When thou passest through the waters, I [will be] with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
Ver. 2. When thou passest through the waters.] Fire and water, we say, have no mercy when once they get above us; extreme calamities are hereby denoted. Psa 66:12 But God's gracious presence kept the bush from burning - burn it did, but was not consumed, through "the good will of him that dwelt in it" saith Moses Deu 33:16 - the Israelites in the Red Sea from drowning. Exo 14:28-29 His presence made the fiery furnace a gallery of pleasure; the lion's den a house of defence; the Leonine prison a delectable orchard, as that Italian martyr phrased it; the fiery trial a bed of roses, as another, Tua praesentia, Domine, Laurentio ipsam craticulam dulcem feeit. Jerome of Prague and other martyrs sang in the very flames. Blessed Bilney, being condemned to be burned for the testimony of Jesus, when he was comforted by some against the extremity of the fire, put his hand toward the flame of the candle burning before them, and feeling the heat thereof, Oh, said he, I feel by experience, and have learned by philosophy, that fire by God's ordinance is naturally hot. But yet I am persuaded by God's Holy Word, and by the experience of some spoken of in the same, that in the flame they felt no heat, and in the fire no consumption. I constantly believe, that howsoever the stubble of this my body shall be wasted by it, yet my soul and spirit shall be purged thereby; a pain for the time, wherein notwithstanding followeth joy unspeakable; and here he much treated on this text, "Fear not, when thou passest through the waters," &c. So that some of his friends there present took such sweet benefit therein that they caused the whole said sentence to be fair written in tables, and some in their books, the comfort whereof in varions of them was never taken from them to their dying day. a
a Acts and Mon., fol. 923.