“It makes much for the glory of God, that His people are cheered and comforted, quickened and raised, spiritualised and elevated in the day of their sufferings.
Oh the sight of so noble a spirit in the saints, causes others to admire God, to lift up God, to fall in love with God, and to glorify God for owning His people, and for being a light to them in darkness, a joy to them in sorrow, and a palace to them in prison.
God is very sensible of the many praises and prayers that He should lose, did He not cause His love and His glory to rest upon His people in suffering times. There is nothing that God is so tender of, as He is of His glory, and there is nothing that His heart is so much set upon as His glory.
And therefore He will visit them in a prison, and feast them in a dungeon, and walk with them in a fiery furnace, and show kindness to them in a lion’s den, that everyone may shout and cry, ‘Grace! Grace!’
God loves to act in such ways of grace towards His suffering ones as may stop the mouths of their enemies and cause the hearts of His friends to rejoice.”
–Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 2, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 358.
