Diseases, aches, sicknesses, pains – Thomas Brooks

Diseases, aches, sicknesses, pains they are all the daughters of sin, and he who is not sensible of them as the births and products of sin, does but add to his sin, and provokes the Lord to add to his sufferings. Is. 26:9-11

No man shall ever be charged by God for feeling his burden, if he neither frets nor faints under it. Grace does not destroy nature but rather perfects it. Grace is of a noble offspring; it neither turns men into stocks nor to stoics. The more grace the more sensible of the tokens, frowns, blows, and lashes of a displeased Father.

Though Calvin, under his greatest pains, was never heard to mutter nor murmur yet he was heard often to say ‘How long, Lord, how long?

A pious commander being shot in battle, when the wound was searched, and the bullet cut out, some standing by, pitying his pain, he replied, ‘Though I groan, yet I bless God I do not grumble.’ God allows His people to groan, though not to grumble. It is a God-provoking sin to lie stupid and senseless under the afflicting hand of God. God will heat that man’s furnace of affliction sevenfold hotter, who is in the furnace but feels it not.