Chapter 2

CHAP. II.

Gods acting influences. 2 His influences are in all creatures. 3 The sweet safety of believers in possible calamities. 4 Our atheism in reading the Book of providence, &c.

1. That there are strong influences upon all causes from the Lord, may be evinced. 1 From the holy tongue; the Hebrews use the verb in hiphil noting a double action; when one causeth another to act, to note influences, (Deuteronomy 32:39). I cause to die, and I cause to live. Hannah so sings (1 Samuel 2:6): Jehovah causeth to die, and causeth to live; he causeth to go down to the grave, and to come up again; the Lord maketh poor, and he maketh rich; he maketh low, and he maketh high; so the passive verb is used. Which perfection, in short, is in that language above others, and when such actions are ascribed to God, they show that God has an influence and impulsion, as the first cause in all actions; the Scripture herein abounds. The Greek language comes short of this (John 5:17): My Father, [in non-Latin alphabet] worketh hitherto, and I work. And though he work all works in all creatures, yet in believers this is made true in Paul's sense (Philippians 2): Work out your salvation in fear and trembling. How? but we may miscarry and fail. True, says he, if you, you alone, without the influence of grace did the work; work out, verse 13. For it is God who is the worker in you to will and work; alluding to the Hebrew word, he says, [in non-Latin alphabet]. How the connection is between our working and the effectual predeterminating influences of God, is to us dark, but this argument of Paul says they well agree, and he infers this thesis, they both physically and morally are to work out their salvation, in whom God both by the habit and actual influence of grace worketh to will and to do, then must influences of grace so be at hand when the believers are to act, as they are no less under a precept, and a command to act, believe, pray, then the husbandman is under a command to plow in Summer, and to sow, lest he be poor. But the question is de modo, how they are at hand, whether so as the free will of man may command, and have in its power the influences of God's grace, or the Lord by the dominion of his strong influence, sweetly and connaturally commands and has in his power our free will, according to his good pleasure. Sure it is safer that nature be under grace and the dominion thereof, than grace be under nature, as it must be better divinity that God reign, than man reign; more of this after. And that Jehovah be Lord of man's actings, than man be lord of Jehovah's sovereignty.

2. Beside that, every being must be from the being of beings, and so every action natural or supernatural must be attended with suitable influences from God; so the Scripture is clear.

That 1. God can serve a sort of law-inhibition upon all creatures, that they act not; and what he takes from them, except the withdrawing of his own influences, we know not (Job 9:7): He commandeth the Sun and it riseth not, and sealeth up the Stars. Psalm 106:9: He rebuked the red Sea also, and it was dried up. God, by the interposition of the faith of his own, will not have strong walls to stand (Hebrews 11:30), but they must fall; nor Lions to eat the prey, verse 33; nor a violent fire to burn, nor the sword to devour, verse 34.

As 2. They act at his command (Psalm 78:26): He caused the East wind to blow in the Heavens, and by his power he brought in the South wind; whether this be by a strong terminating influence, which displeases adversaries of grace and providence, or some other way, we contend not for words. But if the Scripture hold forth, as it does, that the Lord by his strong and invincible dominion does indeclinably, and without any possible failing bring forth his decreed effect, some impulsion of God immanent, transient, or mixed, which is terminate upon all second causes there must be. For as he can and does hinder natural causes to work, as the Sun to move towards his downgoing (Joshua 12:13; Isaiah 38:8), the Lion to eat the man, whereas he did fear the ass (1 Kings 13:28), so he is the father and cause of all things that fall out (Job 38:28): Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29. Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary-frost of Heaven, who has gendered it? 31. Can you bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades? or loose the bands of Orion? This teacheth that Job cannot, nor can any creature at his nod; but the Lord can, and he only binds up or lets out the influences of Pleiades, the stars which rise in the Spring, and bring forth flowers and herbs; and orders the course of Orion which bringeth Winter; and orders the stars that rise in the South, and in the North. 34. Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you? See his actings.

3. His influences are in things small, as in the falling of a Sparrow to the earth; not one hair of the head but it is numbered by him (Luke 21:18; Matthew 10:29, 30, 31). Not a gourd groweth, nor a worm eats it, but at his command (Jonah 4:6, 7; Amos 4:7, 8, 9; Joel 1:1, 2, 3, 4; Psalm 105:29, 30, 31, 32, 33, &c.). He has a hand in the bird-nests building (Psalm 104:17, 18).

