An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of…An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of…

Observe, First,

The making of man now, is the work of God, as well as the making of the first man was.

Job doth not say, The Lord did once make and fashion man, but thine hands have made me: He ascribeth his own making to God, as well as Adams. The structure and frame of nature is the work of God, not of nature: Nature and natural causes are nothing but the order in which God worketh. God turneth or changeth, stops or sets them forward as he pleaseth.¹ Second causes work purely at the vvill of God, though means be used by man, yet the effect is Gods. Corn groweth in the field by the hand of God. You vvill say, What then doth the husbandman? What doth the earth? What do the Sun and rain? Do not all these work? All those are nothing but the order wherein, and by which the hand of God makes the corn to grow; for let all those second causes work as hard as they can, yet the corn grows not, unless God speak the word; His steps, not the husbandmans drop fatness; It is he, not the Sun or the rain, which makes the valleys stand thick with corn, to laugh and sing. As in spirituals so in naturals, he that planteth, and he that watereth is nothing, but God that giveth the increase. The Psalmist speaks exclusively of man, as to the point of mans making, and he putteth an emphasis upon it, as if man did not take notice enough, if a• ⟨p. 494⟩all, of this, that in this man is nothing, Know ye, that the Lord he is God, ²it is he that hath made us, and not we our selves. There may be a great deal of grace acted in acknowledging God to be the author of nature: yet I conceive the Psalmist speaks there rather of Gods making us in grace then in nature.