SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV C3. 343
things.' 'This Solomon intends when he saith, Prov. xx. 12, ' The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.' He doth not mean spiritually, but naturally ; he doth not only give the faculty, but the exercise ; as he gives the eye, so the seeing, and as he gives the ear, so the hearing : this could not be done without new acts of providence, assistance, and supportation from God. There- fore we read Hagar did not see the well of water till the Lord opened her eyes: Gen. xxi. 19, 'And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.' So the disciples: Luke xxiv. 31, * And their eyes were opened, and they saw him.' When the Lord suspended his influence, the fire could not burn the three children. God did not destroy the property of the fire, but only suspended the eflacacy of it. No creature can put forth itself in a way of operation without a new providential assistance from God.
[2.] Gubernatipn, or governing all things according to his will and pleasure. All things keep their course, for God sitteth at the helm «nd steereth all : I)an. iv. 35, ' He doth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth ; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou ? ' God doth all according to his pleasure ; he is not confined by any external law, nor straitened by the course of nature, but acts with a great deal of sove- reignty and freedom, and sometimes inverts the order of second causes. God's will is sometimes called 6r]\fxa, sometimes evhoKla ; his pleasure is all. There are indeed some standing ordinances of nature, as the ordinances of sun and moon and the covenant of day and night : Jer. xxxi. 35, ' Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of moon and stars for a light by night ; ' and Gen. viii. 22, ' While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not oease.' God can alter the course of these, as in Joshua's time and at Christ's death ; there were three days' darkness in Egypt : Mat. v. 45, * He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.' There is nothing so casual but it is governed by God, and falls under the ordination of his wise counsel. It is said, 1 Kings xxii. 34, ' And a certain man drew a bow at a ven- ture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness.' It was a mere chance as to him, but God directed it into the sides of the king. So Exod. xxi. 13, ' If a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand ; ' compared with Deut. xix. 5, ' As when a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slippeth from the helve, and lighteth upon his neighbour that he die.' God slew him. There is nothing so casual but it is directed by the wise ordination of God : Prov. xvi. 33, ' The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposal thereof is of the Lord.' There seems to be ■nothing so trivial and casual as the casting the lot into the lap, yet it is overruled by him ; he doth not only permit, bnt govern. God governs all his creatures ; in such a throng of stars there is no interfer- ing. We wonder at strange events when the great sway is discovered. The sea is higher than the earth, yet it doth not transgress its bounds and limits. We live and breathe as the Israelites did in the midst of the Red Sea ; this is a daily miracle.
344 SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 63,
[3.] Ordination. All tilings are overruled by God's great sway; it is not as tlie creature will, but as God will ; and many times the creatures are serviceable to tbe designs of God contrary to their inten- tions : Isa. X. 6, 7, ' I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few/ The king of Assyria was moved with a principle of ambition, rage, and cruelty, but the Lord sent him on his work. So Augustus his covet- ousness in taxing the whole world God orders it for the occasioning Christ's birth at Bethlehem, Luke ii. The actings of the creature are disposed and carried on besides the purpose of the creature to another end. He discovers his wisdom by man's folly, and his righteousness by man's sin. Look, as in a ship some sleep, and some walk contrary to the ship's motion, so in the world some men are negligent, others keep bustling and stirring and seek to resist the designs of God, but the ship goes on : Acts iv. 28, ' For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.' The devil thought to ruin all mankind by seducing of Adam, yet that made way for Christ, Herein is the great beauty and order of providence seen, that God can make hindrances to be helps, and while men seek to cross his will most, they do but accomplish and fulfil it.