1. As the dealings of very wife men fometimes are S ER M. founded upon maxims, and admit juftifications not XXII. obvious, nor penetrable by vulgar conceit; fo may God act according to rules of wisdom and juftice; which it may be quite impoffible by our faculties to apprehend, or with our means to defcry. As there are natural modes of being and operation (fuch as God's neceffary fubfiftence, his production of things from nothing, his eternity without fucceffion, his immenfity without extenfion, his prefcience without neceffitation of events, his ever acting, but never changing; and the like), fo there may be prudential and moral rules of proceeding far above our reach; fo God himself telleth us: As the heavens are Ifa. lv. g. higher than the earth, fo are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Some of them we may be incapable to know, because of our finite nature; they being peculiar objects of divine wifdom, and not to be understood by any creature: for as God cannot impart the power of doing all things poffible, fo may he not communicate the faculty of knowing all things intelligible; that being indeed to ungod himself, or to deprive himself of his 1 Tim. i. peerless fupremacy in wifdom; hence is he ftyled the Rom. xvi. only wife God; hence is he faid to dwell in light inac-27. ceffible; hence he chargeth the angels with folly; hence Jude 25. the most illuminate feraphims do veil their faces before him. 1 Tim. vi. 16. Job iv. 18. Other fuch rules we may not be able to perceive from the meannefs of our nature, or our low rank among creatures; for beneath omniscience there being innumerable forms of intelligence, in the lowest of these we fit, one remove from beafts; being endowed with capacities fuitable to that inferior station, and to those meaner employments, for which we were defigned and framed; whence our mind hath a pitch, beyond which it cannot foar; and things pr. ciii. 20. clearly intelligible to more noble creatures, moving 2 Pet. ii. in a higher orb, may be dark and inexplicable to us: 1. SER M. As an angel of God, fo is my lord the King, to difcern XXII. good and bad, was an expreffion importing this difference, how thofe glorious creatures do overtop us 2 Sam. xiv. in intellectual capacities. 17.20. xix. 27. Alfo divers notions not fimply paffing our capacity to know, we are not yet in condition to ken, by reafon of our circumftances here, in this dark corner of things, to which we are confined, and wherein we lie under many disadvantages of attaining knowledge. He that is fhut up in a clofe place, and can only peep through chinks, who ftandeth in a valley, and hath his profpect intercepted, who is encompaffed with fogs, who hath but a dufky light to view things by, whofe eyes are weak or foul, how can he fee much or far; how can he difcern things remote, minute, or fubtile, clearly and diftinctly? Such is our cafe; our mind is pent up in the body, and looketh only through thofe clefts by which objects ftrike our fenfe; its intuition is limited within a very fmall compass; it refideth in an atmofphere of fancy, ftuffed with exhalations from temper, appetite, patfion, intereft; its light is fcant and faint (for fenfe and experience do reach only fome few grofs matters of fact; light infufed, and revelation imparted to us, proceed from arbitrary difpenfation, in definite meafures); our ratiocination confequently from fuch principles must be very fhort and defective; nor are our minds ever thoroughly found, or pure and defecate from prejudices; hence no wonder, that now we are wholly ignorant of divers great truths, or have but a glimmering notion of them, which we may and hereafter fhall come fully and clearly to understand; fo that even the Apofties, the fecretaries of heaven, 1 Cor. xii. might fay, We know in part, and we prophefy in part; we now fee through a glafs darkly, but then face to face. 9, 12. In fine, thofe rules of equity or experience, which we in our tranfactions with one another do ufe (being derived from our original inclinations to like fome good things, or from notions ftamped on our foul when when God made us according to his image, froms E R M. common experience, from any kind of rational col- xxII. lection, from the prescription of God's word), if they be applied to the dealings of God, will be found very incongruous, or deficient; the cafe being vastly altered from that infinite diftance in nature and ftate between God and us; and from the immenfe differences which his relations toward us have from our relations to one another. Wherefore in divers enquiries about Providence, to which our curiofity will ftretch itself, it is impoffible for us to be refolved; and launching into them, we fhall foon get out of our depth, fo as to fwim in diffatisfaction, or to fink into diftruft: Why God made the world at fuch an instant, no fooner or later; why he made it thus, not exempt from all disorder; why he framed man (the prince of vifible creatures) fo fallible and frail, fo prone to fin, so liable to mifery; why fo many things happen offenfive to him, why his gifts are distributed with fuch inequality? Such questions we are apt to