346 SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 63.
■wast precious in my sight, tliou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee ; therefore I will give men for thee, and people for thy life.' All the rest of the world are but as dust and refuse, which God will give up to his justice. If justice must have an object whereon to exercise itself, I will give up Seba and Ethiopia and Egypt to justice ; a thousand of them shall perish rather than my people. So ver. 14, ' For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all iheir nobles.' God will stain the glory of all the world for the elect's sake. If God throw them into the furnace, he sitteth by the furnace, prying and looking after his metal : Mai. iii. 3, ' And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness.' The fire shall not be too hot, that nothing be lost.
4. Providence must not be considered by pieces, but all together. You must consider the way of God with the aim of God, and the means with the end. You must not measure things by present feeling : Eom. viii. 28, 'All things shall work together for good to those that love God, to those that are the called according to his purpose.' A single part of providence taken out of the frame is odd and unseemly. Providence is a draught of many pieces ; there is the manifold wisdom of God in it. All the links of the chain of providence are not of one size. If you would think aright of providence, you must take in your own case and God's aim. (L) Consider your own case ; not what is absolutely good, but what is respectively good for you. Gold absolutely is better than a draught of water, but not to Sampson, who was ready to die for thirst. Cutting a vein is in itself ill, but good in a fever ; so such or such a providence, though not good in itself, may be better for you. (2.) You must take in God's aim with your own case ; the single links of provi- dence are not all of a sort ; like Nebuchadnezzar's image, partly gold, partly iron, partly brass, and partly clay. To an observant eye there is a wonderful beauty in the providences of God. There is no beauty in the parts of a building till they be set together ; no more is there in the several pieces of providence till you consider them together and compare one with the other. The first dashes of a picture are uncomely, therefore do not look on God's work by halves, but all together.
5. God doth manage and govern all things without labour and diffi- culty. It is much for us to spread a small net ; the care of a family and the care of a congregation is too great for our shoulders, but the Lord governs all the world without difficulty and pain ; he is not bur- dened with the multitude of cares ; it costs him no more to govern angels than to govern ants, to govern palaces than cottages. Look, as the sun doth as easily shine upon a thousand places at one time as upon one field, so the Lord doth as easily manage the affairs of the whole world as of any one place in the world ; his care is without trouble, his work is without pains. Lucian scoffs at God's running here and there. No ; all things are represented to him in one view.
6. God's providence is conversant about sin, yet without sin. God doth avvepyelv, work with us, but he doth not o-vvaixapTavetv, come into the fellowship of our sin or guilt. As the sunbeams may shine upon a dunghill, and in a filthy place the warm sun draweth forth
SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. Co. 347
stinking vapours, but tlie sun is not stained hereby. The apostle saith. Acts xvii 28, ' For in him we live and move.' We are moved by him ; but as the lameness of the horse is no blemish to the rider, so neither is the defect of the creature to be imputed to the providence that doth support it.
7. Providence doth not take away either the industry or the liberty of the creature : Acts xxvii. 22, compared with ver. 31 ; it is said, ver. 22, ' There shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship ; ' and j-et, ver. 31, ' Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved.' "We must plough though the clouds drop fatness ; still there is a place for human industry, and human counsel and deliberation : Ezek. xxi. 21, 'For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways to use divination,' &c. There were two ways ; one way led to his country, the other way led directly to Jerusalem. God had determined which way he should go, yet freely out of his own spirit he is moved to take the way he went ; still there was place for human counsel and human deliberation.