Godly sorrow

“ It was a godly sorrow, because a sorrow for sin, as an offence against God, an instance of ingratitude, and a forfeiture of God's favour. There is a great difference between this sorrow of a godly sort and the sorrow of this world. Godly sorrow produces repentance and reformation, and will end in salvation; but worldly sorrow worketh death. The sorrows of worldly men for worldly things will bring down gray hairs the sooner to the grave, and such a sorrow even for sin as Judas had will have fatal consequences, as his had, which wrought death. ”

“ Godly sorrow worketh a change of attitude, purpose, mind; the sorrow of the world leaves a man standing where he was. Ask yourselves the question: Which of the two are you familiar with?
Again, the true means of evoking true repentance is the contemplation of the Cross. Law and the fear of hell may startle into sorrow, and even lead to some kind of repentance. But it is the great power of Christ's love and sacrifice which will really melt the heart into true repentance. You may hammer ice to pieces, but it is ice still. You may bray a fool in a mortar, and his folly will not depart from him. ”

“ O then be persuaded, poor careless and unregenerate sinners, to mind the check of your conscience within you, and the clear perspicuous light of the gospel without you, and come among the number of mourners to mourn for sin. You may mourn your eyes out hereafter, and answer no purpose. Better weep here a while, than for ever in hell; for our Lord Jesus hath said, Blessed are the mourners, for they shall be comforted. O souls, these are no trivial things; press you to; the Lord make you serious in your sorrow for sin, that it may be such godly sorrow as worketh life and peace. ”

“ Note, God often comes gradually with his judgments upon a provoking people, that he may show how slow he is to wrath, and may awaken them to repentance; but those that are made to sorrow a little, if they are not thereby brought to sorrow after a godly sort, will, another day, be made to sorrow a great deal, to sorrow everlastingly. ”

“ The worst result of all our vain misery is that it tempts us to forget Thee.
“But Thou knowest that it is all but a shadow which a glance from Thee can dissipate. Hast not Thou Thyself been a man? It was sorrow that made Thee God; sorrow is an instrument of torture by which Thou hast mounted to the very throne of God, Thy Father, and it is sorrow that leads us to Thee with our crown of thorns to kneel before Thy mercy-seat; we touch Thy bleeding feet with our bloodstained hands, for Thou hast suffered martyrdom to be loved by the unfortunate.” ”

“ Take the sorrows of others to your heart; they shall widen and deepen it. Ours is a religion of sorrow. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering; our Father is the God of all consolation; our Teacher is named the Comforter; and all other mysteries are swallowed up in the mystery of the Divine sorrow. 'In all our afflictions He is afflicted.' God refuseth not to suffer;--shall we?"
There is no grave so desolate that flowers will not at last spring on it. Time passed with Albert and Olivia with healing in its wings. ”

“ The King of sorrowing souls, and more, the King of sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell, He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength, and taught them His, and conquered them right royally! And, since He hung upon that torturing cross, sorrow is divine, god-like, as joy itself. All that man’s fallen nature dreads and despises, God honoured on the cross, and took unto Himself, and blessed, and consecrated for ever. And now, blessed are the poor, if they are poor in heart, as well as purse; for Jesus was poor, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ They had indeed their sorrows, true and deep, but still, more like children's sorrows than ours, whether bursting into open cry of pain, or hid with shuddering under the veil, still passing over the soul as clouds do over heaven, not sullying it, not mingling with it;—darkening it perhaps long or utterly, but still not becoming one with it, and for the most part passing away in dashing rain of tears, and leaving the man unchanged; in nowise affecting, as our sorrow does, the whole tone of his thought and imagination thenceforward. ”

“ What secret misery was thine, Which set a bar 'twixt thee and me? Alas, I suffer from it still; What was this grief, this unknown ill, Which I have wept so bitterly? POET. 'T was but a common grief, well known of men. But, look you, when our heavy heart is sore, Fond wretches that we are! we fancy then That sorrow never has been felt before. MUSE. There cannot be a common grief, Save that of common souls; my friend, Speak out, and give thy heart relief, Of this grim secret make an end. Confide in me, and have no fear. The God of silence, pale, austere, Is younger brother unto death. ”

