Category Archives: affliction

The two sorts of trouble in this world

12 Tuesday Sep 2017

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In Pilgrim’s Progress, Apollyon stops Christian and seeks to turn him aside from the way. One argument which Apollyon presses is the sheer difficulty of seeking to follow after Christ in this world,

Consider again, when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that for the most part his servants come to an ill end, because they are transgressors against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! And besides, thou countest his service better than mine; whereas he never yet came from the place where he is, to deliver any that served him out of their enemies’ hands: but as for me, how many times, as all the world very well knows, have I delivered, either by power or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them! And so will I deliver thee.

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come. As Jesus says, “In the world you will have tribulation.” John 16:33.

The Beatitudes which begin the Sermon on the Mount list out poor of spirit, mourning, meekness, hungering and thirsting (after righteousness), showing mercy and making peace, capped with two promises of persecution: first to the first persecuted, then he shifts and says “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

The Church is sent out as lambs among wolves. And, this side of the age to come, there is little promise of respite.However, there is a comfort in all of this.

There are two evils which come from trouble: first there is the trouble itself, second there is the response to the trouble. We can do very little with the first trouble: the world is cursed and a grave stands at the end of every life. For those who seek to follow Christ, there is often an extra measure of trouble. These troubles are largely unavoidable.

But the second trouble comes from how we think about the first.

We have many difficulties which we undertake willingly to bring about a better end. A joint replacement surgery is quite painful (from what is reported), but the end result is worth the pain. Therefore, the pain is not experienced as an unmitigated tragedy, but as a moment to be endured for a better end. We encourage children with school by pointing to the good of an education. Athletes undergo great privation to compete.

This evil which comes from the response to the unavoidable trials of life brings the greatest pain and sorrow. When we look through the first trial to see the end, we can persevere and endure. We are commend to look “to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross”. Jesus lived through the cross for the good that would result.

It is hope which makes helps us to endure sorrow. We can afford to mourn, for we shall be comforted. We can afford the cost of showing mercy and making peace, because we shall receive mercy and be brought into God’s family. This will require hope and expectation and patience. But our hope and patience will be well rewarded.

William Perkins on the Blessings of Suffering

24 Thursday Aug 2017

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Let us then bear them, they will have an end [Ps. 37:37]; joy will follow [Ps. 126:5]; they show us our weakness [Isa. 38:10]; they move us to pray [Hos. 5:15]; they show we are in the pathway to heaven [Luke 24:26]; and [they] make us condemn this present world [Eccl. 1:2]. By them we learn to repent us of sin past [2 Sam. 24:17], to take heed of sin present, and to foresee sin to come [Gen. 39:9]. By them we receive God’s Spirit [Acts 2:2]; are like to Christ [Phil. 3:10]; are acquainted with God’s power [Dan. 3:17]; have joy in deliverance [Ex. 15:1]; know [the] benefit of prosperity; made more hardy to suffer; and have cause to practice many excellent virtues [1 Peter 1:6–7]. They cause us (as one says) to seek out God’s promise; the promise to seek faith; faith to seek prayer; and prayer to find God. Seek, and you shall find [Matt. 7:7]; call, and He will answer [Job 21:27]; wait, and He will come [Hab 2:3].

The Conclusion of Edward Polhill’s Preparation for Suffering

30 Friday Jun 2017

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PREPARATION FOR SUFFERING

IN

AN EVIL DAY:

SHEWING

HOW CHRISTIANS ARE TO BEAR SUFFERINGS,

AND WHAT GRACES ARE REQUISITE THEREUNTO

SUITED FOR ALL CHRISTIANS IN THIS PRESENT TIME

 

Edward Polhill, 1682.

The first post in this series may be found here.

Polhill ends his treatise on preparing for suffering with a description of the blessing of suffering.  This is of two sorts, first how suffering well blesses God. Second, how God blesses the one who suffers.

How Suffering Well Glorifies God.