4. The actings of the Lord are in great things, as the translation of kingdoms, dominions, and thrones (Daniel 4:32; Jeremiah 27:5, 6, 7). In all the rises and fallings of Princes, the stars of whatever magnitude (Isaiah 40:21; 1 Samuel 2:7, 8; Psalm 76:12).

5. His actings are in matter of lots that seem to be ruled by fortune and chance (Proverbs 16:33; Genesis 49; Deuteronomy 33, compared with Joshua 14:1, 2, 3).

6. Especially in bowing the free will, and determining all the actions of evil angels (1 Kings 22:21, 22, 23; Job 1:6, 7, 8; Job 2:1, 2, 3; Genesis 3:1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Matthew 8:29, 30, 31) and good (Luke 2:9, 13; Matthew 28:1, 2, 3; Acts 1:20; 2 Thessalonians 1:7) leading and determining the free will of all men, the King (Proverbs 21:1), the Prince (Genesis 43:13; Esther 4:16, 17) compared with Chap. 5. & 2. c. 7. 2, 3. He graciously inclines the will and hearts of men (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 32:39, 40; Ezekiel 36:27) as the saints pray (Psalms 119:33, 34, 36, 88; Psalms 86:11; Canticles 1. & 4).

He hardens the heart, and blinds the mind, as in his judgment he pleases (Job 12:16; Ezekiel 14:9; Exodus 14:8; Deuteronomy 2:30; 2 Samuel 12:11, 12; Isaiah 6:9, 10; Matthew 13:14, 15; John 12:37, 38, 39, 40; Romans 1:24, 25, 26, 27, 28; Romans 11:8). And many such things are with him; the more spiritually minded any is, the more bent is the heart to follow and eye God in all his actings. He shall see how wise in heart the steersman is, who watches at the helm; and it shall appear what precious thoughts take up the believer, who sees such millions and numberless numbers of influences with all the drops of rain, hail, dew falling between the creation and the dissolving of the world: all which he binds in his garment (Proverbs 30:2), and what numbers of influences he joins to all the blasts of winds and storms which he gathers in his fists, ibid. What influences of the Almighty must there be at all the actings, stirrings, and motions of angels in heaven, of damned spirits, of men, elect and reprobate, of birds, beasts, creeping things, fishes, in the wise connection of all these with the Lord's intended end?

And if this be observed, suppose the body of the heavens, which in its wide bosom contains all, were broken and fell down in many thousand pieces, faith in the infinite wisdom, goodness and power of God will bid the believer be silent, and sleep and hope within his own garment. God excellently rules all; the best of created things next to that precious thing Christ man, is the Church, and the Lord will specially care for that, and for me among the rest.

3. No doubt we are brutish and look to all the stirrings with much atheism and little faith, as if all stirrings in nature, societies and kingdoms, were set on work by the sway of nature, and blind fortune, without God, as a wheel rolling about with the mighty violence of a strong arm, moves a long time, after the arm of the mover is removed. Or suppose a pair of chariot-wheels were let loose in the top of a huge mountain, and should move down some hundred thousands of millions of miles for hundreds of years after the man who set them first a-work, were dead; so we fools believe that God gave a mighty strong shake or some omnipotent impulsion to all causes natural, free and contingent, to heaven and earth, sea and land, to all creatures in them, angels and men, and did bid them be a going; for he must sleep, and could not actually stir them any more. Nor can we see God in all, and that he contrived this, that one should rise early and eat the bread of sorrow, and yet be poor: another should be wise admirably, and want bread; another fight valiantly and be foiled, and a man run swiftly, and lose the race (Psalms 127:1, 2, 3; Ecclesiastes 9:11), and that much sowing has little reaping (Haggai 1:6), for (Habakkuk 2:13) "Behold is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people should labor in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?" Chaldaea does sweat and pine herself for the very wind and nothing. We see not that nature miscarries and parts with child, when his good providence who rules all is not midwife; and a barren womb brings forth many births, and she that is no mother has a rich issue, when sovereignty pleases; this is my faith and comfort.