“ The angel of sorrow knocks,
And knocks again!
O tear filled eyes! upon whose drooping fringes
The heavy foot of sorrow presses hard
Be comforted!
For God shall wipe the tears from your sad eyes.
Oration. ”

“ My soul is sorrowful, even unto death; and when, by reason of overwhelming dread and anguish and grief, thou didst sweat as it were drops of blood trickling down upon the ground. Remember all the bitterness of thy sorrow when thou wast seized upon by the Jews, accused by false witnesses, condemned by thy three judges, buffeted and smitten, spit upon, scourged, and crowned with thorns. O sweetest Jesus, I implore thee, by all the sorrows and insults thou didst endure, have mercy on me a sinner. ”

“ And when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? ”

“ And now this great grief has overtaken us, that we may see at what little things we have complained,—that we may learn that there is a meaning in trouble which should make us calm,—that we had no right to these gifts, the privation of which has offended us, but that all have flowed from that mercy which we have slightly acknowledged, and peevishly accused. This great sorrow has stricken us, piercing through bone and marrow, in order to reach our hearts, and touch the springs of spiritual life within us, that henceforth, we may look upon all sorrow in a new light. ”

“ The darkness gives birth to the light, and every grief blazes up a witness to a future glory. Each drop that hangs on the wet leaves twinkles into rainbow light that proclaims the sun. The garish splendours of the prosperous day hide the stars, and through the night of our sorrow there shine, thickly sown and steadfast, the constellations of eternal hopes. The darker the midnight, the surer, and perhaps the nearer, the coming of the day. Sorrow has not had its perfect work unless it has led us by the way of courage and perseverance to a stable hope. ”

“ When, for example, a man grieves, because his pride or his revenge or any other passion is not gratified, his sadness is the result of sin, and can in no way please God. Our sorrow for the dead, or for personal losses or disappointed hopes, is a holy sorrow only so far as it convinces us of the nothingness of the things of this world, and raises our hearts to God in worship and resignation. ”

“ He knew the exact details of the scourging, the scoffing, the taunts, the torture, the crucifixion; and to a sensitive soul the hour of approach to a great untried agony is often the hour of bitterest trial. It is when we foresee a great trouble in the dimness of to-morrow that our undisciplined hearts grow faint and fail us. But he who had long foreseen—who had counted in advance—every humiliation, [164] every sorrow, and every pain, spoke at the same time of his joy as an overflowing fullness. ”

“ Blessed Jesus! How thy presence sanctifies trial, takes loneliness from the chamber of sickness, and the sting from the chamber of death! Bright and Morning Star! precious at all times, thou art never so precious as in “the dark and cloudy day!” The bitterness of sorrow is well worth enduring to have thy promised consolations. How well qualified, thou Man of Sorrows, to be my Comforter! How well fitted to dry my tears, Thou who didst shed so many thyself! What are my tears—my sorrows—my crosses—my losses, compared with Thine, who didst shed first Thy tears, and then Thy blood for me! ”

“ Never was there sorrow like unto this sorrow, wherewith the Lord now chastened him in the day of the fierceness of his anger. Upon his agony in the garden, an angel from heaven strengthened him. But in this hour, when he bore the sins of his people, when the pangs of death took hold of him, when the sorrows of hell encompassed him; in this hour of inutterable woe, where the heavenly messengers, and where was the countenance of his father who used to comfort him, and to smile upon him? Alas! from his Father proceeded those very sufferings, the severest of all which he was now experiencing. ”

“ On thy lonely journey farest,
That understandest not nor carest
For me and my sadness!
Woe indeed! thou dost not know
Man cometh into this world in sorrow
To spend in grief to-night, to-morrow
In sorrow the third day to go! ”

“ There is but one pardonable grief—that for the departed. This pleasing grief is but a variety of comfort, the sighs are but a mournful mode of loving them.
There are sorrows too sacred to be babbled to the world, griefs which one would forbear to whisper even to a friend. Real sorrow is not clamorous. It seeks to shun every eye, and breathes in solitude and silence the sighs that come from the heart. ”

