[2.] To work us from earthly things to things heavenly. In heaven there is no night, but all day. There is no stability in outward com- forts, that we may look higher, and get ' the moon under our feet,' Eev. xii. 1. All sublunary things are liable to changes. We are eagerly bent upon temporal happiness, and would seek our rest here, but that God maketh all unquiet to drive us higher. Mat. vi. 19, 20. Here is slandering and violence. Noah's ark, when it was tossed upon the waves, was the nearer to heaven ; so the more we are tossed upon the unstable waters, the more should we look after the place of our eternal rest, where we shall be for ever with the Lord.
[3.] To put a cloud and veil upon his proceedings. There is a foolish curiosity that doth possess us ; we are usually earnest to know the event, but slack to use the means ; it is natural to us to inquire after what is to come, and to neglect present duties. Now no creature shall know the bottom of his counsels, Isa. xlv. 15. When he meaneth to be a saviour, the world shall not know so much, but things are kept in a doubtful uncertainty, and we cannot say whether they tend to ruin or establishment : Eccles. vii. 14, ' In the days of pros- perity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider : God hath set the one against the other, to the end that man may find nothing after him ; ' that man may not be able to look to the end of God's design, who would either slacken his duty or choose his party, not upon reasons of conscience, but carnal motives ; and therefore, when man is upon his trial, the face of things looketh doubtfully, Isa. xlviii. 7, and John xiii. 7.
[4.] To prevent the excesses of either condition, God tempereth and qualifieth the one with the other. Prosperity maketh us grow wanton, adversity stupid ; therefore, that we may mourn as if we mourned not, and rejoice as if we rejoiced not, 1 Cor. vii. 31, we are exercised with various changes. Out of indulgence to us he giveth us prosperity, lest we should be overwhelmed with sorrow ; and then adversity again for the abuse of prosperity ; the one is set against the other, to keep the soul in an equal temper and poise. In adversity we think we shall never be delivered, in prosperity never moved. Now, to keep the soul
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steady, God seemeth to hover, and the face of providence looketh with a doubtful uncertainty. Especially are we apt to be corrupted with prosperous things ; as Hezekiah, 2 Chron, xxxii. 25. When stormy winds fill the sails, it is hard to go steady. It is certainly an help to inure our thoughts to changes ; but when we are well at ease we are apt to forget. Few say, as David, Ps. xxxix. 5 ' Surely man at his best estate is altogether vanity.' We should rejoice with trem- bling. The Egyptians used to present a death's-head at their feast. Leaven (which was forbidden in other sacrifices. Lev. ii. 11), was allowed in thank-offerings, Lev. vii. 13 ; and Amos iv. 5, ' Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven.' Leaven made bread sour to taste. When we offer praise for any benefits and deliverances, we should still entertain suitable thoughts of the bitterness to which we are incident during the present state. That we may neither surfeit in prosperity nor despond in adversity, neither wax wanton nor be swal- lowed up of sorrow, God giveth us such intermixtures of providences.
[5.] To make way for the exercise of our faith ; therefore, in the tenor of his providence, God doth so govern and order his providential dispensations towards his people, that they shall not live by sense but by faith. To make this evident, let me tell you five possible ways of providence may be imagined. The fir-^t is, that the righteous shall always see good, and the wicked sufier evil. The second, that the righteous shall always be afflicted, and meet with nothing but evil in the world, and the wicked be always prosperous, and enjoy good. The third, that both good and evil men should always be afflicted, and never see good day in the world. The fourth, that both good and bad men should be always prosperous, and never troubled with any evil. The fifth, that neither to all the righteous or all the wicked there should be evil and only evil, or good and only good, but a mixture of both ; to the good sometimes good, and to the evil sometimes evil. Now, though all these ways of providence might be just, yet God doth only the first and the last of these ; the fii'st in the world to come, the last in the present life ; that is to say, that the righteous should enjoy good, and only good, and the wicked evil and only evil. This is the dispensation which God reserveth for the world to come, where the good are always and completely blessed, and the wicked are always and completely miserable. The last, God hath chosen for this world, a mixture of good and evil promiscuously dispensed ; that is to say, that some good men shall enjoy more of worldly prosperity, others be kept low and bare ; as we read of a poor Lazarus resting in a rich Abraham's bosom, Luke xvi. 23 ; and that there should be vicissitudes in the same per- son ; some comforts, some crosses. On the other side, the wicked should be sometimes mighty and prosperous, ' not plagued like other men,' Ps. xiii. 5 ; and sometimes that the iniquity of their heels should cleave to them. There are intermixtures, that neither the righteous nor the wicked may be known by their outward condition. Why ? Because the present state is a state of faith, not a state of sense, Acts ii.6, 7. We are justified by faith, we live by faith, we walk by faith, and not by sight ; therefore this state of faith requireth that the manner by which God governeth the world should neither be too sensible and clear nor too ob- scure and dark, but a middle thing, as the daybreak or twilight is between