the best Policy and Courage and Preparations for Warre But if this reading be somewhat forced yet sure it is that allthough Prayer to God must not exclude the use of other Means for how can a man pray in Faith that doth not also use all due Means in his power to get the Victorie and win the Day Therefore when you come to these Exercises beg military Skill of God and when called forth to real Service beg Success of Him So in other Cases Prayer is one of the best Expedients Our Saviour hath Instructed us to pray for our daily Bread Scholars should beg a Blessing on their Studies Bene Orâsse est bene Studuisse So for Favour acceptance among men beg so much as may put you into a better Capacity to do the work of your place and serve your Generation When Paul was to carry a liberal Contribution to the poor Saints at Ierusalem which was like enough to be very welcome He begs the Romans to strive together with him in Prayer that his Service might be accepted of the Saints Rom. 15. 30 31. Pray threefore in the Name of Christ for the good Success of all your lawful Undertakings Therein you will express your Dependence on God 5. Cast all the Care of Events Issues of your Affairs Vndertakings on the Lord. Use all the good Means in your Hand and then leave Events quietly with God on whom all the Issues of things depend Commit your way to the Lord and roll it off thy self upon Him Psal. 37. 5. Look to Him to direct thy paths to a good Issue Prov. 3. 6. When you have done your Duty in the use of Means to compass your lawful Designs and recommended all to God by Prayer then trouble your selves no further but Cast your burden upon the Lord Psal. 55. 22. 1 Pet. 5. 2. Take that Counsel Phil. 4. 6. It is our work to take care our Dutie be done and the Lord's work to take the care of Events It was a brave Speech of that gallant Souldier though none of the best Men Ioab I mean when he had set his Men in battel aray and used all the Skill Policie he could Be of good Courage and let us play the Men for our People and for the Cities of our God and the Lord do that which seemeth Him good 2 Sam. 10. 12. We must not govern the World nor encroach upon God's Prerogative which is to dispose of Events by taking the care of them upon our selves Be poor and weak in your own Eyes and commit your selves Concernments to Him 6. When you have thus done then Believe stedfastly that the Lord will give you a goud Issue of your Vndertakings Though not that which you may desire yet that which is best for you When you have greatest Sense of your own Insufficiencie and the weakness of Means yet believe this and depend upon Him for it according to his Promise with whom it is all one to save by many or few weak or strong to Convert and edifie by weak or able Ministers to feed his Children and make them look fair and fat with Pulse and mean fare as well as with royal Dainties This Depending upon God excludeth Presumption on one hand Despair and Discouragement on the other And He that in the Sense of his own Insufficiencie trusts in the Power and Grace of God may say as Paul When I am weak then am I strong 2 Cor. 12. 10. Oh then Let us depend upon God with whom are the Issues of all Affairs Let our Honourable Rulers depend upon Him in the management of publick Affairs Let Ministers depend on God without whom they cannot Instruct the Ignorant enlighten the Dark convince the Obstinate awaken the secure Sinners convert and bring any Souls to Christ gather Israel edify and build up the Faithful in the knowledg faith of Gospel Mysteries and in the Graces and Consolations of the Spirit Let Merchants depend on God for prosperous Voyages and good Success in their Trade and Commerce Let Husbandmen depend upon God for their Bread Livelihood more than upon their own Labours and the Fruitfulness of the Ground God instructs the Husbandman Isai. 28. 26. and blesseth his Labours and can soon blast them as the experience of many Years hath sadly taught us Let Scholars depend upon God for Learning more than upon their Books or Tutors or Parts and Industrie or any other Advantages Let military Men learn to depend upon God The Lord is a Man of Warr. Exod. 15. 3. He gives military Skill and other Accomplishments and Successes also in their Services and hazardous Undertakings Let us all learn this Lesson to depend upon the Lord that orders out all Successes Events according to His Pleasure 3. Duely Acknowledge God in all Successes Events and in all Frustrations Disappointments First Acknowledge God in all good Successes and Events so as to be Thankful to Him for them Whatever your own Sufficiencie may be yet acknowledge God thankfully as if you had been wholly Insufficient for your Sufficiencie is of God and He could have disappointed notwithstanding The ground of our Unthankfulness for all good Issues and Events of Affairs and Undertakings is because we do not see the good Hand of God dispensing all to us We make too little of God and too much of our selves either by thinking we deserve better than God hath done for us Hence a proud Heart is never thankful to God or Man or by thinking we have done all or more than we have done toward the getting of this or that Mercy We put our selves too much in the place of God as if it were in our power to make our Endeavours Successful and to give