When you fall into [trials], as into a pit and snare, and so they falling round about you; so as you have nothing to stand or lean upon, but all about you fails with you and under you, so as in all outward appearance ye are sunk and overwhelmed with the ruins. In this case to ‘count it all joy,’ to shout as men in harvest, or that have gotten great spoils; when their miseries are so great that they cannot be endured, that yet their joy must be so great as more cannot be expressed; this is the hardest duty that ever was required of the distressed hearts of men. And yet God would not require it if it were not attainable; and it is attainable by no other principles but of Christianity. And argues that our Christian religion, which is the only true wisdom, ver. 5, hath so spiritful and sovereign a virtue in it that it is able to raise spirits up unto thus high and glorious a pitch and perfection in this life.

Thomas Goodwin, Patience and Its Perfect Work