He continues: ‘So then, why has God set us in this world? Is it not so that we should know him to be our Father and that we should bless him because we are sure that he has a care of us? But on the contrary it is to be seen that many men are afflicted and tormented with many miseries. Why does God keep them in this condition? It seems that he would have his name to be blasphemed. What can they do who are treated so roughly? When they see death before their eyes, or rather have it between their teeth, they cannot help but fret and chafe at it. So we see an occasion for murmuring against God and it seems that he himself is the cause of it. Here we have a very good and profitable lesson: which is that we should assure ourselves that when God scourges us, he does not cease to give us some taste of his goodness, so that even in the midst of our afflictions we may still praise him and rejoice in him. Nevertheless, it is true that he restrains our joys and turns them into bitterness. But there is a middle path between blessing God’s name and blaspheming it, which is to call upon him when we are oppressed with adversity and to resort to him desiring him to receive us in mercy. But men can never keep to this middle path, unless God enables us to keep it when he scourges us.’
Is it lawful for the faithful to desire their own death? No, says Calvin, except in one respect. We may desire death because it will free us from the bondage of sin, and allow us to serve God as we should, but we may not desire it because we hate life, or because we are weary of being held here when we are handled so rigorously. We must bear our lot patiently, waiting for the time of when God is pleased to deliver us. We see that Paul has the same attitude when he says to the Romans, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 7:24-25).