a good Effect and Issue to them according to our Desire We get up into God's Throne and usurp upon his Prerogative and assume that which is pâ—â—â—liar to Him when we presume we can bring any thing to pass or do any thing successfully in our Own strength If we make our selves the only and absolute first Causes of our good Success no marvel we make our selves the last End also and deny God the glorie O do not ascribe good Success to your own Wit and Parts and Policy and Industrie and say my Nimbleness hath won the Race my Conduct and Courage hath won the Battel my Wisom hath gotten me this Bread my Understanding hath heaped up this Wealth my Dexteritie and Skill and Complaisance and agreeable Conversation hath procured me the Favour of Rulers or People my Parts or Study hath given me this Learning Say not with the Vapouring Assyrian By the Srength of My Hand I have done it and by My Wisdom for I am Prudent Isa. 10. 13. Let not this be so much as the secret Languge of your Hearts Say not as Nebuchadnezzar This is great Babylon which I have built and so derogate from God that works all in all lest He turn you a grazing as He did
him with the Beasts of the Field and teach you better Manners by some severe Correction Do not Sacrifice to your own Nets and burn Incense to your Drags as if by them your portion were fat and meat plenteous Hab. 1. 16. but ascribe all to God There is that deep Wickedness in the Hearts of Men that if they get any thing by any Fraud and crafty fetches and overreaching of their Brethren in a sinful way they will be too readie to attribute that to the Providence and Blessing of God and say it was God's Providence that cast it in upon them when they have been craftily and sinfully designing it and bringing it about but when they have gotten any thing honestly by their Wisdom and Prudence and Industrie they are too ready to forget Providence and ascribe all to themselves See the Evil of this and remember that no People in the World have greater cause of Thankfulness than we have to God who hath governed Time and Chance on our behalf marvellously O Bless Him for good Success not only when you cannot but acknowledge your own Insufficiency but also wheâ—â—ou have apprehensions of the greatest Sufficiency of Second Causes And Blessed for ever be the Lord who hath Pleasure in the Prosperity of his Servants Psal. 35. 27. Secondly Acknowledge God also in all your Frustrations and Disappointments so as to resent his Disposals and Dispensations towards you in a gracious manner We have met with manie Disappointments in the lâ—te Warre and in other respects We should see God in all When He blasts our Corn defeats our Souldiers frowns upon our Merchants and we are disappointed now acknowledge the Hand of God Ordering Time and Chance according to his Good Pleasure Justifie God in all and bear such Frustrations patientlie When you have done your Dutie be quiet though the Event doth not answer your Endeavours and Hopes Take heed of quarrelling at GOD's Disappointments Do you know VVhom you have to do with I was dumb I opened not my mouth because Thou didst it Psal. â—9 9. If we look at faultie Instruments or at meer Chance onely we shall be apt to murmur It is the observation of One That the Reason why men are more apt to fly out into Cursings and Blasphemies for their bad Luck as they call it in those Vnlawful Games of Cards and Dice than in other Exercises that are governed by Art and Skill ariseth partly from the very nature of those Games because when they have tried their Lot or Chance over and over and their Expectation is deceived they think that that Power that governs the Lot or Chance is Adverse to them They cannot blame their own Art or Skill when no Art can infallibly determine the Event but curse their bad Fortune And if we look at Disappointments as our bad Fortune and Chance onely looking no further we shall be apt to fret and quarrel but if we do indeed see God ordering our Lot for us it may and ought to silence us When Magistrates have done their Duty according to the Law of God and of the Country and endeavoured faithfully to give check stop to the Inundation of Profaneness and Heresy and yet the bad Genius of the Times and degenerous Humour of the People and this or that Emergency happens that frustrates the Success of their Counsels and Endeavours truly they may sit down and mourn indeed but yet humbly submit to the All disposing Providence of God When Ministers have laboured faithfully and yet Israel is not gathered and their Labours seem to be in vain not successful in converting Sinners they may weep in secret indeed but yet patiently bear the Unsuccessfulnes of their Ministry from the Hand of God When Souldiers have shewed themselves valiant and faithful and done what they can and yet are worsted They must acknowledge God's Hand in it and that the Battel is the Lord's 1 Sam. 17. 47. who governeth the Warre and determins the Victory on what side He pleaseth All men have Briars and Thorns springing up in the way of their Callings as well as Husbandmen and meet with Difficulties and Crosses there in Get the Spirit David had 2 Sam. 15. 