Riches of mercy to men in misery, or, Certain excellent treatises concerning the dignity…

I answer it is a most usual and common thing in the ¹providence of God, and the dispensation of his goodness to his Church, when men are at the lowest ebb in the world, and outwardly, then he makes a more plentiful supply of the inward comforts and consolations of his spirit, Mark, and remember; for now it is not a thing thaty ou must look to find till there be occasion. A man cannot know whether this be true or no till he have experience that the world leave him; when he hath little comfort in the world, then he shall find the truth of this. You heard that place opened at large in the forenoon, 2 Cor. 5. 16. though our outward man perish our inward man ²is renewed day by day. He saith not there, after our outward man is perished, when God hath pulled down the old building, he will build a new house: no, but in the while he takes the ruins a pieces, the timber of the outward ⟨p. 340⟩man, and builds a new house, he makes it up in other comforts, so in 2 Cor. 1. 3. 4. blessed be God the father of ³Christ, &c. Who comforteth us in all our tribulations, he saith not that comforteth us after tribulation, but in the time of tribulation, so in 2 Cor. 11. When I am weak then I am ⁴strong. This sounds as a riddle: that is, when I am full of infirmities, when I am compassed with heavy dangers, I am at the best pass, and strongest in the inward man. So David, Psalm. 94. 14. he saith there, in the midest ⁵of my sorrows and troubles thy comforts refreshed my soul. David stayed not till his sorrow was past; but then when his troubles were about him, the Lords hand was to comfort him. And so diverse other places you shall find to the like purpose.