Affliction

“ And when thou didst (for the trial of my faith and patience) throw me in very hot flames of affliction, having all discouragements from the world that a poor thing could be trysted with; and that which was sorest to me, not having that measure of sense of thy presence as sometimes before: but O! that condescendence! O that fatherly love, that did not suffer me to sink in this storm which was lightly looked on by the most part; few to sympathize with me, but many thinking it their duty to add to my affliction. ”

“ Afflictions have a light and a dark side, and their appearances are according to our posture in which we view them: as some pictures, which if we look upon them one way, they appear to be angels, if another way, they seem devils. 5. Some men in affliction do only busy themselves in looking upon the dark side of affliction. Their disposition, either through natural timorousness or strong impressions of temptation, is only to meditate terrors, and to surmise evils. ”

“ Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. ”

“ This is remarkably manifest when they are suddenly cast down into deep affliction. They recognise not the hand that smites them. They seem to think, that affliction cometh from the dust, and that trouble springeth out of the ground. ”

“ Remember, however, that as threshing is a sign of the impurity of the wheat, so is affliction an indication of the present imperfection of the Christian. If you were no more connected with evil, you would be no more corrected with sorrow. The sound of a flail is never heard in heaven, for it is not the threshing-floor of the imperfect but the garner of the completely sanctified. ”

“ Affliction, a grief that harasses the body. Despair, a grief that excludes all hope of better things to come. But those feelings which are included under fear, they define thus: There is sloth, which is a dread of some ensuing labor; shame and terror, which affect the body—hence blushing attends shame; a paleness, and tremor, and chattering of the teeth attend terror—cowardice, which is an apprehension of some approaching evil; dread, a fear that unhinges the mind, whence comes that line of Ennius,
Then dread discharged all wisdom from my mind ”

“ Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep, even so I will endure, with a heart within me patient of affliction. For already have I suffered full much, and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war; let this be added to the tale of those.” ”

“ Again, the furnace of affliction which now seems so hot and terrible to nature, had nothing more than a lambent flame, which was not designed to consume us, but only to purge away our dross, to purify and prepare the mind for its abode among those blessed ones that passed through the same trials before us into the celestial paradise.... ”

“ Year after year, affliction upon affliction has been heaped upon us, until at last the people are without even the necessaries of life; and we, seeing no end to the evil, have humbly presented this petition. ”

“ The great thing we should dread in affliction is the wrath of God. Say not, Lord, do not correct me, but, Lord, do not correct me in anger; for that will infuse wormwood and gall into the affliction and misery that will bring us to nothing. We may bear the smart of his rod, but we cannot bear the weight of his wrath.
3. He imprecates the divine wrath against the oppressors and persecutors of Israel (v. 25) : Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not. ”

“ At the present time I have fallen into great evil and affliction, but have escaped from it, and with sixty-two men, women and children, without moccasins, without food and without a blanket, I have arrived in the midst of a great people, and now my heart is glad. ”

“ Where affliction is, there are they, to mitigate its pangs; where sorrow is, there are they to assuage its pains. Nor night, nor day, nor summer’s heat, nor winter’s cold, nor angry elements, can deter them from scenes of suffering and distress. ”

“ It is good for us, when we are afflicted, to remember how and wherein we went astray before we were afflicted, that we may answer the end of the affliction. 2. Of the benefit of an afflicted state: " Now have I kept thy word, and so have been recovered from my wanderings." God often makes use of afflictions as a means to reduce those to himself who have wandered from him. Sanctified afflictions humble us for sin and show us the vanity of the world; they soften the heart, and open the ear to discipline. ”

“ Had it pleas’d heaven To try me with affliction, had they rain’d All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head, Steep’d me in poverty to the very lips, Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes, I should have found in some place of my soul A drop of patience. ”

“ Does affliction naturally make us look heavenwards? Does a troubled life naturally reconcile us to the thought of p. 292speedy death, yea, and cause us to desire it, to pray for it?
On the contrary, do we not often find persons unspiritualised by affliction? ”

“ When affliction, or sickness, or disappointment come, as come they will, if God has not cast you off;—when the dark day dawns, and your fool’s paradise of worldly prosperity is cut away from under your feet, then you will find out your folly—you will find that you have insulted the only Friend who can bring you out of affliction—cast off the only comfort which can strengthen you to bear affliction—forgotten the only knowledge which will enable you to be the wiser for affliction. Then, I say, the sin of your godlessness will find you out ”

“ Note, Even where there is little cry of devotion, the God of pity sometimes graciously hears the cry of affliction. Tears speak as well as prayers. This speaks comfort to the afflicted, that God not only sees what their afflictions are, but hears what they say. Note, further, Seasonable succours, in a day of affliction, ought always to be remembered with thankfulness to God. Such a time, in such a strait, the Lord heard the voice of my affliction, and helped me. See Deu_26:7; Psa_31:22. 3. He promises her a numerous offspring, (Gen_16:10) : I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, Heb. ”

“ But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. ”

“ Now these men, unknown to their best friend perhaps, had gone through the affliction which is so common that it is hard to speak of it without launching into truisms. This sorrow has made some men famous, by forcing them out into the world and shutting the door behind them. ”

“ It was also declared that an admirable remedy against affliction is to consider that there has been sorrow from the beginning of the world; for how can men be troubled by something which has been from the beginning of the world? ”

“ Yet there lay, underneath his own gloomy agony, a remote consciousness of collateral affliction, such as is frequently experienced by those who may be drawn, by some temporary and present pleasure, from the contemplation of their misery. ”

“ Therefore do not judge according to the sight of the eyes or the feeling of the flesh, but judge according to faith, and understand that, as threshing is a testimony to the value of the wheat, so affliction is a token of God's delight in his people. ”

“ He discoursed at times on the torments of those ills that destroy men's bodies, and of the suffering endured by those who come to die with their strength wasting away little by little, which he called a great affliction. ”

“ But as that affliction, which is caused by exterior and sensible objects, is stronger than the consolation, which arises from an internal reflection, they are the effects and symptoms of sorrow, which ought to prevail in the composition. ”

“ XX. For the more clear understanding this matter, and to enforce the argument we are using, it will be necessary to premise, that in this life, there is a heavy and mortal affliction, which is common to all men; but with respect to sinners, it is peculiarly and most severely felt by those who seem the most happy. This affliction, consists in the reflection, that we must one day die. ”

“ You have left the decay and the stinking body in which you dwelt, the dwelling place, the abode of the wicked, the place that is full of sinners, the world of darkness, of hatred, jealousy and discord, the dwelling place where the planets dwell, which bring pain and infirmity. Pains they bring and afflictions, and daily they agitate. ”

“ Afflictions are temptations to us, when we take occasion from them to question God’s fatherly love, or to conclude, that they are sent in wrath, and are intimations that we are cast off by him, when we have no reason to think so from any thing that there is in the nature of affliction itself; also when we are hindered thereby, from applying those suitable promises which God has made to his people, in like cases, for their comfort and support. ”

“ God hath said: “They whose hearts God hath proved for piety’s sake: they shall win pardon and a great reward” (Kor. xlix, 3) . This is a lofty grade.
Balá. By balá (affliction) they signify the probation of the bodies of God’s friends by diverse troubles and sicknesses and tribulations. The more severely a man is afflicted the nearer does he approach unto God, for affliction is the vesture of the saints and the cradle of the pure and the nourishment of the prophets. The Apostle said, “We prophets are the most afflicted of mankind;” ”

“ Any affliction is more supportable than the consciousness of having mispent our time, and neglected opportunities for usefulness. The reproach then falls upon ourselves, and this kind of "wounded spirit who can bear." ”

“ Beloved sufferings, which, in depriving me of all human aids, restore me to God, and render him mine only resource in all my sorrows! Precious afflictions, which in turning me aside from all creatures, are the cause that I now become the continual object of the remembrance and of the mercies of my Lord! ”

“ If evils fall upon us, the sword of judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand in thy presence before this house, in which thy name is called upon: and we will cry to thee in our afflictions, and thou wilt hear, and save us. ”

“ Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation on the evils that attend these superstitious follies of mankind; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions and additional sorrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. ”

“ Whatsoever be our distress, whether it arise from past guilt and the torments of an anxious and troubled conscience, or whether it arise from the working of indwelling sin, the strength of temptation, or the violence of temporal afflictions, still God is able and willing to give relief. ”

“ These may be physical or mental; embracing all those experiences that take the name of trials, afflictions, and disappointments. These are often intensely bitter, and they constitute, indeed, the master evils of life. We shudder when we see them coming; and we often writhe in agony when in the furnace. ”

“ 'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine Flower
Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind. ”

“ but extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces; ”

“ I recall thinking of those heads, and the bulging eyes they must contain; eyes that might well reflect all the fright, panic, and delirium of a malignant universe—all the sorrow, sin, and misery, blasted hopes and unfulfilled desires, fear, loathing and anguish, of the ages since time’s beginning; eyes alight with all the soul-racking pain of eternally blazing infernos. ”

“ The miseries of the damned are summed up (perhaps with reference to this) in the indignation and wrath of God, which are the cause, and the tribulation and anguish of the sinner's soul, which are the effect, Rom. ii. 8, 9. It will be a day of trouble and distress to the inhabitants, and a day of wasteness and desolation to the whole land; that fruitful land shall be turned into a wilderness. It shall be a day of darkness and gloominess; every thing shall look dismal, and there shall not be the least gleam of comfort, or glimpse of hope; look round, and it is all black. ”

“ Hunger and sin and temptation, and wider still, that tragic word which includes them all—evil. Forgiveness and defence and deliverance—what sorrows these presuppose! Each step of these latter supplications seems to carry us deeper into the shadow and the darkness, each to present a darker aspect of what human life really is; and now that we have reached the last, we have an all-comprehensive cry which holds within its meaning every ill that flesh is heir to. ”

“ Our original corruptions are the sickness and disease of the soul, an habitual indisposition; our actual transgressions are the wounds of the soul, which put conscience to pain, if it be not seared and senseless. ”

“ But we can bear each day and night of pain, only by taking each by itself. We can break each rod, but not the bundle.” And the sufferer, in real great suffering, is well described as turning to the wall in blank despair, when he looks too far on. ”

“ And it is from this cause that in human beings bodily suffering expresses itself not only in contortions, but in shrieks and groans—that in anger, and fear, and grief, the gesticulations are accompanied by shouts and screams—that delightful sensations are followed by exclamations—and that we hear screams of joy and shouts of exultation. ”