25 26. and so acknowledge God in every thing as to submit humbly to his Disposals even when they are Adverse and cross to your Desies and â—xpectations Thirdly Be always Prepared for Disappointments Do not promise your selves Success from the Sufficiency of Second Causes God may determine otherwise We should be forewarned and forearmed that we may not Xenìzesthai 1 Pet. 4. 12. strange at it when it comes to pass or be dejected and discouraged Events are not in the Creatures power The Lord sometimes disappoints men of greatest Sufficiency over-rules and controlls their Counsels and Endeavours and blasts them strangely Time and Chance happens to them If Adam had stood though he would not have had the Determination of Events Successes in his own hand yet God would have determined them for him according to his hearts-desire and he should never have been disappointed But since the Fall as no Man hath power to determine Events which is God's Prerogative so it is just with God that every man should meet with Crosses and Disappointments and this is the Fruit of the Curse under which all natural menly and as for the People of God though they are delivered from the Curse of the Law in the Formality of it so that nothing befalls them as a Curse how cross soever it be yet they are not yet absolutely delivered from the Matter of the Curse as appears by the Afflictions they meet with and Death it self And indeed it makes sometimes for the glory of God to disappoint Men of greatest Abilities When men do not see and own God but attribute Success to the Sufficiency of Instruments It 's time for God to maintain his own Right as Dr. Preston speaks and shew that He gives or denies Success according to His own good Pleasure God is much seen in Controlling the ablest Agents blasting their Enterprizes yea more many times than in backing them blessing their Endeavours in an ordinary Course of Providence Herein the Wisdom of God is much seen It is best sometimetimes it should be so with respect to God's Int'rest and Glory His Power also appears in giving Check to the Ablest Instruments and turning all their Designs another way than they Intended His Mercy also to his People is seen herein for it is best for them in some Cases to be defeated and disappointed His Iustice also appears herein in his correcting and punishing the Self-confident sinful Creature with unexpected Disappointments So that it is our Wisdom tolook for Changes and Chances some Occurrents and Emergencies that may blast our Undertakings that Faith and Prayer may be kept a going and lest if such Frustrations befall us unexpectedly we either fly out against God or faint and sink in Discouragements At the first going out of our Forces in the
alwayes to evade danger or win the Prize by Running Nor is the Battel to the Strong The Victory is not determined or the decision of the warre made alwayes on the side of the strongest and valiantest men Nor yet Bread to the Wise. Many wise men are not able to get their Bread or Livelihood in the World Nor Riches to men of Vnderstanding Many understanding men have not any success in their endeavours to gathâ—â— Râ—ches and get Estates Nor Favour to men of Skill Many times the most Skillful Artists and Artificers and the best Accomplished Persons find little Favour and Acceptation among men how deserving and ingenious soever they be 2. Illustrated by the Antithesis of a different and the true Cause of the Determination of Successes and Events signified in those words But Time and Chance happeneth to them all By which we are not to understand that the Determination of Events is reducâ—d and referred to meer Chance Fortune as the Epicurean Philosophers imagined but that the Counsel and Providence of God disposes and orders out all Successes or Frustrations of Second Causes casting in sometimes such unexpected Impediments and Obstructions as defeat the Labours and hopes of men of greatest Sufficiency which though they seem wholly casual and fortuitous Emergencies and are so indeed unto men themselves yet they are governed by the secret Counsel and effectual Providence of God The Summe is that no man how accomplish'd soever is Master of Events or absolute Determiner of the Issues of his own Actings and Endeavours but the soveraign Counsel and the Providence of God orders TIME and CHANCE to be an effectual Furtherance or Hindrance of the Designs of all men as seems good in His sight The Observation is Doct. That the Successes and Events of Vndertakings and Affairs are not determined infallibly by the greatest Sufficiency of Men or Second Causes but by the Counsel and Providence of God ordering and governing Time and Chance according to his own good Pleasure I have endeavoured to comprize and grasp the substance of Solomon's Intendment in this Doctâ—nal Conclusion and shall explicate and demonstrate the Truth of it as God shall help in the following Propositions Prop. 1. Second Causes may have a sufficiency in their Kind to produce these and those Effects an liability a congruous disposition or an aptness yea a kind of sufficiency in order to the putting forth this and that Act and the giving Existence to these and those Effects not indeed an absolute and universal Sufficiency which can be affirmed of none but Him that is All sufficient and Omnipotent but a limited sufficiency or a sufficiency in their Kind and order The Sun to shine the Fire to burn that which is combustible the Rational Creature to act