All things move as they are influenced by his power, and directed by his wisdom. The date of Gods order for disposing the creature is from the beginning, yea from everlasting. As the model of the Creation, what things should be, was with him from everlasting, so was the model of Providence, how all things should be governed and disposed of. The government of the world is as much of God as the Creation o• giving of it a being. From the Stars in Heaven, to the Worms creeping upon the Earth, all creatures were and are guided in their course by him; he hath set them bounds which they cannot pass, and sent out his word to them which they fail not to observe. Heathens, generally, did not acknowledge God to be the Maker of the world, nor did they acknowledge him the disposer of it, but ascribed all the vicissitudes here below to blind Fortune, or to uncertain ⟨p. 537⟩Chance. Aristotle, the fore-man, the wisest of that rank, thought the World was eternal; he could not find how it had a beginning, and therefore concluded it had none: yet others of the wise Heathen had a notion that there was a beginning, that there was a first-worker, but when or how he wrought they could not tell. And as the wisest men, who had but the light of nature and reason to teach them, were very dark about the beginning of all things, so also about their motion, they thought that all things either moved of themselves, or that the supreme Power having put Nature into a course, it acted alone, so that God never meddled about particulars. Whereas we are taught and assured, by this Scripture-Text, and many more, that God not only made all things, but disposeth all things, even to the fall of a Sparrow upon the ground, or to the loss of an hair of the head (Math. 10.20.) Christ saith also (John 5.17.) My father worketh hitherto, and I work. Creation was a work ended in six days, but Providence is a wo•k that never ends; thus God always worketh, though always at rest. That's the lesson here intended.
All things move as they are influenced by his power, and directed by his wisdome. The date of Gods order for disposing the creature is from the beginning, yea from everlasting. As the model of the Creation, what things should be, was with him from everlasting, so was the model of Providence, how all things should be governed and disposed of. The government of the world is as much of God as the Creation o• giving of it a being. From the Starrs in Heaven, to the Wormes creeping upon the Earth, all creatures were and are guided in their course by him; he hath set them bounds which they cannot passe, and sent out his word to them which they faile not to observe. Heathens, generally, did not acknowledge God to be the Maker of the world, nor did they acknowledge him the disposer of it, but ascribed all the vicissitudes here below to blind Fortune, or to uncertain ⟨p. 537⟩Chance. Aristotle, the fore-man, the wisest of that rank, thought the World was eternal; he could not find how it had a beginning, and therefore concluded it had none: yet others of the wise Heathen had a notion that there was a beginning, that there was a first-worker, but when or how he wrought they could not tell. And as the wisest men, who had but the light of nature and reason to teach them, were very dark about the beginning of all things, so also about their motion, they thought that all things either moved of themselves, or that the supream Power having put Nature into a course, it acted alone, so that God never medled about particulars. Whereas we are taught and assured, by this Scripture-Text, and many more, that God not only made all things, but disposeth all things, even to the fall of a Sparrow upon the ground, or to the loss of an hair of the head (Math. 10.20.) Christ saith also (John 5.17.) My father worketh hitherto, and I work. Creation was a work ended in six dayes, but Providence is a wo•k that never ends; thus God alwayes worketh, though alwayes at rest. That's the lesson here intended.
