Many times our "thorns" are put there by God to distract us from gross immorality. Such was the case of Basil, as referenced by Flavel in The Mystery of Providence:
Our Christian classics readings from the best divines, with notices biographical and critical, by J. Hamilton By Christian classics, James Hamilton
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In 1832, after reading the life of Jonathan Edwards, Robert Murray McCheyne was deeply humbled. He related this experience in his diary: "How feeble my spark of Christianity appears beside such a sun! But even his was a borrowed light, and the same source is still open to enlighten me."