First,

Pious sufferers do glorify God in a very signal eminent manner. What is said of St. Peter’s death? that “It was a glorifying of God,” (John 21:19). The same may be said of the death of all other martyrs; we glorify God by offering praise; much more by offering our lives for him. We glorify him by giving some of our estates in charity; much more, by giving our blood for his name…..As it was with Christ, his power appeared in miracles; but above all, in that he triumphed over principalities and powers upon the cross: so it is with christians; the divine power appears in other graces, but above all in that patient suffering which overcomes the world. The truth of God is in martyrs practically proved to be exceeding precious. The fathers, in the first general councils, were so earnest for the truth, that they would not exchange a letter or syllable of it.

Second, “Pious sufferers do propagate and multiply the church.”

Third,

Pious sufferers do give an evident token to the persecutor, that the wrath of God will come upon him…. “Stand fast,” saith he, “in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel, and in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God,” (Phil. 1:27, 28). The persecutor comes with his torments and engines of cruelty, to terrify the martyr; but the martyr, by his Christian patience and courage, gives the persecutor an evident token that the wrath of God will come down upon him at last. If bloody persecutors, who look upon the suffering martyrs, had but their eyes open, they would see cause enough to reflect upon themselves, and say, Surely these men have a patience more than human, and therefore they suffer for God; and, if so, we in persecuting them fight against him, and may expect that his wrath should come down upon us, as it hath upon former persecutors.

How God Blesses Those Who Suffer Well:

First, “Pious sufferers are happy here and hereafter. They are happy here upon a double account.”

They give the highest proof of their sincerity that can be given. …The highest proof of grace is in suffering. That faith must be right that endures the fiery furnace; that love must be pure, that practically lifts up God above all other things; that hope must be lively that lets go a present world for a future one; that obedience must be glorious that continues unto the death.

As they give the highest proof of their sincerity, so they have the gracious presence of God in the most eminent way with them. All his glorious attributes do, as it were, pitch their tents round about them, and put forth their virtues in a gracious manner for their good. His power rests upon them to bear them up, how weak soever, in the fiery trial; his wisdom directs them how to carry themselves under the cross; his mercy melts over them, while they are under man’s cruelty; his love is shed abroad in their heart while they bear the world’s hatred: the presence of God will be to them instead of, nay, infinitely more than all other comforts. They may say, “If God be for us, who can be against us, (Rom. 8:31).

Again: They are happy hereafter, and this stands in two things:

  1. They are freed from all evils. In heaven they shall have no corruption within, nor oppression without; no noise of passion in the heart, nor rout of turbulent persecutors to disquiet them; the will of the flesh shall have a total circumcision; the infirmities of the body shall have a perfect cure; the serpent cannot hiss in paradise; no temptations or miseries can fasten on a saint in glory. There is day without night, love without fear, joy without sorrow, life without death, all happiness without the least mixture of evil. There the blessed martyrs shall be freed from all their troubles and miseries.
  2. They are endowed with all good and happiness, The promises made to the overcomer in the Revelation of St. John, shall be made good to them; they shall eat of the tree of life in a blessed immortality; they shall have the white stone in a perfect absolution; they shall be clothed in robes of glory; they shall be pillars in the heavenly temple, standing there as ornaments in an immoveable felicity; they shall sit down with Christ in his throne, and judge their enemies that condemned them; they shall inherit all things; they that lost all for God shall inherit all in him who is goodness itself, and the fountain of it; they shall see him who is the original and crystal ocean of all truth; they shall enjoy Him who is the supreme good and sabbath of souls; they shall be swallowed up in the joy of infinite truth and goodness; and their happiness shall not be for a time, but run parallel with eternity itself; they shall be for ever in the Lord in the blessed region. There, as St. Austin hath it, God who is all in all, Sine fine videbitur, sine fastidio amabitur, sine fatigatione laudnbitur: “Shall be seen without end, loved without disdain, and praised without weariness.” In the next world there will be a vast difference between persecutors and sufferers. The pride and cruelty of the one will be paid for in torments and endless misery in the prison of hell; and the patience and suffering of the other will be returned in joys and eternal felicity in the blessed heaven.

