The Soul's Conflict with Itself

1. He furnishes creatures with a virtue and power to work, and likewise ¹with a manner of working suitable to their own nature, as it is proper for a man (when he works) to work with freedom, and other creatures by natural instinct, &c. 2. God maintaineth both the power and manner of working, ²and perfecteth and accomplisheth the same by acting of it, being nearer to us in all we do, then we are to ³our selves. 3. He applies and stirs up our abilities and actions, to this or that ⁴particular as he seeth best. 4. He suspends or removes the hinderances of ⁵all 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 ⟨p. 275⟩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, but ⁶it 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) shrinks up presently.

1. He furnishes creatures with a vertue and power to worke, and likewise ¹with a manner of working sutable to their owne nature, as it is proper for a man (when he workes) to worke with freedome, and other creatures by naturall instinct, &c. 2. God maintaineth both the power and manner of working,