71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Even though the affliction came from bad men, it was overruled for good ends. It was not good to the proud to be prosperous, for their hearts grew sensual and insensible; but affliction was good for the psalmist. A thousand benefits have come to us through our pains and griefs, and among the rest is this—that we have thus been schooled in the law. That I might learn thy statutes. These we have come to know and to keep by feeling the smart of the rod. We prayed the Lord to teach us (verse 66), and now we see how he has already been doing it. We have been kept from the ignorance of the greasy-hearted by our trials, and this, if there were nothing else, is just cause for constant gratitude. To be larded by prosperity is not good for the proud; but for the truth to be learned by adversity is good for the humble. Very little is to be learned without affliction. There is no royal road to learning the royal statutes; God’s commands are best read by eyes wet with tears.
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