A Puritan at Heart

Daily quote from the puritans

The refining fire

Job served God in truth, and yet was punsished, and so Lazarus; but this was not so much for their own sin as for the trial of their faith and that after them, the Church might recieve great comfort by their examples. For as it hurts not the gold to be put into the fire, both because it is tried, and also made more pure–so it is not evil for the children of God to have their faith tried. If it be a strong faith, it will bear the fire; if it be weak, it will shine yet brighter. The Lord often… by outward crosses draweth us from the state of security and untowardness to good works. Neither can we truly repent, unless by some cross we know this world to be a place of sorrow, and not of mirth and delight. We must be as birds on a bough, to remove at God’s pleasure, and that without resistance when the Lord shall visit us. And because we are too much given to think that we have the things in our own right, which we hold of the free goodness of God, we are taught in affliction how heinous unthankfulness it were to bind the Lord continually to entertain us in this life at so full charge and cost. [Richard Greenham]

January 11, 2008 Posted by Deejay | Richard Greenham | | No Comments