If the wisdom of God do thus triumph, and glorify itself in the dis- tresses of the saints, then why should I fear in the day of evil ? Psal. xlix. 4. Why doth my heart faint at the foresight and apprehen- sion of approaching trouble ? Fear none of those things that thou shalt suffer, O my soul : if thy God will thus be with thee in the fire and water, thou canst not perish. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet let me fear no evil, whilst my God is thus with me. Creatures cannot do what they please, his wisdom limits and over-rules them all to gracious and sweet ends. If my God cast me into the furnace to melt and try me, yet I shall not be consumed there ; for he will sit by the furnace himself all the while I am in it, and curiously pry into it, observing when it hath done its work, and then will presently withdraw the fire. O my soul, bless and adore this God of wisdom ! who himself will see the ordering of all thine afflictions, and not trust it in the hands of men or angels.
TTHE POEM. HOUGH tost in greatest storms, I'll never fear. If Christ will sit at th' helm to guide and steer ; Storms are the triumph of his skill and art ; He cannot close his eyes, nor change his heart. Wisdom and power ride upon the waves. And in the greatest danger helps and saves. From dangers it by dangers doth deliver. And wounds the devil out of his own quiver; It countermines his plots, and so doth spoil. And makes his engines on himself recoil. It blunts the politician's restless tool. And makes Ahithophel the veriest fool ; It shews us how our reason us misled, And if he had not we had perished. Lord, to thy wisdom I >\ill give the reins. And not with cares perplex and vex my brains.
Things in the bottom are unseen : no eye
Can trace GocVs paths, which in the deeps do lie.
X HE ocean is so deep, that no eye can discover what hes in the bottom thereof. We use to say, proverbially, of a thing that is
284 A ^'Ew COMPASS for seamen ; or,
irrecoverably lost, it is as good it were cast into the sea. What lies there lies obscure from all eyes but the eyes of God.
Thus are the judgments of God and the ways of his providence profound and unsearchable, Psal. xxxvi. 6. "Thy righteousness is like " the great mountains, thy judgments are a great deep;"" i. e. his providences are secret, obscure, and unfathomable ; but even then, and in those providences, his righteousness stands up like the great mountains, visible and apparent to every eve. Though the saints cannot see the one, yet they can clearly discern the other, Jer. xii. 1. Jeremiah was at a stand ; so was Job in the like case. Job xii. 7. So was Asaph, Psal. Ixxiii. and Habakkuk, chap. i. S. These wheels of providence are dreadful for their height, Ezek. i. IS. There be deep mysteries of providence, as well as of faith. It may be said of some of them, as of Paufs epistles. That they are hard to he understood^ darkness and clouds are round about the throne of God : no man can say what will be the particular issue and event of some of his dispen- sations. Luther seemed to hear God say to him, when he was impor- tunate to know his mind in some particular providence, Deus sum, non sequax: I am a God not to be traced. Sometimes providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backward, Psal. xcii. 7. Some provi- dences pose men of the greatest parts and graces. " His way is in the *' sea, his paths in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known,''* Psal. Ixxvii. 19. Who can trace footsteps in the bottom of the sea.^ " The angels,*' Ezek. i. "have their hands under their wings.*" The hand is either, symholum 'rohoris, The symbol of strength, or instrumentum operationis^ The instrument of action : where these hands are put forth, they work effectually, but very secretly ; they are hid under tlieir wings. There be some of God''s works that are such secrets, as that they may not be enquired into ; they are to be beheved and adored, but not pryed into, Rom. xi. 33. Others that may be enquired after, but yet are so profound, that few can under- stand them, Psal. cxi. 2. " The works of the Lord are great, sought " out of all those that have pleasure therein."" When we come to heaven, then all those mysteries, as well in the works as in the word of God, will lie open to our view.
O then, why is my heart disquieted, because it cannot sometimes discern the way of the Lord, and see the connection and dependence of his providential dispensations ? Why art thou so perplexed, O ray soul, at the confusions and disorders that are in the world ! I know that goodness and wisdom sits at the stern : and though the vessel of the church be tossed and distressed in times of trouble, yet it shall not perish. Is it not enough for me that God hath condescended so far for my satisfaction, as to shew me plainly the ultimate and general issue of all these mysterious providences, Eph. i. 22. Rom. viii. 28. unless I be able to take the height of every particular, shall I presume
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to call the God of heaven to account ? Must he render a reason of his ways, and give an account of his matters to such a worm as I am ? Be silent (O my soul) before the Lord, subscribe to his wisdom, and submit to his will whatsoever he doth. However it be, yet God is good to Israel ; the event will manifest it to be all over a design of love. I know not how to reconcile them to each other, or many of them to the promise; yet are they all harmonious betwixt themselves, and the certain means of accomplishing the promises. O what a fa- vour is this, that in the midst of the greatest confusions in the world, God hath given such abundant security to his people, that it shall be well with them; Amos ix. 8. Eccles. viii. 12.
THE POEM. (ORD ! hov/ stupendous, deep, and wonderful Are all thy draughts of providence ! So full Of puzzling intricacies, that they lie Beyond the ken of any mortal eye. A wheel within a wheel's the scripture notion, And all those wheels transverse, and cross in motion. All creatures serve it in their place ; yet so, As thousands of them know not what they do. * At this or that their aim thev do direct ; But neither this nor that is the eiFect : But something else they do not understand, Which sets all politicians at a stand. Deep counsels at the birth this hand doth break. And deeper things performeth by the weak. Men are, like horses, set at evVy stage. For providence to ride from age to age ; Which, like a post, spurs on, and makes them run From stage to stage, until their journey's done ; Then take a fresh ; but they they the business know No more than horses the post-letters do. Yet tho' its works be not conceaPd from sight, 'Twill be a glorious piece when brought to light.
Millions of men are sunk into the main ; But it shall not those dead always retain.