(Afflictions purify believers from sin.)
“And this they do by an efficacy communicated to them by the spirit of God; for by the cross of Christ, they were cut off from the curse of the first covenant, to which all their evils belonged, and implanted into the covenant of grace. The tree of the cross being cast into the waters of affliction, has rendered them wholesome and medicinal. Christ being the head of the covenant, all the afflictions of his members are originally his (Is 63:9), and they all tend to increase our conformity to him in holiness.”
John Owen (puritan), The Holy Spirit; His Gifts and Power, 296.
In Anticipation 