An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

To every business, two things are required, Invention and Action; or the electing of Means, and the pursuing of the End: The former is Head-work, the latter is Hand work. The hands are the instruments of action, as the head is the instrument of invention and consultation. These crafty heads were at work before, now their hands go to it: What they devise craftily, they would act industriously; but they cannot, Their hands cannot perform their enterprise.

To every businesse, two things are required, Invention and Action; or the electing of Meanes, and the pursuing of the End: The former is Head-work, the latter is Hand work. The hands are the instruments of action, as the head is the instrument of invention and consultation. These crafty heads were at work before, now their hands goe to it: What they devise craftily, they would act industriously; but they cannot, Their hands cannot performe their enterprise.

The word which we translate Enterprise, signifies Being, as also reason, wisdom, and virtue; because wisdom, virtue and ¹reason, are as it were, the being, stability & permanency of things; And therefore as in the Hebrew, this word signifying wisdom & virtue, is derived from a root, which notes Being. So the word signifying wickedness and folly, is derived from a root (as some Critics observe) which notes only a negative, or a not Being of ⟨p. 275⟩any thing: because wickedness is nothing, or it is good for nothing: Those things which want wisdom and reason, are as if they were not, and shortly will not be at all. Hence some render the words thus; Their hands cannot perform their wisdom, that is, they cannot bring to pass that enterprise, which they had determined and laid (as themselves conceived) with so much wisdom and strength of reason. Mr Broughton to the same sense: Their hands brings nothing soundly to pass. And the Chaldee exemplifies it in the Egyptians before mentioned, who as the holy story informs us, could not effect, that which they had consulted with those depths of policy; and principles of sinful wisdom, The destruction of the children of Israel. Here then we may observe. First, That