The bitter pill of affliction

(Lewis Bayly, "The Practice of Piety" 1611)

Nothing will more arm you with patience in your
sickness, than to see that it comes from the hand
of your heavenly Father, who would never send it
but that He sees it to be to you both needful and
profitable. For God, like a skillful physician, seeing
the soul to be poisoned with the settling of sin,
administers the bitter pill of affliction, whereby
the remains of sin are purged, and the soul more
soundly cured; the flesh is subdued, and the spirit
is sanctified. O the odiousness of sin, which causes
God to chasten so severely His children, whom
otherwise He loves so dearly!