For settling of our faith the more, God taketh liberty in using weak means to great pm-poses, and setting aside more likely and able means ; yea, sometimes he altogether disableth the greatest means, and worketh often by no means at all. It is not for want of power in God, but from abundance and multiplying of his goodness that he useth any means at all. There is nothing that he doth by means but he is able to do without means.
Nay, God often bringeth his will to pass by crossing the course and stream of means, to shew his own sovereignty and to exercise our depend- ence, and maketh his very enemies the accomplishers of his own will, and so to bring about that which they oppose most. Hence it is that we be- lieve under hope against hope, Ps. cxxxv. 6.
But Ave must know, God's manner of guiding things is without pre- judice to the proper working of the things themselves. He guideth them Bweetly according to the instincts he hath put into them ; for,
1. He furnishes creatures with a virtue and power to work, and likewise with a manner of working suitable to their own natm'e ; as it is proper for a man, when he works, to work v/ith fi'eedom, and other creatures by natural instinct, &c.
2. God maintaineth both the power and manner of working, and per- fecteth and accomplisheth the same by acting of it, being nearer to us in
206 THE soul's conflict.
all we do than we are to ourselves. Intlmior intimo nostra. 3. He applies and stirs up our abilities and actions to this or that particular as he seeth best. 4. He suspends or removes the hindrances of all actions, and so powerfully, wisely, and sweetly orders them to his own ends. When any evil is intended, God either puts bars and lets to the execution of it, or else limiteth and boundeth the same, both in regard of time and measure, so that our enemies either shall not do the evil at all, or else not so long a time or not in such a height of mischief as their malice would carry them to. The rod of the wicked may light upon the back of the righteous, Ps. cxxv. 3, but it shall not rest there. God knows how to take our enemies off, sometimes by changing or stopping their wills, by offering considerations of some good or ill, danger or profit, to them ; sometimes by taking away and weakening all their strength, or else by opposing an equal or greater strength against it. All the strength our enemies have rests in God, who, if he denies concourse and influence, the arm of their power, as Jeroboam's, when he stretched it out against the prophet, shi'inks up presently.
God is not only the cause of things and actions, but the cause, likewise, of the cessation of them, why they fall not out at all, God is the cause why things are not, as well as why they are. Deus est prima causa cujiis- cunque noii esse. The cause why men favour us not, or, when they do favour us, want present wisdom and ability to help us, is from God's withdrawing the concurrence of his light and strength from them. If a skilful physician doth us no good, it is because it pleaseth God to hide the right way of curing at that time from him. Which should move us to see God in all that befalls us, who hath sufficient reason, as to do what he doth, so not to do what he doth not, to hinder as well as to give way.
The God of spirits hath an influence into the spirits of men, into the principles and springs of all actions ; otherwise he could not so certainly foretell things to come. God had a work in Absalom's heart in that he refused the best counsel. There is nothing independent of him who is the mover of all things, and himself unmoveable.
Nothing so high, that is above his providence ; nothing so low, that is beneath it ; nothing so large, but is bounded by it ; nothing so confused, but God can order it ; nothing so bad, but he can draw good out of it ; nothing so wisely plotted, but God can disappoint it, as Ahithophel's counsel ; nothing so simply and unpoliticly carried, but he can give a pre- vailing issue unto it ; nothing so freely carried, in regard of the next cause, but God can make it necessary in regard of the event ; nothing so natural, but he can suspend it in regard of operation, as heavy bodies from sinking, fire from burning, &c.
It cannot but bring strong security to the soul, to know that in all variety of changes and intercourse of good and bad events, God, and our God, hath such a disposing hand. Whatsoever befalls us, aU serves to bring God's electing love, and our glorification together, God's providence serveth his pui'pose to save us. All sufl'eriugs, all blessings, all ordinances, all graces, all common gifts, nay, our very falls, yea, Satan himself with all his instruments, as over-mastered, and ruled by God, have this injunc- tion upon them, to further God's good intendment to us, and a prohibition to do us no harm. Augustus taxed the world for civil ends, but God's pro- vidence used this as a means for Christ to be born at Bethlehem. Ahasuerus could not sleep, and thereupon calls for the chronicles, the reading of which occasioned the Jews' dehvcry, Esth. vi. 1. God oft disposeth little occa-