Sublime

2. To find glory in tribulation is not hard for one who truly loves, for to glory in this manner is to glory in the cross of our Lord. The glory exchanged among men is brief. The glory of this world is always accompanied by sadness. The glory of a good person is in his own conscience and not in the praise of others.

True believer! O try and learn the blessed truth, that in affliction your first, your only, your blessed calling is to abide in Christ. Be much with Him alone.

That it was impossible, not only that GOD should deceive, hut also that He should long let a soul suffer which is perfectly resigned to Him, and resolved to endure everything for His sake.

And of this ultimate resignation or certainty it is even less possible to write; it is something stranger than hell itself; it is perhaps the last of the secrets of God. At the highest crisis of some incurable anguish there will suddenly fall upon the man the stillness of an insane contentment.

A deep doctrine of sin, a high doctrine of joy, and the two together produce this blessed, happy man who mourns, and who at the same time is comforted. The way to experience that, obviously, is to read the Scriptures, to study and meditate upon them, to pray to God for His Spirit to reveal sin in us to ourselves, and then to reveal to us the Lord J