propound and to debate; but the refolution of them our mind perhaps was not made to apprehend, nor in its moft elevate condition shall attain it however in this state we by no means can come at it; it at least being kept clofe from us among those things, of which it is faid, the fecret Deut. xxix. things belong unto the Lord our God, in diftinction from 29. others, about which it is added, but thofe that are revealed, belong unto us and to our children for ever. In fuch cafes the abfolute will, the fovereign authority, the pure liberality of God do fupply the place of reafons; fufficient, if not to fatisfy the Rom. ix. minds of men fondly curious, yet to stop the mouths 20 Ifa. xlv. 9. thofe who are boldly peremptory: the which are Gen. xviii. alledged, not with intent to imply that God ever Ezek. xviii. acteth unaccountably, or without highest reafon, but 25. that fometimes his methods of acting are not fit fub Ifa. v. 3. jects of our conception or difcuffion; for other while God appealeth to the verdict of our reafon; when SER M. the cafe is fuch that we can apprehend it, and the XXII. apprehenfion of it may conduce to good purposes. 2. As the ftanding rules of God's acting, fo the occafional grounds thereof are commonly placed beyond the sphere of our apprehenfion. God is obliged to profecute his own immutable Eph. i. 11. decrees; working all things, as the Apoftle faith, according to the counsel of his own will; which how can we anywife come to difcover? Can we climb up above the heaven of heavens, and there unlock his closet, rifle his cabinet, and peruse the records of Rom. xi. everlasting deftiny, by which the world is governed? No; Who knoweth his mind, or hath been his counsellor? Jer. xxiii. Who, faith the Prophet, bath ftood in the counfel of the Lord; or hath perceived and heard his word? 34. Ifa. xl. 13. 18. Sap. ix. 13. He doth fearch the hearts, and try the reins of men; he doth weigh their fpirits, and their works; he doth know their frame, he doth understand their thoughts afar off; *he perceiveth their closeft intentions, their deepeft contrivances, their most retired behaviours; he confequently is acquainted with their true qualifications, capacities, and merits; unto which he moft justly and wifely doth accommodate his dealings with them; the which therefore must often thwart the opinions and expectations of us, who are ignorant of those particulars, and can only view the exterior face or femblance of things: for (as Samuel, in the cafe of preferring David before his brethren, 1 Sam. xvi. did fay) God feeth not as man feeth; for man looketh at the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart. 7. God alfo hath a perfect forefight of contingent 16. xlv. 11. events; he feeth upon what pin each wheel moveth, and with what weight every fcale will be turned; he difcerneth all the connections, all the entanglements * Prov. xvi. 2. Ifa. xxvi. 7. 1 Sam. ii. 3. Pfal. ciii. 14. cxxxix, 2. Ixiv. 6. Job xiv. 16. Ἡμεῖς μὲν γὰρ μόνα ὁρῶμεν τὰ πράγματα· ὁ δὲ τῶν ὅλων Θεὸς, καὶ τῶν ταῦτα δρώντων ἐπίσαται τὸν σκόπον, καὶ τέτῳ μᾶλλον, ἢ τοῖς ἔργοις δικάζων 另 ἐκφέρει τὴν ψῆφον. Theod. Ep. 2. of of things, and what the refult will be upon the com- S ER M. bination, or the clafhing of numberlefs causes; in XXII. correfpondence to which perceptions he doth order things confiftently and conveniently; whereas we being ftark-blind, or very dim-fighted in fuch refpects (feeing nothing future, and but few things prefent), cannot apprehend what is fit and feasible; or why that is done, which appeareth done to us. God obferveth in what relations, and what degrees of comparison (as to their natures, their virtues, their confequences), all things do ftand, each toward others; fo poifing them in the balance of right judgment, as exactly to distinguish their juft weight and worth; whereas we cannot tell what things to compare, we know not how to put them into the scale, we are unapt to make due allowances, we are unable to difcern which fide doth overweigh in the immenfe variety of objects our knowledge doth extend to few things eligible, nor among them can we pick out the best competitors for our choice: hence often muft we be at great loffes in fcanning the designs, or tracing the footsteps of Providence. 3. We are alfo incapable thoroughly to difcern the ways of Providence from our moral defects, in fome measure common to all men; from our stupidity, our floth, our temerity, our impatience, our impurity of heart, our perverfenefs of will and affections: we have not the perfpicacity to efpy the fubtile tracks and fecret referves of divine wifdom; we have not the industry, with fteady application of mind, to regard and meditate on God's works; we have not the temper and patience to wait upon God, until he discover himself in the accomplishment of his purposes; we have not that blessed purity of heart, Mat. v. 8. which is requifite to the feeing God in his fpecial difpenfations; we have not that rectitude of will and government of our paffions, as not to be fcandalized at what God doeth, if it thwarteth our conceit or humour: fuch defects are obfervable in the best men; Gg 4 |