All honey would harm us; all wormwood would undo us – a composition of both is the best way to keep our souls in a healthy constitution. It is best and most for the health of the soul – that the warm south wind of mercy, and the cold north wind of adversity – do both blow upon it. And though every wind which blows, shall blow good to the saints; yet certainly their sins die most, and their graces thrive best, when they are under the frigid, drying, nipping north wind of calamity, as well as under the warm, nourishing south wind of mercy and prosperity.
— Thomas Brooks (1608–1680), Puritanischer Prediger
Topics: Suffering & the Question of God, Growth & Character, God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit
Occasions: For Reflection
Thomas Brooks
Thomas Brooks war ein englischer puritanischer Prediger und nonkonformistischer Geistlicher, der im 17. Jahrhundert in London wirkte und 1662 im Zuge der Uniformitätsakte sein Pfarramt verlor. Bekannt ist er für seine bildhaften seelsorgerlichen Schriften über geistliche Anfechtung, Heilsgewissheit und Trost im Leiden, wobei er in seiner Gemeindepraxis eine strikte Sakramentsdisziplin durchsetzte. Für heutige Bibelleser bietet sein Werk ein exemplarisches Zeugnis puritanischer Seelsorge und praktischer Theologie zur Bewältigung innerer Krisen.
All quotes by Thomas Brooks (84)
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
Henri Nouwen
Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal.
Henri Nouwen
C.S. Lewis
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
Henri Nouwen
He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Etty Hillesum
God writes straight even on crooked lines.
Paul Claudel
God lets us walk no path that he himself has not walked, and on which he does not go ahead of us.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer