To learn our religion in such a painful way

Back to Man's religion & God's religion

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My dear friend, I was sorry to learn from your last kind letter that the Lord had again laid upon you His afflicting hand. But it was your mercy to find profit from the furnace, and that the painful trial was sanctified to your spiritual good.

We are such poor, stupid, cold, lifeless wretches when things are smooth and easy with us, that we seem to need trial and affliction to stir us up, and bring us out of carnality and death.

The Word of God is written for an afflicted and poor people—and they alone understand it, believe it, feel it, and realize it. How often you had read the word, and yet did not enter into its sweetness, suitability, and blessedness—as you did in your late affliction. Luther used to say that, before he was afflicted, he never understood the Word of God. This witness is true. There is no real place for it in our conscience or affections.

And yet how hard it seems, and trying to the flesh, to learn our religion in such a painful way—but any way is better than to miss the prize at last. And if we are favoured to reach the heavenly shore, we shall forget all the perils and sufferings of the voyage!