Richard Sibbes (Works, Vol. 4, p. 505):
[H]e must needs be rich whose poverty and crosses are made riches to him. God never takes away or withholds outward blessings from his children, but he makes it up in better, in inward. They gain by all their losses, and grow rich by their wants. For how many are there in the world that had not been so rich in grace, if they had had abundance of earthly things? So that though they be poor in the world, they are rich to God, rich in grace, ‘rich in faith,’ as St James saith, James 2:5. The greatest grievances and ills in the world turn to a Christian’s [benefit]: sickness and shame and death. The Spirit of God is like the stone that men talk so of, that turns all into gold. It teacheth us to make a spiritual use, and to extract comfort out of everything. The worst things we can suffer in the world, ‘All things are ours,’ as I said before, even Satan himself. The Spirit of God helps us to make good use of his temptations, to cleave faster to the fountain of good.