Edward Polhill, The Works of Edward Polhill (London: Thomas Ward and Co., 1844), 356–359.

 

Edward Polhill, Patience Endures and Even Conquers in Suffering and Affliction

29 Thursday Jun 2017

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The previous post in this series may be found here

The tenth thing needed to bear “an evil day” is patience.  Patience has a peculiar bearing to the evil day:

We are not only to do other commands by obedience, but, when providence calls us to it, we are to do that of taking up the cross by patience. Other graces may help to bear the cross, but patience takes it up upon his back. It is its proper peculiar office ὑπομἐνειν, to make a man abide piously under the cross.

Polhill first considers what patience is to the patient Christian, himself. (It must be noted that the word “patience” as used by Polehill in the 17th Century is similar in many respects to the word “endurance.”)

First, in patience “makes a christian possess his soul, (Luke 21:19)”. The Christian’s trouble is not truly in the outward world — that is in the Lord’s control. The Christian in patience must bear and still himself.  “All the powers in earth and hell cannot put him out of the possession of himself, or hinder his graces from coming forth into act—he will be like himself in his suffering.”

Second, in patience the Christian conquers the world. Even death cannot conquer the Christian (Rom. 9:35-37). But the Christian by patience conquers the world, because the world cannot over come the patient Christan whose hope is set upon Christ.

Third, patience takes its contentment from God — therefore, present sufferings cannot take away from the best part. Moreover, in that very patience there is a sweetness from God. James says that such patience leave one “perfect and entire”. James 1:4

Considered Godward, Polehill makes three observations about patienc.

First, patience is submission to the will of God: God is God and therefore, who am I to rebel?

Patience subjects the soul to the will of God; when the cross comes, the patient Christian’s will, with Aaron, hold their peace; or if they speak, they will do it in some such language as that of Eli, “It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.” Patience will instruct them to lie in the lowest posture of humility, and to argue the matter with themselves in this manner: Is God the rector of the world, and shall we not subject to him? His presence is in all, his power is over all, his wisdom and righteousness orders all. Who can stay his hand, or say to him, what dost thou? or call him to give account of any of his matters? To strive with him is folly; to murmur at any piece of his government is rebellion; to think that things might have been better, is to blaspheme his wise and just providence; and is he the Father of spirits, and shall we not be under him? We give reverence to the fathers of our flesh, and now much rather should we be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

Second, patience knows that the strength to endure comes from God. Patience is a very faithful activity:

Patience waits upon God for strength to bear the cross, and for a good issue out of it: we have both these promised in that of the apostle,” God will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation make a way to escape,” (1 Cor. 10:13). In the first clause we have a promise of strength proportionable to the temptation; in the last, we have a promise of a good issue out of it. First, patience waits upon God for strength to bear the cross; this is the right method of obtaining strength: “Wait on the Lord, and he shall strengthen thy heard,” (Psa. 27:14). Strength comes in a way of dependance upon God.

And then patience looks to God for the best outcome:

True patience waits upon God for strength; but this is not all, it also waits upon God for a good issue out of the suffering; salvation belongs unto the Lord, and he gives many good issues to his suffering people: if they have an increase of graces and comforts, that is one good issue: if they hold out and persevere to the end, that is another good issue: if by death they pass from the cross to the crown, from a temporal life to an eternal one, that is the best issue of all: for such issues as these do patient souls wait, till the Lord put an end to all their troubles.

Finally, patience for the Christian is not a bear stoicism. Christian patience is one of joy and praise:

 “Count it all joy, when ye fall into divers temptations,” (Jam. 1:2); that is, when ye fall into afflictions for the gospel. All joy? how can poor afflicted souls reckon thus? In the trial their graces appear in their pure beauty; strength is made perfect in weakness; consolations abound as much, nay, more than afflictions; the beams of divine love irradiate the heart, and fill it with a sweet serenity; hope enters heaven, and fixes upon the crown of life, and heaven comes down in a spirit of glory upon the heart. Here is joy, all joy indeed; the total sum of it in this life is made up in these things. It was the saying of the martyr, Mr. Philpot, “That to die for Christ is the greatest promotion that God can bring any unto in this vale of misery; yea, so great a honour as the greatest angel in heaven is not permitted to have.” It was the prayer of Mr. Bradford, the martyr: “God forgive me my unthankfulness for this exceeding great mercy, that among so many thousands, he chooseth me to be one in whom he will suffer. It was the observation of one of the ancients, “That it was peculiar to christians to give thanks in adversity.” Jews and Gentiles can praise God for benefits, but the patient christian can thank him for afflictions. O! let us labour after patience, that we may not only suffer for Christ, but do it with joy. Thus our Saviour directs his persecuted ones; “Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven,” (Matt. 5:12). Inward and outward joys are very proper in suffering saints, because then they are arrived at the highest pitch of Christianity, and ready to enter into the blessed heaven, there to enjoy God for ever and ever.

 

Edward Polhill, The Works of Edward Polhill (London: Thomas Ward and Co., 1844), 354–356.

Edward Polhill, Obedience Prepares One for Suffering

19 Monday Jun 2017

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(The previous post in this series on Edward Polhill’s A Preparation for Suffering in an Evil Day may be found here )

 

Polhill next explains that obedience to God’s will before we suffer, will prepare us to persevere through suffering when it comes. We are fitted to God’s determination for our life through obedience, that obedience then becomes the basis for submitting to God’s will in suffering.

He proves this point with six consideration:

First, obedience is the work of the Holy Spirit in one’s life: this supernatural work of the Spirit in obedience leads to the same supernatural work of the Spirit to go through suffering:

Again, the Holy Spirit, which makes good men do God’s will, will enable them to suffer it too. St. Paul took pleasure in persecutions, because, when he was weak, then he was strong, (2 Cor. 12:10); that is, the Holy Spirit did strengthen his inward man to bear the cross. The Holy Spirit in the saints is a well of water, springing up to everlasting life, (John 4:14; 1 Peter 4:14).

Second, we must believe, because God has commanded: that it is enough. Having been fitted to obey, we are fit to suffer at God’s determination.)

Third,

True obedience makes us to grow up into Christ the head, and to be of near alliance to him. It makes us to grow up into Christ the head, (Eph. 4:15). Obedience, being the exercise of all graces, brings us into a near union with Christ, and makes us more and more like to him: the more we act our love, meekness, mercy, goodness, or any grace, the more we are united to him and incorporated with him; nay, true obedience makes us to be of near alliance to him. (Luke 8:20-21)….St. Paul bore about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, (2 Cor. 4:10); and the allies of Christ must be ready, at God’s call, to suffer with him.

Fourth, suffering well will take strength; we can only increase in such strength through obedience:

True obedience produces an increase of grace and spiritual strength. Obedience is a christian’s daily walk; the more he exercises himself to godliness, the more grace he hath in his soul. …Such an obedience as this admirably disposes a man for suffering. The greater his stock of grace is, the better will he hold out in the straits of the world. The more strength he hath in the inner man, the more able he will be to bear the burden of the cross:

Fifth, “True obedience obtains the gracious presence of God to help and comfort good men in the doing his will.”

Sixth, if we are in the way of obedience, we are on the way to God, and thus will endure suffering on that way:

True obedience is the way to heaven: those blessed ones, that do the commands of God, “have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city,” (Rev. 22:14). The more obedient a man is to the divine will, the richer entrance he hath into the blessed kingdom. After sowing to the Spirit comes the crop of eternal glory; after walking in holy obedience, comes the blessed end of life and immortality…..When Basil the great was threatened with banishment, and death, he was not at all moved at it: banishment is nothing to him that hath heaven for his country; neither is death any thing to one to whom it is the way to life: He that is in the way to heaven hath great reason to break through all difficulties to get thither.