or effect this or that in a way of counsel and with freedom of will the Swift to run the strong and valiant and well-instructed Souldier to fight well the wise man to get his bread to gather riches to gain acceptance among those with whom he hath to do This is no more than to say that created Agents and Second Causes may have the active power and virtue of causes all that is requisite on their parts in ordeâ—â— to the production of their peculiar and appropriate Effects all that sufficiency that dependent Beings and second Causes are capable of And indeed it belongs to the Infinite Wisdom and Goodness of God to furnish his Creatures with sufficient Ability for the opperations and effects He hath made them for and so He did at first when He made every thing good in its Kind and whatever Defect there is now in this respect it is the fruit punishment of Sin Though God is able to give Being to things in an immediate way yet it is his pleasure in the course of his Providence to use Means and to produce many things by the mediation and Agency of second Causes and so gives causal virtue and ability to these and those things in order to the producing of such and such Effects It is a good observation that the Lord is pleased not through any defect of power in Himself but out of the abundance of his goodness to communicâ—te causal power and virtue to his Creatures to honour them with that Dignity that they may be his Instruments by which He will produce these and those Effects whereby He takes them as it were into partnership fellowship with Himself in the way of his providential Efficiency that they may be Vnder-workers to yea Co-workers with Himself Hence He gives them an aptitude and sufficiency in their kind in order to their respective operations and effects though some have a greater aptitude sufficiency than others But without some degree of such sufficiâ—â—cy nothing can deserve the name of a Cause the very essence whereof consists in its power virtue ability to produce an Effect A cause cannot be a cause without an active power or sufficiency to give being to this or that Effect Prop. 2. The Successes and Events of Affairs and Vndertakings do ordinarily depend in some respects upon the Sufficiency of Second Causes I do not say in the Observation nor is it the meaning of Solomon that Successes and Events of Affairs and Undertakings do not depend at all in an ordinary course on the sufficiency of Second Causes For this were to deny and destroy their causality and to make nothing of their efficiency Second causes have their peculiar Influence into their Effects and contribute something to their Existence and to assert the contrary were to say that Causes are no Causes and to speak a flat Contradâ—ction This would be to suppose that the Lord hath set up an Order and course in Nature in vain and given to Second Causes a sufficiency in their Kind for Action to no purpose and to deny the ordinary Providence of God which is that whereby the Lord observes the Order which He hath set and that course of Nature which is originally of his own Appointment whereby one thing depends upon and receives Being from another Though the Lord is pleased sometimes upon great and important Occasions to leave the ordinary Road of Providence and act beyond and above the usual stated course of Things and not to concurre with and shine upon the endeavours of created Agents so as to crown them with that success which according to an ordinary course of Providence might be rationally expected yet it is not to be imagined that He should ordinarily dispence with the course and methods of his ordinary Providence For why then should it be called ordinary God who is the Lord of Hosts the great Leader Commander Ruler of Nature not only permits but also effectually commands and causes his whole Militia ordinarily to move and act according to their Natures and natural Properties respectively without Countermanding them or turning them out of their way For as I remember One argues He will not shew such a dislike to
brought his Design near to an Issue then the King cannot sleep but calls for the Book of the Records of the Chronicles and they read to Hâ—m of the good Service of Mordecai in discovering the Treason that was plotted against his Person and one thing falls in after another to defeat Haman's cruel design and ruine the whole fabrick of his strong built and almost perfected Contrivance In this sence Time and Chance happens to men of greatest Sufficiency which they cannot either foresee Eccl 9. 12. or prevent or help themselves against them when they come upon them and hereby their Counsels and Undertakings are defeated and ruined sometimes Prop. 5. Time and Chance which happens to men in the way of their Vndertakings is effectually ordered governed by the Lord. God is the Lord of Time and Orderer and Governour of all Contingences Time and Chance that further or hinder the Designs of men are under the Rule and Management of the Lord. His Counsel sets the Times appoints the Chances His Providence dispenses the Times and frames the Chances that befall men The Lord hath in his own power the Dispensation of Times Eph. 1. 10. The Times and Seasons He hath put in his own power Act. 1. 7. He hath such a Dominion over the Times that He changeth Times and Seasons according to his own pleasure Dan. 2. 