Blueridge Believer
Puritan Board Professor
Affliction is favorable to the spirit of prayer. For, wherein does the true nature of prayer consist? It consists in the desire of the heart, offered up to God—and what is better fitted to awaken earnest desire than the pressure of affliction? In the day of prosperity, when every need and desire of our nature is supplied, we may not be conscious of any very strong need for prayer, and are too apt to forget the fact of our dependence, in respect to the supply of our temporal needs. And even in regard to our spiritual necessities, we are prone, when surfeited with worldly prosperity, to become cold and lukewarm in our desires after the communication of divine grace, by which alone they can be supplied.
Is there one Christian who has not experienced the deadening effect of uninterrupted prosperity on the spiritual desires and holiest affections of his nature? And if even Christians are too often lulled to sleep by its influence—how much more may those be cradled into profound forgetfulness of God, who have never known the necessity, nor made the deliberate choice, of a better and more enduring portion?
But when their prosperous course is broken by severe affliction, the minds of both classes are brought into a new state; the Christian is then thrown back on the inward resources of his religion, and will then feel their necessity and value. And even in an unsanctified bosom, such strong natural longings will spring up, as may, under the blessing of God, lead the worldling himself to seek after a better portion than this poor world. In so far as affliction is the means of awakening earnest desire, and exciting a sincere feeling in the heart—it is favorable to the spirit of prayer; for that feeling, or that desire, if directed towards God, is prayer.
James Buchanan
Comfort in affliction
Is there one Christian who has not experienced the deadening effect of uninterrupted prosperity on the spiritual desires and holiest affections of his nature? And if even Christians are too often lulled to sleep by its influence—how much more may those be cradled into profound forgetfulness of God, who have never known the necessity, nor made the deliberate choice, of a better and more enduring portion?
But when their prosperous course is broken by severe affliction, the minds of both classes are brought into a new state; the Christian is then thrown back on the inward resources of his religion, and will then feel their necessity and value. And even in an unsanctified bosom, such strong natural longings will spring up, as may, under the blessing of God, lead the worldling himself to seek after a better portion than this poor world. In so far as affliction is the means of awakening earnest desire, and exciting a sincere feeling in the heart—it is favorable to the spirit of prayer; for that feeling, or that desire, if directed towards God, is prayer.
James Buchanan
Comfort in affliction
