Seventhly, The strange, miraculous, and wonderful preservation ⟨p. 166⟩§7of the lives and blood of the Just, speaks out their 1blood to be precious blood. Who can sum up the many Miracles of divine Love, Power, Wisdom, and Care, &c. that God manifested in the preservation of Joseph in the Prison, Jeremiah in the Dungeon, Daniel in the Den, and the three Children in the fiery Furnace, and not say, surely the blood of the Saints is very precious in the eyes of the Lord? I have read of a certain Witch that sent her Spirits to kill Ambrose; but they returned her this Answer, That God had hedged him in as he did Job, and therefore they could not touch him, they could not hurt him. Another came with a drawn Sword to his Bed-side to have killed him, but he could not stir his hand, till repenting, he was by the prayer of Ambrose restored to the use of his hand again. For Luther (saith my Author) a poor Friar to stand it out against the Pope and all the Power of Rome, was a great miracle, and that he should prevail against all that Power, was a greater, and that after all, he should dye in his bed, was the greatest of all. There are many thousand Instances more of the like nature, but enough is as good as a Feast.
Seventhly, The strange, miraculous, and wonderful preservation ⟨p. 166⟩§7of the lives and blood of the Just, speaks out their 1blood to be precious blood. Who can sum up the many Miracles of divine Love, Power, Wisdom, and Care, &c. that God manifested in the preservation of Joseph in the Prison, Jeremiah in the Dungeon, Daniel in the Den, and the three Children in the fiery Furnace, and not say, surely the blood of the Saints is very precious in the eyes of the Lord? I have read of a certain Witch that sent her Spirits to kill Ambrose; but they returned her this Answer, That God had hedged him in as he did Job, and therefore they could not touch him, they could not hurt him. Another came with a drawn Sword to his Bed-side to have killed him, but he could not stir his hand, till repenting, he was by the prayer of Ambrose restored to the use of his hand again. For Luther (saith my Author) a poor Fryar to stand it out against the Pope and all the Power of Rome, was a great miracle, and that he should prevail against all that Power, was a greater, and that after all, he should dye in his bed, was the greatest of all. There are many thousand Instances more of the like nature, but enough is as good as a Feast.
- 1Hesiod speaks of thirty thousand Demi-Gods that were keepers of men; but what are so many thousand Gods to that one God that neither slumbers nor sleeps, but day and night keeps his people as the apple of his eye, Zeph. 5. 8. As his Jews, Mal. 3. 17. that keeps them in his Pavilion, as a Prince his Favourite, Psal. 31. 20.
