"As for us, there are many reasons why we must pass our lives under a continual cross. First, as we are by nature too inclined to attribute everything to our flesh - unless our feebleness be shown as it were to our eyes - we readily esteem our virtue above its due measure. And we do not doubt, whatever happens, that against all difficulties it will remain unbroken and unconquered. Hence we are lifted up into stupid and empty confidence in the flesh, and relying upon it, we are then insolently proud against God Himself, as if our own powers were sufficient without his grace.He can best restrain this arrogance when he proves to us by experience not only the great incapacity but also the frailty under which we labor. Therefore, he afflicts us with either disgrace or poverty, or bereavement or disease, or other calamities. Utterly unequal to bearing these, in so far as they touch us, we soon succumb to them. Thus humbled, we learn to call upon his power, which alone makes us stand fast under the weight of afflictions. But even the most holy persons, however much they may recognize that they stand not through their own strength but through God'sg race are too sure of their own fortitude and constancy unless by the testing of the cross he bring them into a deeper knowledge of himself."John Calvin