Suffering

“Alas! what are these sufferings, that we should grudge at them?”

“The first sufferers had the hardest task; they that first entered the lists for Christ, wanted those helps to suppress fear which they have left unto us.”

“Every good Christian has a spirit of martyrdom in him, and is ready to suffer for the truth rather than the truth should suffer.”

“Why, Jesus Christ had dishonor put upon him; he was called Beelzebub, and a Samaritan, and they said he had a devil in him.”

“In the midst of all the fires round about their ears, they glorified God; some read it ‘in the valley,’ in the lowest condition they could be in.”

“Thus his apostles imitated him: "When we are cursed—we bless; when we are persecuted—we endure it; when we are slandered—we answer kindly.”

“Job scraping on the dunghill, and Jeremiah sticking in the mire in the dungeon, yet they had more glory and beauty on them, then the great ones of the earth when they sat on their thrones.”

“Men who have so little piety that they have no cross to bear, may well suspect the vigor and consistency, if not the genuineness, of their religion.”

“His sympathy is theirs, that He may have a fellow-feeling in all their infirmities, and a brother's pity in all their griefs.”

“Man comes into the world with a cry—and goes out with a groan!”

“Surely above all others he endured the contradiction of sinners against himself.”

“In this very point stands the dignity of the passion, whereby it differs from all other sufferings of men whatsoever.”

“Preaching the gospel, and suffering for it, are services that angels are not employed in.”

“Reproach works for good to God's children; it increases their grace and their glory.”

“For this cause I write to you, that my sufferings may glorify my royal King, and edify His Church in Ireland.”

“If we be in Christ, all that we suffer in this world, they are sufferings of conformity to make us suitable to our Head, and to fit us for glory.”

“Remember that the holiest saints or apostles could never please the world, nor escape their censures, slanders, and cruelties, no, nor Jesus Christ himself.”

“And like as he cured diseases, by taking them on himself by sympathy, it is said of him, when his healing of them is recorded, himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses.”

“Just so, the hypocrite’s faith will break with the hammer of persecution.”

“Crosses have right and claim to Christ in His members, till legs and arms, and whole mystical Christ, be in heaven.”

“So Job speaks, "O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!”

“In this life the godly are called the troublers of Israel, seditious , rebellious and what not! but a day is shortly coming, when God himself will proclaim their innocency.”

“For I am ready not to be bound only, but to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

“Thus martyrs' fires have been welcomed, and the excruciating stake been rapturously clasped.”

“When Paul says, “Have ye suffered so many things?,” he shows that we must endure manifold miseries in this life.”

“But this satisfaction to divine justice is not to be wrought out by believers themselves; and, therefore, whatsoever they suffer is not strictly punishment.”

“The school of the cross is the school of light; it discovers the world's vanity, baseness, and wickedness, and lets us see more of God's mind.”

“Blessed are those who are kept by truth. 'Though I cannot dispute for the truth, yet I can die for the truth,' said a blessed martyr.”

“Here on earth, the saints of God are in the valley of tears, they are at the bottom of the hill, and cannot tell what God is a doing.”

“Christian bravery is that in which we are followers of primitive saints, of martyrs, reformers, and covenanters.”

“He who would be a Christian must be so at the risk of all he counts dear in this life.”

“Oh that I could cease to be; but to fly from existence is impossible.”

“Earth is a whirlpool of despair, and then the silence of departed life.”

“Again; so think of eternal things as continually to lay them in the balance against all the sufferings of this life.”

“Faith will furnish us with examples of the saints of God, whom he hath helped and assisted to go through sufferings, and who are now crowned and at rest in heaven.”

“Like their Master, they are often esteemed impostors, babblers, blasphemers, madmen, possessed of devils.”

“Woe to us if the wicked could execute all their malicious censures!”

“And hereupon the very profession of religion is laden with nicknames and reproachful terms by all sorts of men.”

“Now consider, is it any absurdity for the saints to be conformed to Christ their Lord and Head, to run through the same states that he did?”

“It is the Lord; let Him do whatsoever seemeth good in His eyes.”

“Yet for all my complaints, He was never sweeter and kinder than He is now.”

“I would rather a cloud went over my comforts than that my faith should be hurt.”

“The cup of sufferings is a very bitter cup, and it is but needful that we provide somewhat to sweeten it, that we may be able to receive it with thanksgiving.”

“Troubles will be so much the more sinking and intolerable, by how much the more they steal upon us by way of surprisal.”

“Learn, ye that would have death pleasant, so to rule and square this life, that it may agree in some measure with the life to come.”

“This morning I had a flock, and you had a pastor; but now, behold a pastor without a flock, and a flock without a shepherd.”

“I must choose that my ministry be sealed up by my sufferings, than lengthened out by a lie.”

“A Christian comes to contentment not so much by way of addition, as by way of subtraction.”