nerves and veins. O the curious workmanship that is in that one part, the eye ! how hath it forced some to acknowledge a God upon the examination of it ! Providence, when it went about this work, had its model or pattern before it, according to which it moulded every part, as it is, ver. 16. In thy hook were all mij mem- hers written. Hast thou an integral perfection and fulness of members ? It is because he wrote them all in his book, or limned out thy body, according to that exact model which he drew of thee in his own gracious purpose, before thou hadst a being: had an eye, an ear, a hand, a foot been wanting in the platform, thou hadst now been sadly sensible of the defect : this world had been but a dungeon to thee, without those windows: thou hadst lived, as many do, an object of pity to others : If thou hast low thoughts of this mercy, ask the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the dumb, the value and worth of those mercies, and they will tell thee. There is a world of cost bestowed upon thy very body. Thou mightest have been cast into another mould, and created a worm or a toad. I remember Luther * tells us of two cardinals, riding in great pomp to the council of Constance, and by the way they heard a man in the fields bitterly weeping and wailing: when they came to him, they found him intently viewing an ugly toad ; and, asking him why he wept so bitterly ? he told them his heart was melted with this consideration, that God had not made him such a loathsome and deformed creature. Hoc est quod amare Jleo^ said he. Where- upon one of them cries out. Well said the father, Surgent indocti^ 4* rapient caelum^ the unlearned will rise and take heaven, and we, with all our learning, shall be cast into hell. No part of the coirir' mon lump was so figured and polished as man is. Galen -|- gave Epicurus an hundred years time to imagine a more commodious situation, configuration, or composition of any one member of a human body. And if all the angels had studied to this day, they could not have cast the body of man into a more curious mould.
2. And yet all this is but the enamelling of the case, or polish- ing the casket wherein the rare jewel lies. Providence hath not only built the house, but brought the inhabitant (I mean the soul) into the possession of it. A glorious piece it is, that bears the very- image of God upon it, being all in all, and all in every part. How- noble are its faculties and affections ! How nimble, various, and
* Liither in tei-tium precept.
f There are some members that are radical, as the liver, heart, and brain ; in these are placed the natural, vital, and animal spirits ; these spirits are carried by the veins, arteries, and nerves. The veins carry the natural spirits from the liver, the arteries the vital spirits from the heart ; the nerves the animal spi' its from the brain. Other mem- bers are official, as the hands and feet ; the superior rule the inferior, and tlxe inferior support the superior. Jn vDvsdorn hast thou made tham alL
364 DIVINE CONDUCT ; Olt,
indefatigable are its motions ! How comprehensive is its capacity I It is a companion for angels, nay, capable of espousals to Christy and eternal communion with God. It is the wonder of earth, and the envy of hell.
Suppose now (and why should you not suppose what you so fre- quently behold in the world ?) that providence had so permitted and ordered it, that thy soul had entered into thy body with one or t^vo of its faculties wounded and defective : suppose its under- standing had been cracked, what a miserable life hadst thou lived in this world ? neither capable of service nor comfort. And, truly, when I have considered those works of providence, in bringing^ into the world, in all countries, and ages, some such spectacles of pity; some deprived of the use of reason, and differing from beasts in little more than shape and figure ; and others, though sound in their understandings, yet deformed or defective in their bodies, monstrous, mishapen, and loathsome creatures ; I can resolve the design of this providence into nothing beside a demonstration of his Sovereign power ; except they be designed as foils, to set off the beauty of other rare and exquisite pieces, and intending to stand before your eyes, as monitors of God's mercy to you, that your hearts. (as oft as you beheld them) may be melted into thankfulness for sot distinguishing a favour to you.
Look then (but not proudly) upon thy out-side and inside ; see and admire what providence hath done for thee, and how well it hath performed the first service that ever it did for thee in this world. And yet, tliis was not all it did for thee before thou sawest this world : it preserved thee as well as formed thee in the womb ; else thou hadst been as those emhijros Job speaks of. Job iii. 16. iliat never saw the light. Abortives go for nothing in the world ; and there are multitudes of them, some that never had a reasonable soul breathed into them ; but only the rudiments and rough draught of the body : these come not into the account of men, but perish as the beast doth. Others that die in, or shortly after they come out of the womb ; and though their life was but for a moment, yet that moment entails an eternity upon them. And had this been your case, as it is the case of millions, then (supposing your salvation) yet had you been utterly unserviceable to God in the world : none had been the better for you, nor you the better for any in the world : you had been utterly incapable for all that good, which, throughout your life, you have either done to others, or received from others.
And if we consider the nature of that obscure life we lived in tlie womb ; how small an accident (had it been permitted by pro- vidence) had extinguished our life, like a bird in the shell : we caimot therefore but admire the tender care of providence over
THE HfYSTERY OF PROVIDEVCT!. 30o
US, and say with the Psalmist, Psal. cxxxix. 13. TJiou hast covered me in my another's womb : and not only so, but as it is, Psal. xxii. 9. Thou art he that took me out of my mother's icomb. He preserved thee there to the fulness of time ; and, when that time was come, brought thee safely through manifold hazards, into that place in the world, which he from eternity espied for thee. Which leads us to the second performance.
The second perjbrmance of providence,
II. The second great performance of providence, for the people of God, respects the place and time in which it ordered their nativity to fall. And, truly, this is no small concernment to every one of us ; but of vast consequence, either to our good or evil, though it be little minded by most men. I am persuaded, the thoughts of few Christians penetrate deep enough into this providence ; but slide too slightly and superficially over an abyss of much mercy, rich and manifold mercy, wrapt up in this gracious performance of provi- dence for them.