21. My Times saith David Ps. 31. 15. are in thy Hands He means the state and condition of his Times his Prosperities and Adversities his Successes and Disappointments and universally whatever should befall him in the Times that should pass over Him Moreover all the Chances that happen to men as the Scripture but now mentioned shews are in the Hand of God My Times i.e. the Chances of my Times No Contingency or Emergency or Accident so casual but it is ordered governed by the Lord. The Arrow that was shot at a venture and smote Ahab throw the joints of his Hâ—rness was directed at him by the Hand of God So in that case of Man-slaughter and killing a man casually as if a man be hewing Wood and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the Axe to cut down a Tree and the head slippeth from the helve and lighteth upon his Neighbour that he die Deut. 19 5. God is said in that case to deliver that man that is slain into his hand Exod. 21. 13. God ordereth that sad event All Casualties in the World are guâ—ded by the steady Hand 〈◊〉 the great God Thou saith David Ps. 16. 5. maintainest â—y Lot The Lord makes and disposes the Lot or Chance of every man whatever it is He hath appointed all Times and Chances in his Eternal Counsel and in Time executes accordingly in the course of his Providence Prop. 6. The great God hath the absolute and infallible Determination of the Successes and Events of all the Operations Vndertakings of created Agents Second Causes in his own Power His Counsel and soveraign Will appoints what they shall be and his Providence which is not determined by any Second Cause but is the Determiner of them all Executes accordingly And it must needs be so if you consider these two Particulars 1. God is the Absolute First Cause and Supream Lord of all Of Him and to Him and through Him are all Things Rom. 11. 36. He that understands any thing of God indeed knows this to be a Truth Here we might be large as they that are acquainted with the Doctrine of Creation and Providence in Conservation and Gubernation of all Things will readily apprehend for here we might shew you 1. That God is the absolute first Cause of all the causal power and virtue that is in Creatures He gives them power to act furnisheth them with a Sufficiency for their Operations He gives Swiftness to the Runner Skill and Strength and Courage to the Souldier 2. That He supports and continues the active power of the creature He continues Swiftness Wisdom Strength Courage as He pleaseth If He withdraw all is gone The Swift is lame or slow-footed the Strong is weak timorous the Wise is foolish and besotted the man of Skill is a meer Bungler at any thing 3. That He doth by a previous Influx excite and stirre up and actuate the active power of the Creature and set all the wheels agoing For the most operative active created Virtue is not a pure Act but hath some Potentiality mixed with it and therefore cannot put forth it self into Action unless it be set agoing by the first Cause And the creature cannot be the absolute first Cause of any physical action In Him we live and move Act. 17 28. Again 4. That He determines and applyes Second Causes to the Objects of their Actions When they stand as it were in Bivio as it is said of Nebuchadnezzar when he was marching with his Army He stood at the parting of the way at the head of the two wayes to use Divination as doubting which way he had bâ—st to march whether to Ierusalem or some other way Ezek. 21. 21 22. Then the Lord easts the Scale and the Lot determines them this way and not another He doth not only stir up Second Causes to act at large and set them agoing and leave it to their own Inclination whither they shall go what they shall do but He leads them forth and determines them to this or that Object 5. That He cooperates and workes jointly with Second Causes in producing their Effects as He predetermins Second Causes so He concurres with them in their Operations And this Pradetermination and Concurse is so necessary that there can be no real Effect produced by the Creature without it And it is a Truth also that when God Improves Second Causes for the production of any Effect He so concurres with them that He doth withall most immediately intimously and without Dependence upon these Causes by which He acts produce the Entity or Esse of the Effect If this be considered it will appear that created Agents are as it were God's Instruments that act as they are acted by Him and cannot move of themselves The busy bustling proud Assyrian was so Is 10. 15. 6. That all the Ataxy Disorder Irregularity moral Evil that is found in the Actions of Rational Agents is by His Permission If it were not the Pleasure of God to permit it no Sin should be in the World nor in the Actions of Men. Though there is no Legal Permission or allowance of it for the Law of God forbids it yet there is a Providential Permission of it God could have kept it out of his World 7. That He limits and sets Bounds to the Actions of Second Causes what they shall do and how farre they shall proceed in this or that way He set bounds to Satan when he had Commission to afflict Iob. He limits and restrains the Eruptions of the Wrath Rage of the Churches Adversaries Ps. 76. 10. He sets bounds to the sinfull