Now these, and many such like instances, teach us that the most casual and fortuitous things do certainly and infallibly fall out by God's providence and heavenly government. And again, that there is some occurrence which providence casteth in by the way to dis- appoint the most likely means ; and whatever gifts and qualities men are endowed withal, yet events are not in their power, but depend on the free concurrence of God. I speak nothing now of the influence of angels upon human affairs, whom God maketh use of in the govern- ment of the world.
III. The most able in.struments do often provoke God to disappoint them, whilst their abilities of counsel and strength are a means of hardening their hearts in carnal confidence, and often engage in busi- ness that i)roves mischievous to them ; I say, in the most lawful businesses they provoke God to disappoint them, because they under- take them without God ; but too too often being unrenewed and un- Banclified, their wit and power is used against God.
1. It is a great ci'ime to go about any business without God : Prov. iii. 5, G, ' Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.' When our wisdom and strength is set up as an idol or image of jealousy, God is obliged to blast it. Therefore they that make their bosom their oracle, their wit their counsellor, they seldom carve out to themselves a good portion. In all serious busi- ness we must ask his leave, counsel, blessing.
2. But many times men of great abilities, being unsanctified, employ them against God. They are ordinarily the devil's greatest agents and factors for his kingdom. In seducing our first parents he
ECCLES. IX. 11.] THE FOURTEENTH SERMON. 321
made use of the serpent, which was * more subtle than any beast of the field,' Gen. iii. 1. Now these make God their opposite party that engage in any such enterprise upon the confidence of their wisdom and strength, and then they are ' snared by the work of their own hands,' Ps. ix. 16. God delighteth to be seen to put rubs and stumbling-blocks in their way, that they may fall by some miserable disappointment, and their craft and power may turn to their own ruin.
IV. To say and do, or to make a thing to be, is the act and name of Jehovah, which glory he will not communicate to any other : Lam. iii. 37, ' Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?' that is, who is able to bring about what he speaketh and purposeth, unless God permit and give way thereunto ? Therefore, whatever preparation of means or likelihoods there are, we must not be too confident of future events. We cannot bring them to pass by our own power, and God doth not always work by likely means ; he hides events from men : Isa. xlviii, 7, ' Lest thou shouldst say, I knew them.' Now the event could not be hidden if the Lord went on in a constant course, giving the race to the swift, &c. God carrieth on his providence so as to leave no footsteps behind him. He goetli not one way so often as to make a path of it, that men may see the plain tendency thereof.
The uses follow.
It teaches us : —
I. The nothingness of the creature, and the all-sufficiency of God. That is a great lesson indeed, and mightily useful to us throughout the whole spiritual life.
First, It is a notion which the scripture much delighteth in, to represent God as all and the creature as nothing. At first, when Moses inquired God's distinctive name, God giveth him no other but I AM : Exod. iii. 14, ' And God said unto Moses, I am that I am ; and I AM hath sent me unto you.' What thing is tliere under the cope of heaven that cannot say ' I am that I am' ? The least worm hath its own being ; but this, as God's distinctive name, implieth that he encloseth all being within himself. Secondly, The creature is nothing : Isa. xl. 17, ' All nations before him are nothing ; they are accounted less than nothing, and vanity ;' Dan. iv. 35, ' The inhabi- tants of the world are reputed before him as nothing.' All created beings must vanish out of our sight when we think of God.
But how are the creatures nothing, which faith teaches us ? and how something, which sense teacheth us ? Something they are un- questionably in respect of that derived and dependent being which they have from God. We must not establish the Pj-rrhonian conceit that the whole world is but a fantasy, indeed nothing, and our life but a dream, or sceptically to look upon the being and modes of all things as uncertain. No ; nor to imagine that sense is so far fallible that a man of sound sense and understanding may not be sure of the objects conveniently presented to his sense. Certainly the sceptics need to be scourged as fools till they feel themselves something. But yet it is of high importance in the work of godliness to see the crea- ture nothing. It is so : —