“ The darkness of sin and alienation will pass, and the true light will shine.
The darkness of sorrow—well! it will not cease, but He will 'smooth the raven down of darkness till it smiles,' and He will bring into our griefs such a spirit of quiet submission as that they shall change into a solemn scorn of ills, and be almost like gladnesses. Peace, which is better than exuberant delight, will come to quiet the sorrow of the soul that trusts in Jesus Christ. The day which is knowledge, purity, gladsomeness, the cheerful day will be ours if we hold by Him. ”

“ But when the heart has been deeply and powerfully struck by some cruel blow of destiny, the intensity of suffering exceeds the bounds of sensibility and emotion.
Those who work hard seldom yield themselves entirely up to real or fancied sorrow. When grief sits down, folds its hands, and mournfully feeds upon its own tears, weaving the dim shadows that a little exertion might sweep away into oblivion, the strong spirit is shorn of its might, and sorrow becomes our master. ”

“ As the face, the hidden face of God, beamed upon the Son of His love in the midst of that apparent desolation, so will it be, children of affliction and sorrow! with you. Others may see in your tears nothing but an indication of the desertion of God,—the visitations of His wrath and judgment. But believe it, these very experiences of trouble and calamity, of bereavement or death, are all meted out and apportioned for you in love—drop by drop, tear by tear. Seek to see God's hand in all that befalls you. Try, even in the most adverse providences, to rise above second causes. ”

“ If, on the one hand, it is essential, on the other hand there are a great many people who ought to be walking in the light and the liberty of God's Gospel who bring darkness and clouds over themselves by the anxious scrutinising question: 'Is my sorrow deep enough?' Deep enough! What for? What is the use of sorrow for sin? To lead a man to repentance and to faith. If you have as much sorrow as leads you to penitence and trust you have enough. It is not your sorrow that is going to wash away your sin, it is Christ's blood. So let no man trouble himself about the question, Have I sorrow enough? ”

“ A whole atmosphere of consecrated suffering seems to float round these spots sacred to sorrow, the sorrow that humbly appeals, as it best knows how, to the love, wide enough to embrace and comfort all desolate, and yearning, and heavy-laden souls. ”

“ As we recall it, we draw an inward fluttering breath, something grips our throats and makes them ache, our eyes blur, and a tear slips down upon the cheek, not of sorrow—God knows not all of sorrow—but if we had it all to live over again, how differently we—oh, well, it's too late now, but still. ”

“ Reader! if thou art one of these careworn ones, the days of thy mourning are numbered! A few more throbbings of this aching heart, and then the angel who proclaims “time,” shall proclaim also, sorrow, and sighing, and mourning, to “be no longer!” Seek now to mourn thy sins more than thy sorrows; reserve thy bitterest tears for forgetfulness of thy dear Lord. The saddest and sorest of all bereavements, is when the sins which have separated thee from Him, evoke the anguish-cry, “Where is my God?” ”

“ If I had wist what it had been, loth me had been to have prayed it. For methought it passed bodily death, my pains.
I thought: Is any pain like this? And I was answered [Pg 40] in my reason: Hell is another pain: for there is despair. But of all pains that lead to salvation this is the most pain, to see thy Love suffer. How might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is all my life, all my bliss, and all my joy, suffer? Here felt I soothfastly [2] that I loved Christ so much above myself that there was no pain that might be suffered like to that sorrow that I had to [see] Him in pain. ”

“ But the youth who bare the chalice spake in a voice extraordinarily high and clear. And he said: "Percival! Percival! be not afraid! This which thou here beholdest is the Sangreal, and that is the Spear of Sorrow. What then may thy sorrow be in the presence of these holy things that brought with them such great sorrow and affliction of soul that they have become entirely sanctified thereby! Thus, Percival, should thy sorrow so sanctify thy life and not make it bitter to thy taste. For so did this bitter cup become sanctified by the great sorrow that tasted of it." ”