I proceed now to the use. But to make way for the due improve- ment of the apostle's exhortation unto us, some previous considerations must be laid down : —
First. It is known to all the world that we have had great provi- dential alterations and dissolutions in these nations. He must be a stranger, not in England only, but in Europe, almost in the Avhole world, that knows it not. Our heavens and our earth, our sea and our dry land, have been not only shaken, but removed also. The heavens of ancient and glorious fabric, both civil and ecclesiastical, have been taken down by fire and sword, and the fervent heat of God's displeasure. It is needless for me to declare what destructions, what dissolutions, what unparalleled alterations we have had in these nations. Persons, things, forms of government of old established, and newly-framed constitutions, we have seen all obnoxious to change or ruin.
Secondly. It is no less certain that we may say, concerning all these things, " Come and see what God hath wrought." And as to these desolations of nations, ruin of families, alterations of govern- ments, we may say of them all, as the psalmist, Ps. xlvi. 8, " Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth." It is his work ; he hath done it himself. There is no evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it, Amos iii. 6. Have there been any exaltations of men, recoveries from depression, relief of the oppressed, establishments of new frames and order of things ? — it hath been all from him, Dan. ii. 21, iv. 32. Indeed, the days wherein we live are full of practical atheism. Some, out of mere stoutness of
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heart and innate unbelief, will take no notice of God in all these things. Ps. x. 4, " The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God : God is not in all his thoughts." As things have been, so they suppose they are, and will be ; but as to the con- sideration of him who disposeth of all as seems good unto him, they are strangers unto it. Some have had their lusts enraged, and them- selves so provoked and disappointed, that, flying upon the instru- ments which God hath used, they have been filled with prejudice, and utterly blinded as to any discovery of the ways or work of God in these revolutions. Some have been utterly cast down in their thoughts, because they have not been able to discover the righteous- ness, beauty, and order, of the ways of God ; his footsteps having been in the deep, while his paths have not been known. And some, having found an open door for the satisfaction of their lusts, — pride, covetous- ness, ambition, love of the world, reputation, vain-glory, and unclean- ness, — have been so greedily engaged in the pursuit of them, that they have taken little or no notice of the hand of God in these things. And others are at a stand, like the Philistine priests and diviners, 1 Sam. vi. 9. They know not whether all this hath been from the hand of God, or whether some chance hath befallen us. I shall not need to mention those in Isa. xlvii. 13, — "astrologers, star-gazers, and monthly prognosticated," who have endeavoured also to divert the thoughts of unbelieving, foolish men, from a due consideration of the Author of all our revolutions. To all which I shall answer in general in the words of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 3-9, " God hath done all these things." And men that will not take notice of him and his proceed- ings, shall at length be forced so to do, Isa, xxvi. 11.
These things being premised, one principal inquiry, which must be the bottom and foundation of the ensuing directions, is, whether it may appear that these providential alterations and dissolutions have related to Christ and his interest in the world in an especial manner ?
That we may yet a little farther clear our way, you may farther observe, what I intend, by relating unto Christ and his church in an especial manner: —
1. Whereas the Lord Christ is, by the appointment of the Father, made " heir of all things," Heb. i. 2, and " hath all judgment com- mitted unto him," over all flesh, in all the world, — which include his right to send his gospel into what nation and place he pleaseth ; — so all the alterations that are in the world, all things relate to him, and do lie in a remote tendency to the advancement of his glory. He will work out his own glorious ends from all the breakings of all the nations in the world ; even where the interest of his gospel seems outwardly to be very little, or nothing at all. But it is not in this
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sense that we make our inquiry; for so there would be nothing peculiar in the works that have been among us.
2. Things may relate unto Christ and his church upon the account of special promise. Christ hath a special and peculiar concernment in providential dissolutions when they so relate to him ; and that ap- pears in these things: —