But I fhall not infift upon these specula

tions, which, when they are most refined, serve only to fhew, how impoffible it is for us, to have a clear and explicit notion of that which is infinite. Let it fuffice us in general, to acknowledge and adore the vast compass of God's understanding; that it is a light shining into every dark corner, ripping up all fecrets, and ftedfastly grasping the greatest and most flippery uncertainties.

Look upon things of the most accidental and changeable nature, accidental in their production, and changeable in their continuance; yet God's foreknowledge of them is as certain in him, as the memory of them is or can be in us. He knows which way the lot and the dye fhall fall, as perfectly as if they were already caft. All futurities are naked before that all-seeing eye, the fight of which is not hindered by distance of place, or by length of time.

And this makes way for the

IID THING I proposed to speak to; namely, that as all contingencies are comprehended by a certain divine knowledge, fo they are governed by as certain and steady a providence,

2

There

There is no wandering out of the reach of God's providence; no flipping out of the hands of his almighty power. God's hand is as fteady as his eye. And certainly, thus to reduce contingency to method, inftability and chance itself to an unfailing rule and order, argues fuch a mind as is fit to rule and govern the world; and indeed, nothing less than fuch an one can govern it.

Providence never fhoots at uncertainties: There is an arrow that flieth by night, as well as by day: And God is the person that directs the fame, who can aim then as well as in the day time. Things are not left to hover under an indifference, whether they fhall come to pafs, or not come to pass; but the whole train of events is laid beforehand, and all proceed by the rule and limit of God's direction. For otherwife, he could not manage the affairs of the world, and govern the dependence of one event upon another; if that event happened at random, and was not caft into a certain method, and relation to fome foregoing purpose to direct it.

The reason why men are fo fhort and weak in governing, is, because most things

fall

fall out to them accidentally, and come not into any compliance with the schemes which they had laid; but they are forced to com-: ply with chance and casualties, and to strike in with things as they fall out, by afterapplications of them to their purposes, or by framing their purpofes to them.

But now there is not the least thing that falls within the.cognizance of man, but is directed by the counfel of God. Not an hair can fall from our head, not a Sparrow to the ground, without the will of our heavenly father: Such an univerfal fuperintendency,.. hath the eye and hand of providence over all, even the most minute and inconfiderable things.

Nay, and finful actions too, are overruled to a certain iffue. Even that horrid villany of the crucifixion of our Saviour, was not a thing left to the difpofal of chance and uncertainty: But St. Luke, in his hiftory of the acts of the apoftles, relates concerning him, that he was delivered to the wicked hands of his murderers, by the deter-minate counsel and foreknowledge of God. For furely the fon of God could not die by chance; nor the greatest thing that ever

came

came to pafs in nature, be left to an undeterminate event. It is not imaginable, that the great means of the world's redemption fhould rest only in the number of poffibilities, and hang fo loose in respect of its issue, as to leave the event in an equal poife, whether ever there fhould be fuch a thing or no,

Even the actions and proceedings of wife men run in a much greater clofeness and coherence with one another, than thus to drive at a cafual iffue, brought under no forecast or defign. The pilot must intend fome port, before he fteers his course; or otherwise he had as good leave his veffel to the direction of the winds, and the government of the waves.

Thus therefore, if we allow God to be the governor of the world, we cannot but grant, that he orders and difpofes of all inferior events; and if we allow him to be a wife and rational governor, he cannot but direct them to a certain end.

Yea, he directs them oftentimes to very great ends. He that created fomething out of nothing, can as easily raife great things out of small; and bring all the scattered and difordered

difordered paffages of affairs, into a great, beautiful, and exact frame.

If we reflect upon the rife, continuance, and diffolution of nations and governments; it is ftrange and wonderful to confider, by what fmall and inconfiderable means they are oftentimes brought about; and those means wholly undefigned, by those who are the immediate actors in them.

As for example: Let us reflect upon that frange and unparalleled hiftory of Jofeph and his brethren; an history that feems to be made up of nothing else but chances, and little contingencies, all directed to mighty ends. For was it not a mere chance, that his father Jacob should send him to visit his brethren, juft at that time that the Ifhmaelites were to pass that way; and fo his unnatural brethren take occafion to fell him to them, and they to carry him into Egypt? and then that he should be caft into prison, and thereby brought at length to the knowledge of Pharaoh, in that unlikely manner that he was? Yet by a joint connection of every one of these cafual events, providence ferved itself in the prefervation of a whole kingdom from famine. Likewife, by their

fojourning