A word in season to this present generation, or, A sober and serious discourse…

Eighthly, To move you so to order, demean, and carry ¹your selves, as that you may enjoy the gracious presence of God with you, in your greatest troubles and ⟨p. 177⟩deepest distresses, consider, that troubles will be no troubles, distresses will be no distresses, dangers will be no dangers, if you can but secure the presence of God with you: Mountains will be mole-hills, stabs at the heart will be but as scratches upon the hand, if the Divine presence be with you; Gods signal presence will turn storms into calms, winter-nights into summer-days, prisons into palaces, banishments into enlargements; The favourable presence of God will turn sickness into health, weakness into strength, poverty into plenty, and death into life. It can never be night so long as the Sun shines, no afflictions, no trials can make it night with a Christian, so long as he enjoys the presence of God with his spirit. ²That Courtier needs not complain that this man slights him, and that the other neglects him, who enjoys the delightful presence of his Prince. When Sampson had the presence of God with him, he made nothing of carrying the gates of the City with the posts and bars to the ³top of an hill: So whilst a Christian enjoys the singular presence of God with him, he will make nothing of this affliction and that, of this trouble and that, of this loss and that; This presence makes heavy afflictions light, ⁴and long afflictions short, and bitter afflictions sweet. It ⁵was this presence that made the Martyrs set light by all the great and grievous things, that they suffered for Christs sake and the Gospels sake. Gods gracious presence makes every condition to be a little Heaven to the believing soul. A man in misery without this gracious presence of God, is in a very hell on this side hell; there is nothing, there can be nothing but Heaven where God is signally present. But,