The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^10. “In tribulation you called on Me, and I delivered you”. Let each Christian conscience recognise itself, if it have devoutly passed the Red Sea, if with faith in believing and observing it has heard a strange language which it knew not, let it recognise itself as having been heard in its tribulation. For that was a great tribulation, to be weighed down with loads of sins. How does the conscience, lifted from the earth, rejoice. Lo, you are baptized, your conscience which was yesterday overladen, today rejoices you. You have been heard in tribulation, remember your tribulation. Before you came to the water, what anxiety did you bear on you! What fastings did you practise! What tribulations did you carry in your heart! What inward, pious, devout prayers! Slain are your enemies; all your sins are blotted out. In tribulation you called upon Me, and I delivered you.

11. “I heard you in the hidden part of the tempest.” Not in a tempest of the sea, but in a tempest of the heart. “I proved you in the water of contradiction.” Truly, brethren, truly, he that was heard in the hidden part of the tempest ought to be proved in the water of contradiction. For when he has believed, when he has been baptized, when he has begun to go in the way of God, when he has striven to be strained into the vat, and has drawn himself out from the lees that run in the street, he will have many disturbers, many insulters, many detractors, many discouragers, many that even threaten where they can, that deter, that depress. This is all the “water of contradiction.” I suppose there are some here today, for instance, I think it likely there are some here whom their friends wished to hurry away to the circus, and to I know not what triflings of this day's festivity: perchance they have brought those persons with them to church. But whether they have brought those with them, or whether they have by them not permitted themselves to be led away to the circus, in the “water of contradiction” have they been tried. Do not then be ashamed to proclaim what you know, to defend even among blasphemers what you have believed....However much the bad that are aliens may rage, O that our own bad people would not help them!

You recollect what was said of Christ, that He was thus born for “the fall of many, and the rising again of many, and for a sign to be spoken against.” We know, we see: the sign of the Cross has been set up, and it has been spoken against. There has been speaking against the glory of the Cross: but there was a title over the Cross which was not to be corrupted. For there is a title in the Psalm, “For the inscription of the title, corrupt thou not.” It was a sign to be spoken against: for the Jews said, “Make it not, King of the Jews, but make it, that He said I am the King of the Jews.” Conquered was the contradiction; it was answered, “What I have written, I have written.”