5. Fifthly, There is a judicial or wrathful 'presence of the Lord; and thus he is present with wicked men, sometimes blinding of them, sometimes hardening of them, sometimes leaving of them to their own heart's lusts, sometimes giving them up to their own heart's lusts, sometimes filling their faces with shame, and their consciences with terrors.* He is judicially present with wicked men by a particular observation of their persons and ways, Ps. xxxiii. 13, 14 ; Job xxxiv. 21, 22. He sees who they are, and how they are employed against his honour, his interest, his saints, his ways, and by a special detesta- tion of their persons and ways, &c. But this is not that presence that at this time falls under our consideration ; and therefore,
1 See Ps. xlvi. 4, 5 ; Cant. vii. 5 ; Joel iii. 21 ; Zech. ii. 10, 11, and viii. 3 ; Ps. cxxxv. 21.
2 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16 ; Heb. iii. 6 ; 1 Pet. ii. 5 ; Rev. ii. 1.
' Job xvi. 19 ; 2 Thes. i. 9 ; Ps. xvi. 11; 1 Tim. vi. 14-16 ; Eev. iii. 21. ♦ See Exod. ix. 14 ; Isa. vi. 9, 10, and Ixiv. 1-4; Ps. Ixxxi. 12 ; 2 Thes. ii. 11, 12 ; Ps. Ixviii. 2 ; Jer. iv. 26 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 20 ; Hab. i. 12.
460 THE SIGNAL PRESENCE OF GOD
6. Sixthly and lastly, There is a gracious^ a favourable, a signal, or emine7if presence of the Lord ivith his faithful people in their greatest troubles, deepest distresses, and most deadly dangers, as the Scriptures do everywhere evidence, i Take a taste of some : Gen. xxxix. 20, ' And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound, and he was there in the prison ; ' ver. 21, ' But the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison.' A prison keeps not God from his. Witness the apostles and martyrs, whose prisons, by God's presence, became palaces, and their stocks a music- school. Acts xvi. 25. Bradford, after he was put in prison, had better health than before, and found great favour with his keeper, who suf- fered him to go whither he would upon his promise to return by such an hour to his prison again. ^ If men knew by experience the sweet that is in suffering for Christ, they would desire with Chrysostom, if it were put to their choice, rather to be Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ than Paul rapt up in the third heaven. Basil, in his oration for Bar- laam,3 that famous martyr, saith, ' He delighted in the close prison as in a pleasant green meadow, and he took pleasure in the several in- ventions of tortures, as in several sweet flowers.' Luther reports of that martyr, St Agatha, that as she went to prisons and tortures, she said she went to banquets and nuptials. The sun enlightens the world, saith Cyprian, but he that made the sun is a greater light to you in prison, &c. Fire, sword, prisons, famines, are pleasure, they are all delightful to me, saith Basil. Paul rattles his chain which he bears for the gospel, and was as proud of it as a woman of her ornaments, saith Chrysostom. 4 Paul and Silas in a prison found more pleasure than pain, more joy than sorrow, and when they were whipped, it was with rosemary branches, as I may say. Paul greatly rejoiced in his suffer- ings for Christ, and therefore often sings out, ' I, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ,' not I, Paul, rapt up in the third heaven. Christ shewed his great love to him in rapping him up in the third heaven, and he shewed his great love to Christ in a cheerful suffering for him. Euse- bius tells of one that writ to his friend from a stinking dungeon, and dated his letter ' From my delicate orchard.' Mr Glover the martyr wept for joy of his imprisonment ; and God forgive me, said Mr Bradford when a prisoner, my unthankfulness for this exceeding great mercy, that among so many thousands he chooseth me to be one in whom he will suffer. I was carried to the coal-house, saith Mr Phil- pot, the martyr, where I with my fellows do rouse together in the straw as cheerfully, we thank God, as others do in their beds of down.^ Philip, landgrave of Hesse, being along time prisoner under Charles the Fifth, was asked what upheld him in his long imprisonment. He answered that he felt the divine consolations of the martyrs: Gen. xlix. 23, ' The archers,' or, as the Hebrew here hath it, the arrow-masters, ' have sorely gi'ieved him, and shot at him, and hated him.' These arrow- masters were his barbarous brethren that sold him, his adulterous
' The compassionate parent is most with the sick child ; so here. » [Foxe,] Acts and Mon., fol. 1489, and 1457. ' Clarke, as before, 66. — G.
•» Eph. vi. 20 ; 2 Tim. i. 16 ; Acts xv. 26, 29 ; Phil. i. 7, 13, 14, 16 ; Col. iv. 3, 18 ; 2 Tim. ii. 9, &c. * [Foxe,] Acts and Mon., fol. 1633.
WITH HIS PEOPLE IN THEIR GREATEST TROUBLES. 461