of his gifts, saying, “Though my candle be but little, yet I must not hide it under a bushel. Though I have but one talent, yet I must not hide it in a napkin.”
The doctrine of the book is “that the Lord is the saints’ portion”, and therefore the subject of the book is, as one of its subtitles states, “the transcendent excellency of a believer’s portion above all earthly portions whatsoever.”
After describing the kind of portion God is to believers, he gives the grounds of having a title to God as one’s portion. Then, having enlarged on 14 lessons to be learned from the doctrine that God is the portion of the saints, he concludes with evidences of having God as one’s portion, and other practical points.
A flavour of the book is given by the following extracts. (Brooks is eminently quotable as witnessed, for example, by C H Spurgeon’s collection of his quotations, Smooth Stones From Ancient Brooks.)
Regarding the unsatisfying nature of material wealth, Brooks asserts, “Worldly portions can never satisfy the souls of men, Ecclesiastes 5:10, ‘He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity’. All the world cannot fill the soul, nor all the creatures in the world cannot stock the soul with complete satisfaction. As nothing can be the perfection of the soul but He that made it, so nothing can be the satisfaction of the soul but He that made it. . . . A man shall as soon satisfy the grave, and satisfy hell, and satisfy the stomach with wind, as he shall be able to satisfy his soul with any earthly portion.”
“God only is that satisfying good,” he insists, “that is able to fill, quiet, content, and satisfy an immortal soul. Certainly, if there be enough in God to satisfy the spirits of just men made perfect, whose capacities are far greater than ours (Heb 12:23-25); and if there be enough in God to satisfy the angels, whose capacities are far above theirs; if there be enough in God to satisfy Jesus Christ, whose capacity is unconceivable and unexpressible; yea, if there be enough in God to satisfy Himself, then certainly there must needs be in God enough to satisfy the souls of His people.”
“O Christians!” exclaims Brooks, “God is an all-sufficient portion: His power is all-sufficient to protect you; His wisdom is all-sufficient to direct you; His mercy is all-sufficient to pardon you; His goodness is all-sufficient to provide for you; His word is all-sufficient to support you and strengthen you; and His graces all-sufficient to adorn you and enrich you; and His Spirit is all-sufficient to lead you and comfort you; and what can you desire more?”
In emphasising that God is the secure portion of believers, he assures them: “O Christians, God is so yours in Christ, and so yours by covenant, and so yours by promise, and so yours by purchase, and so yours by conquest, and so yours by donation, and so yours by marriage union and communion, and so yours by the earnest of the Spirit, and so yours by the feelings and witnessings of the Spirit, that no power or policy on earth can ever finger your portion, or cheat, or rob you of your portion”.
But the portion of the ungodly shall vanish. Brooks expostulates with believers, “Oh sirs, it will be but a little, little while before the great God will disrobe the wicked of all their prosperity, felicity, and worldly glory, and clothe them with the rags of shame, scorn, and contempt for ever; and therefore, oh what folly and madness would it be for those that are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, of all the glory of heaven, to envy the prosperity of the wicked”.
“A man in rags that hath God for his portion”, says our author, “is a more honourable person than the greatest monarch on earth that hath only the world for his portion. I have read of Alexander the Great, and of Pompey the Great, and of Charles the Great, and of Abner the Great, and of Herod the Great; but what were all these great men but grasshoppers to the saints that have God for their portion?”
Therefore the believer has every reason to be cheerful. “O my brethren,” Brooks exhorts, “it doth no ways become those that have God for their portion to walk up and down the world with clouded countenances, with saddened countenances, or with dejected countenances, etc, and therefore, under all your crosses and losses, wipe your eyes, and walk up and down with pleasant countenances, with cheerful countenances, and with smiling countenances, and this will be an honour to God, and an honour to religion, and an honour to profession, and an honour to that saintship that is too much slighted and scorned in the world.”
How does one obtain God as one’s portion? Brooks’ answer: “If you would have God for your portion, then you must take up Christ in your arms, and treat with [that is, deal with] God upon the credit of Christ. There is no acquaintance with God, there is no reconciliation to God, there is no union nor communion with God, there is no readmission into the presence and favour of God, without a mediator.”
Finally, we quote one of the several evidences given of having God as one’s God: “If God be thy portion,” says Brooks, “then in all thy straits, trials, troubles, and wants, thou wilt run to thy God, thou wilt fly to the Lord, as to thy only city of refuge.”
May this new volume in the publisher’s Puritan Paperback series have a wide circulation and be blessed to many.
(Rev) Neil Ross
- Both books reviewed here may be obtained from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.