The German knight, in his apologetical letter for Luther against the pontifical clergy, saith, ' I will go through with what I have under- taken against you, and will stir up men to seek their freedom. I neither care nor fear what may befall me, being prepared for either event, either to ruin you to the great benefit of my country, or myself to fall with a good conscience,' &c.
William Flower the martyr said, ' That the heavens should as soon fall as I will forsake my profession, or budge in the least degree from it.'
Apollonius being asked, * If he did not tremble at the sight of the tyrant,' made this answer, ' God, which gave him a terrible counte- nance, hath given also unto me an undaunted heart.'
When Gardiner asked Kowland Taylor if he did not know him, &c., to whom he answered, * Yea, I know you, and all your greatness, yet you are but a mortal man ; and if I should be afraid of your lordly looks, why fear ye not God the Lord of us all ?'
Basil affirms of the primitive Christians, that they had so much courage and magnanimity of spirit in their sufferings, that many heathens, seeing their heroic zeal, resoluteness, and undauntedness, turned Christians.
When one of the ancient martyrs was terrified with the threatenings of his persecutors, he replied, ' There is nothing of things visible, nor nothing of things invisible, that I fear ; I will stand to my profession of the name of Christ, and contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, come on it what will,' ^
By these instances, which may be of great use in this trying day, you may clearly see how the Lord has manifested his favourable, signal, and eminent presence to his people in their greatest troubles, deepest distresses, and most deadly dangers, by raising up in them a spirit of courage, magnanimity, and holy gallantry. But,
(7.) Seventhly, The Lord doth manifest his favourable, signal, and eminent presence to his people in their greatest troubles, deepest dis- tresses, and most deadly dangers, by preserving them from troubles m the midst of troubles, from dangers in the midst of dangers : Dan. iii. 25, ' He answered, and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.' The presence of the Son of God preserves these three valiant champions from dangers in the midst of dangers. * They fell down bound in the fiery furnace,' saith my author, [Polanus,] ' and they walked loose in the midst of the fire without any hurt, for the angel of the Lord descended together with them in the same moment, who shook the flames of the fire forth out of the furnace, and pre- served the servants of God safe without any trouble, being cooled, as it were, with a dew coming upon them in a pleasant manner.' But give me leave to say, that these words, ' One like the Son of God,' doth not argue that in this vision there was not a representation of the Son of God to come afterwards in the flesh, but rather that this great mys- ^ Foxe and Clarke for all these names, as before. — G. '
478 THE SIGNAL PRESENCE OF GOD
tery was here shewed for the greater comfort of the faithful, that they might courageously bear all their sufferings, having the Prince and Head both of angels and men present with them herein to mitigate their pains, and carry them through with joy ; this being a greater wonder of grace and love than to have the protection of a mere angel, concerning whose power also, whether he can change the nature of fire, that it shall not burn, is very doubtful and questionable, seeing this argueth omnipotency, which is in God alone, and not communi- cable to any creature. Where, by the way, you may observe a strong and solid argument to prove that Jesus is the Son of God against all gainsayers, thus : he whom Nebuchadnezzar saw in the fiery furnace was the Son of God in a human shape ; but he was typically Jesus, ergo, &c. The major is proved, because he did that which none but God could do, viz., he qualified the most fierce and raging fire, which burned up some coming but near it, and had no power, at the same instant of time, so much as to singe a hair of the heads of others. The minor is proved also, because God, appearing in a glorious human shape at any time, was not God the Father or Holy Ghost, but God the Son ; for ' no man hath seen God at any time,' John i. 18 ; 1 Tim. vi. 16 ; 1 John iv. 12 ; but the Son hath revealed him, both when in him appearing in a human shape under the law, and when, under the Gospel, shewing himself in the man Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, and hypostatically united unto him : Exod. iii. 2, ' And the angel of the Lord/ that is, Christ, the angel of the covenant, ' appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush ; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not con- sumed ;' ver. 3, ' And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.' ^ The Hebrew word Seneh which is here used signifies a dry bush, a bramble bush, whence the mount and wilderness is called Sinai, of the store of brambles that grew there, or of this bush or vision. Now for a bush, a dry bush, a bramble bush, to be all on fire and yet not consumed, this must be a wonder of wonders ; but all this is from the good will * of him that dwelt in the bush.' Out of these two verses we may briefly observe these few things: —
[1.] First, 2Vie low, and weak, and brittle estate of the church, re- presented by a bush, a dry bush, a bramble bush. What more brittle, weak, base, low, and despicable than a dry bush, a bramble bush ? What is such a bush good for but the fire, or to stop a gap, or some such inferior use ? A bush is a black, deformed, and uncomely thing. Corruption and affliction, sin and suffering, renders the saints very uncomely. The church is compared not to a strong, sturdy oak, but to a weak, brittle bush ; and elsewhere to a vine, a dove, a lamb, a sheep, &c., all frail, weak creatures. It is good for all saints to have low and mean thoughts of themselves, for here they are resembled to a dry bush, a bramble bush. But,
[2.] Secondly, A dry bush, a bramble bush, pricks, wounds, and vexes them that handle it roughly. This bush is in Hebrew called Seneh, as I have hinted before, which the Hebrews describe to be a shrub full of pricks, and without fruit, and so thick that a bird cannot
^ Christ is called the Messenger or Angel of the Covenant, Mai. iii. 1.
WITH HIS PEOPLE IN THEIR GREATEST TROUBLES. 479