Severe affliction

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Blueridge Believer

Puritan Board Professor
For, when a believer is visited with severe affliction, and especially if his trials be numerous as well as severe, and if they are continued in his person, or in his family, for a great length of time, while many around him are enjoying uninterrupted prosperity, or speedily relieved from slighter trials —he will be too apt to entertain the awful thought, that God would not thus deal with him if he were really one of his children, and either despondingly to question his own interest in the divine favor, or, through the malignant suggestions of Satan, to cherish hard thoughts of God.

Many have experienced this sore trial of their patience and faith; but let it he impressed on our hearts, that it is not from the outward dispensations of providence —but from the inward qualities of our own character, that we are to draw the evidence of our state in the sight of God —that no pressure of affliction, however severe, and no continuance of it, however protracted, can prove that we are not the objects of God's fatherly love, or that we are cast out of his favor. And that, although the aspect of a frowning providence may well be improved as a call to vigilant self-inspection, that we may discover whether God has any controversy with us, and for what cause, we should not, on any occasion, venture to regard affliction as a proof of reprobacy.

On the contrary, "whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives;" and if our chastisements seem to be more grievous, and more protracted than those of others, we may rest assured, either that our corruptions are so strong as to require a severe remedy —or that God is thereby preparing us for some great end, for some fiery temptation, or some eminent service in his Church on earth, or, perhaps, for a speedy translation to his own presence in Heaven.

James Buchanan 1804-1870
Comfort in affliction
 
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