Triumph Through Affliction
Rom. viii, 35, 37. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" "Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us." Stars shine brightest in the darkest night; torches are better for beating; grapes come not to the proof, till they come to the press; spices smell best when bruised; young trees root the faster for shaking; gold looks brighter for scouring; juniper smells sweetest in the fire; the palm-tree proves the better for pressing; camomile, the more you tread it, the more you spread it. Such is the condition of all God's children: they are then most triumphant, when most tempted; most glorious, when most afflicted; most in favor with God, when least in man's and their own; as their conflicts, so their conquests; as their tribulations, so their triumphs; the true salamander, that live best in the furnace of persecution; so that heavy afflictions are the best benefactors to heavenly affections; and where afflictions hang heaviest, corruptions hang loosest; and grace that is hid in nature as sweet water in the rose leaves, is then the most fragrant when the fire of afflictions is put under to distill it out. [Golden Treas.