“Afflictions may kill us, but they cannot hurt us; they may take away my life, but they cannot take away my God, my Christ, my crown.
The afflictions that do attend the saints in the ways of holiness, are but short and momentary. ‘Sorrow may abide for a night, but joy comes in the morning,’ (Psalm 30:5).
This short storm will end in an everlasting calm, this short night will end in a glorious day, that shall never have end.
It is but a very short time between grace and glory, between our title to the crown and our wearing the crown, between our right to the heavenly inheritance and our possession of the heavenly inheritance.
What is our life but a shadow, a bubble, a flower, a post, a span, a dream?
It will be but as a day before God will give his afflicted ones beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness for the spirit of heaviness; before he will turn all your sighing into singing, all your lamentations into consolations, your sackcloth into silks, ashes into ointments, and your fasts into everlasting feasts.
The afflictions that do befall the saints are such as proceed from God’s dearest love. ‘As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten,’ (Rev. 3:19).
Saints, saith God, think not that I hate you, because I thus chide you. He that escapes reprehension may suspect his adoption.
God had one Son without corruption, but no son without correction. A gracious soul may look through the darkest cloud, and see a God smiling on him.
We must look through the anger of his correction to the sweetness of his countenance; and as by the rainbow we see the beautiful image of the sun’s light in the midst of a dark and watery cloud.”
–Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, in The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1866/1980), 1: 51-52.
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