 Edward Polhill, The Works of Edward Polhill (London: Thomas Ward and Co., 1844), 352–354.

 

How to Have Hope

01 Thursday Jun 2017

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Romans 5:1–5 (ESV)

5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This is a seemingly confused passage: why and how does Paul jump from justification to suffering?

Note the argument:

 A.Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have

B. peace with God

C.  through our Lord Jesus Christ.

C’. Through him we have also obtained

B’.  access by faith into this grace in which we stand,

A’ and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God — being justified — is the subjective state of the one justified. Col. 1:27. This hope of glory is a great subjective benefit of the Christian life.  Paul next turns to, how does one have more of this hope? The next section which discusses suffering, actually answers the question of “So how then do we obtain more hope, now?”

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,” — but not because suffering is good (it is not, if it were “good”, it would not be suffering), but because of what suffering does:

knowing that

suffering produces endurance, 4

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

This, however, is not the sum total of Paul’s argument. Paul makes a similar argument in chapter 8, but this time he develops more of the psychology which produces home. Using language deliberately allusive to Ecclesiastes (all is vanity), Paul explains that present suffering is unavoidable in this world (the creation has been subjected to futility), but this suffering can cause us to long for the age to come (glory):

Romans 8:18–25 (ESV)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Understand before you speak

27 Monday Feb 2017

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Advice from John Calvin on comforting others:

Here we have Eliphaz telling Job that God punishes the wicked to show that he is Judge of the world and that they are wasting their effort fortifying themselves because they will not be able to escape his hand, for despite their great numbers and cooperation, God will destroy everything. But if that language is applied to Job, Job would have to believe that God is his enemy because he is wicked and filled with hypocrisy. That is not the case. Job has good reason to say, ‘Well, I know all of that, and if I needed it now, I would use it, but it does not apply to me.’ Job understood that he was not being afflicted because of his sins and that this was not God’s intention. It is not that Job did not feel guilty and deserving of worse if God had wanted to examine him rigorously, but he knows that God is not dealing with him the way he is because of his sins, but that God has another purpose. Knowing that, Job rejects the accusation they charge him with. Why? Because it does not fit his situation. ‘You are,’ he says, ‘a sorry lot of comforters.’ Why? Because they do not offer him appropriate consolations.

That tells us that when we want to comfort our neighbours in their distress and sorrow, we are not to approach them unmindful of their situation, for there are many comforters who, without regard for the person they are addressing, have only one pat thing to say. We must address each person and situation differently. We must speak one way to a person who is stubbornly opposed to God and another way to a pitiful creature who has always walked in simplicity. And depending on what the affliction is, we need to know how to proceed. For example, if men are morally insensitive, we must reproach and reprove their indifference so they will feel God’s hand and humble themselves under it. So we need great wisdom when we want to comfort appropriately those whom God afflicts. That is what we have to remember about this passage when it says that those who were intending to comfort Job were sorry comforters because they offered nothing that could help him. That is the main thing we have to remember.

John Calvin. Sermons on Job, Volume 2: Chapters 15-31 (Kindle Locations 1243-1258). The Banner of Truth Trust.

The Spiritual Chymist, Upon Mixtures (Meditation XLII)

17 Friday Feb 2017

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From The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe, 1666:  Upon Mixtures, Meditation XLII

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The wise God has so tempered the whole as state of man in this life, as that it consists altogether of mixtures. There is no sweet without sour, nurse our without sweetness. All simples [something simple is something without compound or mixture], in any kind, would prove dangerous and be as uncorrected drugs, which administered onto the patient would not recover him, but destroy him. Constant sorrow without any joy would swallow us up; and simple joy without any grief with puff us up: both extremes would agree alike in our ruin. He being in as dangerous a case who is swollen with pride as he was overwhelmed with sorrow.

This mixture then, though it seem penal and prejudicial to our comfort, is yet medicinal and is by God, as a wise physician, ordered as a diet most suitable to our condition. And if we did but look into the grounds of it, we shall find cause to acknowledge God’s Wise providence, and to frame our hearts to a submission of his will without murmuring at what he does.

