Reader,
There are two ways whereby the blessed God condescends to manifest himself to men: his word and his works. Of the written word we must say, no words like these were ever written since the beginning of time, which can (as one speaks) take life and root in the soul, and does so as really as the seed does in the ground; and are fitted to be engrafted and naturalized there, so that no coalition in nature can be more real than this (James 1:21). This is the most transcendent and glorious medium of manifestation; God has magnified his word above all his name (Psalm 138:2).
However, the manifestations of God by his works, whether of creation or providence, have their value and glory; but the prime glory and excellency of his providential works consists in this, that they are the very fulfillings and real accomplishments of his written word. By a wise and heedful attendance to this, we might learn that excellent art which is (not unfitly) called by some the science of architecture — an art to clear the mysterious occurrences of providence by reducing them to the written word and lodging them there as effects in their proper causes. And doubtless, this is one of the rarest efforts men could pursue against atheism: to show not only how providences concur in a most obvious tendency to confirm this great conclusion, 'Your word is truth,' but how it sometimes extorts also the confession of a God and the truth of his word from those very tongues which have boldly denied it. Aeschylus the Persian, relating their defeat by the Grecian army, makes this notable observation: when the Grecian forces hotly pursued us (says he), and we must needs venture over the great water Strymon, then frozen but beginning to thaw — when a hundred to one we had all died for it — with my own eyes I then saw many of those gallants whom I had heard before so boldly maintain there was no God, every one upon their knees, with eyes and hands lifted up, begging hard for help and mercy, and entreating that the ice might hold till they got over. Many thousands of seals has providence forced the very enemies of God to set to his truths, which greatly tends to our confirmation therein; but especially to see how the word and providences of God enlighten each other, and how the scriptures contain all those events — both great and small — which are disposed by providence in their seasons; and how not only the promises of the word are in the general faithfully fulfilled to the church in all her crises and distresses, but in particular to every member of it, they being all furnished by providence with multitudes of experiences to this use and end. Oh, how useful are such observations!
And as the profit and use, so the delight and pleasure resulting from the observations of providence is exceeding great. It will doubtless be a part of our entertainment in heaven to view with transporting delight how the designs and methods were laid to bring us there; and what will be a part of our blessedness in heaven may well be allowed to have a prime ingredient into our heaven upon earth. To search for pleasure among the due observations of providence is to search for water in the ocean; for providence does not only ultimately design to bring you to heaven, but (as intermediate to that) to bring by this means much of heaven into your souls in the way there.
How great a pleasure it is to discern how the most wise God is providentially steering all to the port of his own praise and his people's happiness, while the whole world is busily employed in managing the sails and tugging at the oars with a quite opposite design and purpose! To see how they promote his design by opposing it, and fulfill his will by resisting it, enlarge his church by scattering it, and make their rest to come the more sweet to their souls by making their condition so restless in the world. This is pleasant to observe in general; but to record and note its particular designs upon ourselves — with what profound wisdom, infinite tenderness, and incessant vigilance it has managed all that concerns us from first to last — is ravishing and transporting.
Oh, what a history might we compile of our own experiences, while with a melting heart we trace the footsteps of providence all along the way it has led us to this day, and set our remarks upon its more eminent performances for us in the several stages of our life!
Here it prevented, and there it delivered; here it directed, and there it corrected. In this it grieved, and in that it relieved. Here was the poison, and there the antidote. This providence raised a dismal cloud, and that dispelled it again. This straitened, and that enlarged. Here a want, and there a supply. This relation withered, and that springing up in its room. Words cannot express the high delights and gratifications a gracious heart may find in such employment as this.
Oh, what a world of rarities are to be found in providence! The blind, heedless world makes nothing of them; they cannot find one sweet bit where a gracious soul would make a rich feast. Plutarch relates very exactly how Timoleon was miraculously delivered from the conspiracy of two murderers, by their meeting in the very nick of time a certain person who, to revenge the death of his father, killed one of them just as they were ready to give Timoleon the fatal blow — though he knew nothing of the business — and so Timoleon escaped the danger. And what did this wonderful work of providence yield the relator, do you think? Why, though he were one of the most learned and ingenious among the heathen sages, yet all he made of it was only this: 'The spectators,' said he, 'wondered greatly at the artifice and contrivance which fortune uses.' This is all he could see in it. Had a spiritual and wise Christian had the dissecting and analyzing of such a work of providence, what glory would it have yielded to God! What comfort and encouragement to the soul! The bee makes a sweeter meal upon one single flower than the ox does upon the whole meadow where thousands of them grow.
Oh reader, if your heart be spiritual and well stocked with experience, if you have recorded the ways of providence towards you, and will but allow yourself time to reflect upon them, what a life of pleasure may you live! What a heaven upon earth does this way lead you into! I will not here tell you what I have met in this path, lest it should seem to savor of too much vanity; it is not religion where all is made public. There are some delights and enjoyments in the Christian life which are and must be enclosed. But try it yourself, taste and see, and you will need no other inducement; your own experience will be the most powerful persuasion to the study and search of providence.
Histories are usually read with delight; when once the fancy is caught, a man knows not how to disengage himself from it. I am greatly mistaken if the history of our own lives, if it were well drawn up and distinctly perused, would not be the pleasantest history we ever read in our lives.
The ensuing treatise is an attempt to that purpose, in which you will find some remarks set upon providence in its passage through the several stages of our life. But reader, you alone are able to compile the history of providence for yourself, because the memorials that furnish it are only in your own hands. However, here you may find a pattern and general rules to direct you in that great and difficult work, which is the very end and design of this manual.
I have not had much regard to the dress and ornament in which this discourse is to go abroad, for I am debtor both to the strong and weak, the wise and foolish; and in all my observation I have not found that ever God has made much use of labored periods, rhetorical flowers, and elegancies to improve the power of religion in the world. Yes, I have observed how providence has sometimes rebuked good men when upon other subjects they have too much affected those pedantic fooleries by withdrawing from them its usual aids and exposing them to shame; and much more may it do so when it itself is the subject.
Reader, if your stomach be nice and squeamish, and nothing will relish with you but what is spruce and elegant, there are plenty of such compositions in the world upon which you may even surfeit your curious fancy. Meanwhile there will be found some that will bless God for what you despise, and make many a sweet meal upon what you loathe.
I will add no more but my hearty prayers that providence will direct this treatise to such hands, in such seasons, and so bless and prosper its design, that God may have glory, you may have benefit, and I myself comfort in the success thereof, who am
Yours and the church's servant in the hand of providence, John Flavel.
