A29709:233
A word in season to this present generation, or, A sober and serious discourse…
A word in season to this present generation, or, A sober and serious discourse about the favourable, signal and eminent presence of the Lord with his people in their greatest troubles, deepest distresses, and most deadly dangers : with the resolution of several questions, concerning the divine presence, as also the reasons and improvements of this great and glorious truth ... / by Thomas Brooks ...A word in season to this present generation, or, A sober and serious discourse about the favorable, signal and eminent presence of the Lord with his people in their greatest troubles, deepest distresses, and most deadly dangers : with the resolution of several questions, concerning the divine presence, as also the reasons and improvements of this great and glorious truth ... / by Thomas Brooks ...
London: printed for Dorman Newman, 1675
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
O but if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. I will bring thee to the Paradise of the world, to a place of pleasure and delight, to Canaan a Type of Heaven: O but if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. O Lord, if I might have my wish, my desire, my choice, I had infinitely rather to live in a barren, howling wilderness with thy presence, then in Canaan without it. It is a mercy to have an Angel to Guard us, it is a mercy to have our Enemies sprawling under our feet, it is a mercy to be brought into a pleasant Land: O but if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. Lord nothing will please us, nothing will profit us, nothing will secure us, nothing-will satisfy us without thy presence; and therefore if thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence. I have read of the Tyrians, that they bound their Gods with chains, that they might not in their greatest need pass over to the Enemy; and among the rest they chained and nailed their God Apollo to a post, that they might be sure to keep their Idol, because they thought their safety was in it. I am sure our safety, our comfort, our all lies in the signal presence of God with us; and therefore let us by Faith and Prayer chain God to us, if we let him go, a thousand worlds cannot make up his absence. I suppose you have heard of the Palladium of the Heathens in Troy, they imagined that so long as that Idol was kept safe, they were inconquerable, all the strength and power of Greece were never able to prevail against them; wherefore the Grecians sought by all the means they could to get it from them. O my Friends, so long as you keep the presence of God with you, I am sure you are unconquerable; but if God withdraw his presence, the weakest Enemy will be too hard for you, yea wounded men will prevail over you. Jer. 37. 10. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up and burn this City with fire. The Bush, which was a Type ⟨p. 168⟩of the Church, consumed not while it burned with fire, because God was in the midst of it. O do but keep God in the midst of you, and nothing shall hurt you, nothing shall burn you; but if God depart, nothing can secure •ou, nor nothing can make up his withdrawing from you. But