For have we not two natures in us, the spirit and flesh, the old and new man? Have we not twins in our womb, our counter-lustings and our counter-willings? Are we not as plants that are seated between the two different soils of heaven and earth?

Is there not then a necessity of a mixed diet, that is made up of two contraries? The physician is not less loyal to his prince if he give to him an unpleasing vomit, and to a poor man a cheering cordial, because his applications are not according to the dignity of the person but to the quality of the disease: neither is God the less unkind when he puts into our hand the bitter cup of affliction to drink out of, then when he makes us to taste of the flagons of his sweetest wine.

Paul his thorn in the flesh, what ever the meaning of it be, was useful to keep down the tumor of pride which the abundance of revelations might have exposed him onto (2 Corinthians 12:7); and so join together they were like the rod and the honey which enlightened Jonathan’s eyes (1 Samuel 14:27): when he had tasted the sweetness of the one, God would have him feel the smart of the other. At the same time also when God bless Jacob, he crippled him (Genesis 32:32), that he might not think above what was meet of his own strengths, or ascribe his prevailing to the vehemency of his wrestlings, rather than to God’s gracious condensation.

Yea, who is it that has not experienced such mixtures to be the constant methods which he uses towards his dearest children? What are the lives of the best Christians but as a rainbow which consist half of them moistures of a cloud and half of the light in beams of the Sun?

Weeping, says David, me endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning (Psalm 30:5). And what other thing does the apostles speak of himself, when he gives the Corinthians and account of his condition? As dying, and behold we live: as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, and yet always rejoicing; as poore, yet making many rich; as having nothing, but yet possessing all things (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Blessed then is he who does without repining yield himself to the dispose of divine providence rather then accuse it, (who) looks not so much too what at present as grateful to the sense, as to what for the future will be profitable to the whole. For in these mixtures, Magna latent beneficial et si non fulgeant, Great advantages do lie hid, though not shine forth.

Hereby we are put upon the exercise of all those graces which are accommodated to our imperfect state here below, whose acts shall not be completed in heaven, but shall all cease, as being not capacitated for fruition: and yet are of great use while we are up on this side of heaven. How greatly does hope temper any presents sour by its expectation of some happy change that may end will follow, and so works joy in the midst of sadness? How even to wonder does faith manifest its power in all distresses, when it apprehends that there are no degrees of extremity unrelievable by the arm of God, or inconsistent with his compassions and friendship?

Again, such mixtures serve to work in us a greater hatred of sin and an earnest longings after glory; in which our life, light, joys are all pure and everlasting. Our life is without any seed of death, our light without any shadow of darkness, and our joys endless hallelujahs, without the interruption of one sigh.

We should the more groan to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven (2 Corinthians 5:2). Therefore yet have we the reminders of sin, by which we are unlike God; and the first-fruits only of the Spirit, by which we resemble him; that we might long and wait for the adoption and redemption, wherein whatever is blended and imperfect should be done away. When not to sin, which is here only our duty, shall be the top branch of our reward and blessedness.

Oh holy lord, I complained not of my present lot,
for though it be not free from mixture,
yet it is greatly differing from what others find and feel
whose lines are not falling in so fair a place:
But still I say,
when shall I dwell in that blessed country were sorrows die, and joys cannot?
Into which enemy never entered,
and from which a friend never parted?
When shall I possess that inheritance which is the kingdom for its greatness,
and the city for its beauty,
where there is society without envy,
and rich communications of good without the least diminution?

