AFFLICTIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Puritan quotes
"God had one Son on earth without sin—but never one without
affliction."—Augustine.
"Afflictions are the theology of Christians."—Luther.
"Without adversity grace withers."—Mason.
"God may cast down—but he will never cast off true believers."—Case.
"Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions."—Dodd.
"Time is short; so if your cross is heavy, you have not far to carry
it."—Anon.
"Afflictions are blessings to us, when we can bless God for
afflictions."—Dyer.
"Christian, has not God taught you, by his word and Spirit, how to read
the short-hand of his providence? Do you not know that the saints'
afflictions stand for blessings?"—Gurnall.
"No righteous man would, in his right mind, be willing to make an
exchange of his sharpest afflictions for a wicked man's prosperity, with all
the circumstances attending it. It cannot therefore be bad with the
righteous in the worst condition."—Charnock.
"This winter-weather shall be useful to destroy and rot those rank weeds,
which the summer of prosperity bred."—Flavel.
"The school of the cross is the school of light."—Anon.
"God's people have often been carried to heaven in the fiery chariot of
affliction."—Mrs. Savage.
"Winter leads the sap down into the roots, while summer calls it up into
the branches, and displays it in the blossoms and fruit."—Jay.
"The tree of the cross being cast into the waters of affliction,
has rendered them wholesome and medicinal."—Owen.
"Our departed Christian friends cannot descend to share with us in our
sorrows; but by holy contemplation we may daily ascend, and partake with
them in their joys."—Howe.
"In times of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of
God's love."—Bunyan.
"As no temporal blessing is good enough to be a sign of eternal election;
so no temporal affliction is bad enough to be an evidence of reprobation."—Arrowsmith.
"What unthankfulness is it to forget our consolations, and to look only
upon matter of grievance—to think so much upon two or three crosses as to
forget a hundred blessings."—Sibbes.
"Every man has a heaven and a hell. Earth is the sinner's heaven;
his hell is to come. The godly have their hell upon earth, when they are
vexed with temptations and afflictions by Satan and his accomplices; their
heaven is above in endless happiness. If it be ill with me on earth, it is
well that my torment is so short and easy; I cannot be so unreasonable as to
expect two heavens."—Hall.
"All is well that ends everlastingly well."—Anon.
"It is a blessed thing for the afflicted to wait God's time and
determination."—Lightfoot.
"When temporal evils are effectual means to promote our everlasting
happiness, the amiableness and excellency of the end changes their nature,
and makes these calamities that in themselves are intolerable, to become
light and easy."—Anon.
"Crosses and afflictions are God's call to examine our hearts and our
lives."—Richardson.
"Too much honey does turn to gall; and too much joy, even spiritual
joy—would make us wantons. Happier a great deal is that man's case, whose
soul by inward desolation is humbled, than he whose heart is through
abundance of spiritual delight lifted up and exalted above measure. Better
it is sometimes to go down into the pit with him, who beholding darkness,
and bewailing the loss of inward joy and consolation, cries from the bottom
of the lowest hell—My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? than
continually to walk arm in arm with angels, to sit as it were in Abraham's
bosom, and to have no thought, no cogitation, but—I thank my God it is not
with me as it is with other men."—Hooker.
"Through Christ's satisfaction for sin, the very nature of affliction is
changed, with regard to believers. As death, which was, at first, the wages
of sin, is now become a bed of rest (Isaiah 57:2); so afflictions are not
the rod of God's anger, but the gentle corrections of a tender
father."—Crisp.
"That is always best for us, which is best for our souls."—Phillip Henry.
"Afflictions are sent to stir up prayer. If they have that effect, and,
when we are afflicted, we pray more, and pray better, than before, we may
hope that God will hear our prayer, and give ear to our cry; for the prayer,
which, by his providence, he gives occasion for, and which, by his Spirit of
grace, he indites, shall not return void."—M. Henry.
"If we have the kingdom at last—it is no great matter what we suffer on
the way to it."—Manton.
"To the poor, humble, and despised believer—the kingdom of heaven
exclusively belongs; there his best desires will be eternally satisfied, his
tears will be changed for triumphant songs of joy, and his reward will be
great in the blessed society of the holy prophets and apostles; and in that
of the incarnate Son of God, who passed the same way to his glory."—Thomas
Scott.
"No cloud can overshadow a true Christian—but his faith may discern a
rainbow in it."—Anon.
"He, who is prepared in whatever state he is therewith to be content, has
learned effectually the art of being happy: and possesses the magic stone,
which will change every trial into gold."—Dwight.
"I have never met with a single instance of adversity which I have not
afterwards seen to be for my good."—Anon.
"I have never heard a Christian on his deathbed complaining of his
afflictions."—Anon.
"All the sufferings of the believer are not hell—but they are all the
hell he shall suffer."—Mason.
"Christians ought neither to expect nor wish to have suffering with
Christ, disconnected with their being glorified with him. The former is a
preparation for the latter." Romans 8:17.—Hodge.
"Oh, what must Christ be in himself, when he sweetens heaven, sweetens
Scriptures, sweetens ordinances, sweetens earth, and even sweetens
trials!"—John Brown of Haddington.
"It is happy for us if we have suffered enough to make us desire a better
country, that is a heavenly one; but surely all the painful experiences we
have hitherto met with have not been more than sufficient to bring us into
this waiting posture."—John Newton.
"God denies a Christian nothing—but with a design to give him something
better."—Cecil.
"If the blessed Jesus, who had no sin of his own, bore the wrath of his
heavenly Father for a world of sinners; how willingly ought I to endure all
the pain I suffer, if my dying example might be but the means of the
salvation of one soul."—David Rice
"There is really much more real satisfaction to be found in a crucified
world—than in an idolized world."—Witherspoon.