“That God is present everywhere, is as much a comfort to a good man as it is a terror to a wicked one. He is everywhere for His people, not only by a necessary perfection of His nature, but an immense diffusion of His goodness.
He is in all creatures as their preserver, in the damned as their terror, in His people as their protector. He fills hell with His severity, heaven with His glory, His people with His grace.
He is with His people as light in darkness, a fountain in a garden, as manna in the ark. God is in the world as a spring of preservation, in the church as His cabinet, a spring of grace and consolation.
The omnipresence of God is a comfort in sharp afflictions. Good men have a comfort in this presence in their nasty prisons, oppressing tribunals; in the overflowing waters or scorching flames, He is still with them, (Isa. 43:2).
And many times, by His presence, He keeps the bush from consuming, when it seems to be all in a flame. In afflictions, God shows Himself most present when friends are most absent: ‘When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord shall take me up,’ (Ps. 27:10).
Then God will stoop and gather me into His protection; Heb. ‘shall gather me,’ alluding to those tribes that were to bring up the rear in the Israelites’ march, to take care that none were left behind, and exposed to famine or wild beasts, by reason of some disease that disenabled them to keep pace with their brethren.
He that is the sanctuary of His people in all calamities is more present with them to support them, than their adversaries can be present with them, to afflict them: ‘A present help in the time of trouble,’ (Ps. 46:2).”
–Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse Upon God’s Omnipresence,” in The Existence and Attributes of God, in The Works of Stephen Charnock, Vol. 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1681/2010), 1: 450, 452.