How Affliction Creates Faith

01 Sunday Jan 2017

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It is a melancholy reflection upon human nature that we have, as the Apostle expresses it elsewhere, to be “shut up” to all the mercies of God. If we could evade them, notwithstanding their freeness and their worth, we would. How do most of us attain to any faith in Providence? Is it not by proving, through numberless experiments, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps? Is it not by coming, again and again, to the limit of our resources, and being compelled to feel that unless there is a wisdom and a love at work on our behalf, immeasurably wiser and more benignant than our own, life is a moral chaos? How, above all, do we come to any faith in redemption? to any abiding trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of our souls? Is it not by this same way of despair? Is it not by the profound consciousness that in ourselves there is no answer to the question, How shall man be just with God? and that the answer must be sought in Him? Is it not by failure, by defeat, by deep disappointments, by ominous forebodings hardening into the awful certainty that we cannot with our own resources make ourselves good men—is it not by experiences like these that we are led to the Cross? This principle has many other illustrations in human life, and every one of them is something to our discredit. They all mean that only desperation opens our eyes to God’s love. We do not heartily own Him as the author of life and health, unless He has raised us from sickness after the doctor had given us up. We do not acknowledge His paternal guidance of our life, unless in some sudden peril, or some impending disaster, He provides an unexpected deliverance. We do not confess that salvation is of the Lord, till our very soul has been convinced that in it there dwells no good thing. Happy are those who are taught, even by despair, to set their hope in God; and who, when they learn this lesson once, learn it, like St. Paul, once for all…. Faith and hope like those which burn through this Epistle were well worth purchasing, even at such a price; they were blessings so valuable that the love of God did not shrink from reducing Paul to despair that he might be compelled to grasp them. Let us believe when such trials come into our lives—when we are weighed down exceedingly, beyond our strength, and are in darkness without light, in a valley of the shadow of death with no outlet—that God is not dealing with us cruelly or at random, but shutting us up to an experience of His love which we have hitherto declined. “After two days will He revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him.”

James Denney

Expositor’s Bible, 2 Corinthians, pp. 25-26, “Faith Born of Despair”

Kierkegaard: Shadowgraphs in Either/Or

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in affliction, Kierkegaard, Philosophy, Uncategorized

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This essay is about 60 pages long in my edition. The essay’s stated concerns has to do with art: “In order, therefore, for a subject to lend itself to artistic representation, it must have a quiet transparency, so that its inner essence resets in a corresponding outer form.” This contrasts with poetry, “art expresses repose, poetry movement.”

This makes joy a better subject for “art” because, “It is of the essence of joy to reveal itself, while grief tries to hide, sometimes even to deceive. Joy is communicative, social, open-hearted, and desires expression; grief is secretive, silent, solitary and seeks to retire into itself.”

The essayist then moves to his true topic, “reflective grief.” This type of grief cannot be displayed in art, because it is “like a squirrel in a cage ….it lacks repose, …”

Such a grief may be the cause of a particular person’s nature, “An abnormally reflective individual will transform every sorrow that comes to him into reflective grief.”

But such a grief may have an objective cause: the loss of love on the basis of deceit. The remainder of the essay are the “shadowgraphs” which demonstrate instances of such reflective grief. This is indirect teaching: I cannot talk about the subject directly, but I can see the reflective elements.

The point in reflective grief is the fact that sorrow is constantly seeking its object; this search is its life and the secret of its unrest….Thus, when unhappy love has its ground in deception, its pain and suffering are due to its inability to find its object. If the deception is proved, and if its victim understand that it is a deception, then the grief does not cease, but it becomes an immediate sorrow, not a reflective one. The dialectical difficulty is readily evident, for why does she grieve? If he was a deceiver, then it was just as well that he left her, the sooner the better; in fact, she should be glad that he had left her, and mourn only because she loved him. But the question whether or not he really was a deceiver is precisely the unrest which gives perpetual motion to her grief. To establish certainty for the external fact that a deception is really a deception, is always very difficult, and even this would by no means settle the matter, or end the movement of reflection. A deception is for love an absolute paradox, and herein lies the necessity for a reflective grief.

The realization that one’s beloved is not really what they seemed — and thus my beloved does not exist – but my love was real….

Another aspect of suffering and hope mingled is added:

When a possibility is destroyed, the suffering for the moment may perhaps not be so great, but it often leaves a small ligament or two whole and uninjured which remains a constant source of continued suffering.