The Institution of Christian Religion

With these thoughts it is necessary that the faithful be furnished in bitterness of afflictions.¹ It is time that the judgement began at the house of the Lord, in which his name is called upon. What should the children of God do, if they did believe the severity of God that they feel to be his vengeance? For he that being stricken with the hand of God, imagineth God a punishing judge, can not conceive him but angry and enemy unto him, & detest the very scourge of God as a curse and damnation. Finally he can never be persuaded that God loveth him. it shall think him so minded toward him, that he is still minded to punish him. But he only profiteth under the rod of God, that thinketh him to be angry with his sins, but merciful and loving to himself. For otherwise that must needs happen, which the Prophet complaineth that he felt,² where he saith. Thy wraths, O God have passed over me: thy terrors have oppressed me. Also that which Moses writeth, because we have fainted in thy wrath: and we have ben troubled in thy indignation, thou hast set our iniquities in thy sight, and our secretes in the light of thy countenance: because all our days are gone away in thy wrath: our years are consumed as the word that is passed out of a mouth. On the other side David saith thus of his fatherly chastisements, to teach that the faithful are rather holpen than oppressed thereby:³ Blessed is the man whom thou haste corrected O Lord, & hast instructed in thy law, to give him quiet from evil days, while a pit is digged for the sinner. Truly it is a hard tentation, when God sparing the unbelievers and winking at their faults, seemeth more rigorous against them that be his. Therefore he gave them a cause of comfort, the admonishment of the law, whereby they should learn, that it is done to provide for their salvation when they are called again into the way, and the wicked are carried headlong into their errors, whose end is the pit. And it is no difference whether the pain be everlasting or during for a time. For as well war, famine, pestilence, and sickness as the judgement of eternal death are the curses of God, when they are laid upon men to this end, to be instruments of the Lords wrath and vengeance against the reprobate.

With these thoughtes it is necessarie that the faithful be furnished in bitternesse of afflictions.