A39659:26
Divine Conduct, or The Mystery of Providence
Divine conduct, or, The mystery of Providence wherein the being and efficacy of Providence is asserted and vindicated : the methods of Providence as it passes through the several stages of our lives opened : and the proper course of improving all Providences / directed in a treatise upon Psalm 57 ver 2 by John Flavell ...Divine conduct, or, The mysterie of Providence wherein the being and efficacy of Providence is asserted and vindicated : the methods of Providence as it passes through the several stages of our lives opened : and the proper course of improving all Providences / directed in a treatise upon Psalm 57 ver 2 by John Flavell ...
London: printed by R.W. for Francis Tyton, 1678
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
THERE are two ways whereby the blessed God condescends to manifest himself to men, His Word, and his Works. Of the written Word we must say, No words like these were ever written since the beginning of Time, which can (as one speaks) take life and root in the Soul, yea, doth it as really as the seed doth in the ground: and are fitted to be engrafted and naturalized there, so as no coalition in nature can be more real than this, James 1. 21. This is the most transcendent and glorious medium of manifestation; God hath magnified his word above all his name, Psal. 138. 2.
THERE are two wayes whereby the blessed God condescends to manifest himself to men, His Word, and his Works. Of the written Word we must say, No words like these were ever written since the beginning of Time, which can (as one speaks) take life and root in the Soul, yea, doth it as really as the seed doth in the ground: and are fitted to be engraffed and naturalized there, so as no coalition in nature can be more real than this, James 1. 21. This is the most transcendent and glorious medJum of manifestation; God hath magnifJed his word above all his name, Psal. 138. 2.
However, the manifestations of God by his Works, whether of Creation or Providence have their value, and glory: but the prime glory ⟨image 8⟩and excellency of his Providential works consists in this, that they are the very fulfillings and real accomplishments of his written word. By a wise and heedful attendance hereunto, we might learn that excellent Art, which is (not unfitly) called by some ScJentJa architectonica, an Art to clear the Mysterious occurrences of Providence, by reducing them to the written word, and there lodge them as Effects in their proper Causes. And doubtless, this is one of the rarest essays men could pursue against Atheism, to show, not only how Providences concur in a most obvious tendency to confirm this great Conclusion, Thy word is Truth; but how it sometimes extorts also the confession of a God, and the truth of his Word, from those very tongues which have boldly denied it. Aeschylus the Persian relating their discomf ture by the Grecian Army,