First. 1 shall undertake the proof and defence of this great truth: That the affairs of the saints in this world are certainly conducted by the wisdom and care of special Providence.”
And herein 1 address myself with cheerfulness to perform, as well as I am able, a service for that Providence, which hath, throughout my life, performed all things for me,” as the text speaks.
There is a twofold consideration of Providence, according to its twofold object and manner of dispensation: the one is general, exercised about all creatures, rational and irrational, animate and inanimate; the other special and peculiar. Christ hath a universal empire over all things, Ephes. i. 22, the head of the whole world, by way of do- - minion; but a head to the Church, by way of union and special influence, John xvii, 2. The Saviour of all men, but especially of them that believe,” 1 Tim. iv. 10. The Church is his special care and charge; he rules the world for her good, as a head consulting the welfare of the body.
Heathens generally deny providence; and no wonder, since they denied a God: for the same arguments that prove one, will prove the other. Aristotle, the prince of heathen philosophers, could not, by the utmost search of reason, find out the world’s origin, and therefore concludes, it was from eternity. The Epicureans did, in a sort, acknowledge a God, but yet denied a providence, and wholly excluded him from any interest or concern in the affairs of the world, as being inconsistent with the felicity and tranquillity of the Divine Being, to be diverted and cumbered with i the care and labour of government. This assertion is so repugnant to reason, that it is a wonder they themselves blushed not at its absurdity; but I guess at the design, and one of them speaks it out in broad language. They foresaw that the concession of a providence would impose an eternal yoke upon their necks, by making them accountable to a higher tribunal for all they did; and that they must necessarily pass the time of their sojourning here in fear, whilst all their thoughts, words, and ways, were strictly noted and recorded, in order to an account, by an all-seeing and righteous God; and therefore they laboured to persuade themselves that was not, which they had no mind should be. But these atheistical and foolish conceits fall flat before the undeniable evidence of so great and clear a truth.
Now my business here is not so much to deal with professed atheists, who deny the existence of God, and consequently deride all evidences brought from Scripture, of the extraordinary events that fall out in favour of that people who are called his; but rather to convince those who professedly own all this, yet, never having tasted religion by experience, suspect, at least, that all these things which we call special providences to the saints, are but natural events, or mere contingencies: and thus, whilst they profess to own a God and a providence, (which profession is but the effect of their education,) they do, in the mean time, live like atheists, and both think and act as if there were no such things; and really I fear this is the case of the far greatest part of men of this generation.
But if it were indeed so, that the affairs of the world, in general, and more especially those of the saints, were not conducted by divine Providence, but, as they would persuade us, by the steady course of natural causes; besides which, if at any time we observe an event to fall out, it is merely casual and contingent, or that which proceeds from some hidden and sceret cause in nature; if this indeed were so, let those who are tempted to believe it, rationally satisfy the following demands: First demand. How comes it to pass that so many signal mercies and deliverances have befallen the people of God, above the power and against the course of natural causes; to make way for which, there hath been a sensible suspension and stop put to the course of nature? It is most evident that no natural effect can exceed the power of its natural cause. Nothing can give to another more than it hath in itself; and it 1s as clear, that whatsoever acts naturally, acts necessarily. Fire burns to the utmost of its power; waters overflow and drown all that they can. Lions, and other rapacious and cruel beasts, tear and devour their prey, especially when hungry; and as to arbitrary and rational agents, they also act according to the principles and laws of their natures. A wicked man, when his heart is fully set in him, and his will stands in a full bent of resolution, wili certainly, if he have power in his hand, and opportunity to execute his conceived mischief, give it vent, and perpetrate the wicked devices of his heart; for, having once conceived mischief, and travailing in pain with it, he must, according to the course of nature, bring it forth, as it is in Psal. vii. 14. But if any of these inanimate, brutal, or rational agents, when there is no natural obstacle, have their power suspended; and that when the effect is near the birth, and the design, at the very article of execution, so that though they would, yet they cannot hurt; to what, think you, is this to be assigned and referred? Yetso it hath often been seen, where God’s interest hath been immediately concerned in the danger and evil of the event. The sea divided itself in its own channel, and made a wall of water on each side, to give God’s distressed Israel a safe passage, and that not in a calm, but, when the waves thereof roared,”’ as it is in Isa. li. 15. The fire when blown up to the most intense and vehement flame, had no power to singe one hair of God’s faithful witnesses, when, at the same instant it had power to destroy their intended executioners at a greater distance, Dan. iii. 22. Yea, we find it hath been sometimes sufficient to consume, but not to torment the body, as in that known instance of blessed Byneham, who told his enemies the flames were to him as a bed of roses. The hungry lions put off their natural fierceness, and became gentle and harmless, when Daniel was cast among them for a prey. The like account, the