8 ER M. men; who therefore have misapprehended, have dif XXII. relifhed, have fretted and murmured at the proceedings of God: we might inftance in Job, in David, in Elias, in Jonah, in the holy Apoftles themselves, by whofe fpeeches and deportments in fome cafes, it may appear how difficult it is for us, who have Job x. 4. eyes of flesh, as Job fpeaketh, and hearts too never quite freed of carnality, to fee through, or fully to acquiefce in the dealings of God. Luke ix. 54. It is indeed a diftemper incident to us, which we can hardly fhun, or cure, that we are apt to measure the equity and expedience of things according to our opinions and paffions; affecting confequently to impofe on God our filly imaginations as rules of his proceeding, and to conftitute him the executioner of our forry paffions: what we conceit fit to be done, that we take God bound to perform; when we feel ourselves stirred, then we prefume God must be alike concerned to our apprehenfions every flight inconvenience is a huge calamity, every scratch of fortune is a ghaftly wound; God therefore, we think, fhould have prevented it, or must presently remove it; every pitiful bauble, every trivial accommodation is a matter of high confequence, which if God withhold, we are ready to clamour on him, and wail as children for want of a trifle. Are we foundly angry, or enflamed with zeal? then fire must come down from heaven, then thunder-bolts muft fly about, then nothing but fudden woe and vengeance are denounced: Are we pleased? then fhowers of bleffings must defcend on the heads, then floods of wealth muft run into the laps of our favourites, otherwise we are not satisfied; and fcarce can deem God awake, or mindful of his charge. We do beyond measure hate or despise fome perfons, and to those God muft not afford any favour, any mercy, any forbearance, or time of repentance: we exceffively admire or dote on others, and thofe God muft not touch or crofs: if he doth not proceed thus, thus, he is in danger to forfeit his authority: he s ERM. muft hardly be allowed to govern the world, in cafe XXII. he will not fquare his adminiftrations to our fond conceit, or froward humour: hence no wonder, that men often are stumbled about Providence; for God will not rule according to their fancy or pleasure, (it would be a mad world if he should,) neither indeed could he do fo if he would, their judgments and their defires being infinitely various, inconfiftent, and repugnant. Again, 4. The nature of those inftruments which divine Providence doth use in the adminiftration of human affairs, hindereth us from difcerning it it is an obfervation among philofophers, that the footsteps of divine wisdom are, to exclufion of doubt, far more confpicuous in the works of nature, than in the management of our affairs; fo that fome who by contemplation of natural appearances were convinced of God's existence and his protection of the world, (who thence could not doubt but that an immense wifdom had erected the beautiful frame of heaven and earth, had ranged the ftars in their order and courses, had formed the bodies and fouls of animals, Diod. Sic. 1. had provided for the fubfiftence and propagation of xv. p. 482. each species, had fettled and doth uphold the vifible world in its fo comely and convenient ftate, that even fuch men,) reflecting on the courfe of human tranfactions, have staggered into diftruft, whether a divine wifdom doth fit at the helm of our affairs; many thence hardly would admit God to be concerned in XV. --rurfus labefa&ta cadebat Religio, &c. Claud, in Ruff. 1. them, SER M. them, but fuppofed him to commit their conduct to XXII. a fatal fwinge, or a cafual fluctuation of obvious causes: one great reafon of this difference may be, that whereas the inftruments of divine power in nature are in themselves merely paffive, or act only as they are acted by pure neceffity, (as a pen in writing, or a hammer in ftriking,) being thence determinate, uniform, conftant, and certain in their operation; whenever there any footsteps of counsel, any tendency to an end, and deviation from the common tracks of motion do appear, fuch effects cannot reasonably be imputed merely to natural causes, but to a fuperior wisdom, wielding them in fuch a manner, and teering them to fuch a mark: but the vifible engines of Providence in our affairs are self-moving agents, working with knowledge and choice; the which, as in themselves they are indeterminate, irregular, and uncertain; so they are capable to be diverfified in numberlefs unaccountable ways, according to various reprefentations of objects, or by influence of divers principles inclining to judge and choose. differently: temper, humour, paffion, prejudice, cuftom, example, together with contingencies of occafion, (depending on like principles in adjacent free caufes,) do move fingly or combinedly, in ways fo implicate, to the various production of fo various events, that nothing hardly can fall out, which may not with some plaufible colour of reafon be derived from fome one of thofe fources, or from a complication of them: nothing can appear fo uncouth or extravagant, which may not be fathered on fome fetch of wit, or fome hit of fancy, or capricio of humour, or fome tranfport of paffion, or fome lucky advantage, or on divers of thofe confpiring; whence in accounting for the reafon of fuch events, men deem they may leave out Providence as fuperfluous; efpecially confidering, that usually disorders and defects, only imputable to man's will, do accompany and further fuch events.. For Pfal. cv. 17. Job i. 15, For inftance, what other caufe would many think SER M. needful to affign for the conveyance of Jofeph into xx11. Egypt, than the envy of his brethren; for Shimei's Gen. xlv. 5. reviling David, than his base malignity; for David's. 20. numbering the people, than his wanton pride; for 2 Sam. xvi. Jeroboam's revolt, than his unruly ambition; for 10. Job's being robbed, than the thievifh difpofition of Kings xii. the Arabs; for his being diseased, than a redundance 15, 24. of bad humours; for our Lord's fuffering, than the &c. fpiteful rage of the Jewish rulers and people; toge- Acts ii. 23. ther with the treacherous avarice of Judas, and the corrupt eafinefs of Pilate? Thefe events all of them are afcribed to God's hand and fpecial ordination; but men could not fee or avow it in them: what need, will men ever fay, in fuch cafes to introduce God's aid, when human means fuffice to achieve the feat? 5. Indeed, as in nature, the influences of heaven, and of inferior caufes, fo commonly in the production of thefe events, divine and human agency are so knit and twisted one with the other, that it is not eafy to discriminate them, fo as to fever the bounds of common and special Providence; or to difcern what God performeth by natural inftruments, what by fuperior efficacy; when the balance turneth from our inclinations, when it is caft from a grain thrown in by divine interpofition; the management of thefe affairs being a concert, wherein God's wifdom beareth one part, man's free-will playeth another; fortune and occafion alfo do ftrike in; we not seeing the first, are prone to afcribe all the harmony to the laft, which are moft obvious and visible. 6. The more apt are we to do thus, because the manner of divine efficacy is ever very foft and gentle : God difpofeth things fortiter et fuaviter; fo as ef- Sap. viii. 1. fectually to perform what he defigneth, but in the · Θεὸς μὲν πάντα, καὶ μετὰ Θεὸν τύχη καὶ καιρὸς τὰ ἀνθρώπινα κυβερ ass x xensãs. moft 15. d fo SERM. most sweet and eafy way: his providence doth not 9. xx. 24. Job xxxiii. 8. Prov. xxi. I. 5. 7. God, in his progrefs toward the achievement Θεῦ τινος ἐμβάλλοντος εἰς νοῦν ἀνθρώπῳ. Plut. Timol. lefs |