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 any event to fall out, it is merely casual and contingent, or that which proceeds from some hidden and secret cause in nature ; if this indeetl v/ere so, let them that are tempted to believe it, rationally satisfy the follow- ing demands.
How conies it to pass that so many signal mercies and deliver- ances 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: aad it is as clear, that whatsoever acts natu- rally, acts necessarily : fire burns ad idtimmn sui posse, to the utter- most of its power : waters overflow and drown all that they can : lions and other rapacious and cruel beasts, especially when hungry, tear and devour theu* prey ; and for 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, will 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 (according to the course of nature) he must bring itjbrth, as it is Psal. vii. 14. But if any of these inanimate, brutal, or rational agents, when there is no natural obstacle or remora, have their power suspended, and that when tlie effect is near the birth, and the design at the very article of execution, so that though they wguld, yet cannot hurt,
S52 DiViXE COKDUCT ; Olt,
to what, think you, is this to be assicrned and referred ? Yet so it liath 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 toi give God's distressed Israel a safe passage, and that not in a calm, but when the waves thereof roared * : as it is 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 ifeame instant it had power to destroy their intended executioners at a greater distance, Dan. iii. 22. Yea, we find it hath some time been sufficient to consume, but not to torment the body ; as in that known instance of blessed B^neham, 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 Ua^ niel was cast among them for a prey. The like account of the church story gives us of Polycarp and Dionysius Areopagita, whom the fire would not touch, but stood after the manner of a ship's sail, filled with the wind about them.
Are these things according to the course and law of nature .'' To what secret and natural cause can they be ascribed.? In like man- ner, we find the vilest and fiercest of wicked men have been with- held by an invisible hand of restraint, from injuring the Lord's people. By what secret cause in nature was Jeroboam's hand dried up, and made inflexible at the same instant it was stretched out against the man of God ? 1 Kings xiii. 4. No wild beasts rend and devour their prey more greedily, than wicked men would destroy the people of God that dwell among them, were it not for this providential restraint u}x>n them. So the Psalmist expresses his case in the words following my text, " My soul is among lions, and " I lie among them that are set on fire." The disciples were sent forth as sheep in the midst of zivlves, Mat. x. 16. It will not avail, in this case, to ol)ject those miraculous events depend only upon scripture-testimony, which the atheist is not concluded by : For besides all that may be alledged for the authority of that testi- mony, (which is needless to produce to men that own it) what is it less than every eye sees, or may see at this day ? Do we not be- hold a weak, defenceless handful of men, wondenully and (except this way) unaccountably preserved from ruin in the midst of potent, em-aged, and turbulent enemies, that fain would, but cannot, destroy them ; when as yet, no natural impediment can be assigned why they cannot ?
* How hard was rojpliyn,' put to it, ^^hcn, instead of a better, this pretence must serre the turn, that Moses, taking the advantage of a lower water, unknown to the l^gyptians, passed over the people thereat. As if Moses, a stranger, were better ac- (iuaiated there thau the Egyptian natives. Acts and Mon. VoL I. p. 55,
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And if this pose us, what shall wc say, when wc see event;? pro^ duccd in the world for the good of God's chosen, by those vtrj hands and means which were intentionally employed for their ruin ? These things are as much beside the intentions of their enemies, a3 they are above their own expectations ; yet, such tilings are no rarities in the world. AVas not the envy of Joseph's brethren, the cursed plot of Haman, and the decree procured by the envy of the princes against Daniel, with many more of the like nature, all turned, by a secret and strange hand of providence, to their gi'eater advancement and benefit ? Their enemies lifted them up to all that lionour and preferment they had.