A39659:478
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.
(8.) Eye them all as comforts appointed to refresh you in your way to far better and greater mercies than themselves. The best mercies are still reserved till last, and all these are introductive to better.
In all the Sad and Afflictive Providences that befall you, Eye God as the Author and orderer of them also. So he represents himself to us, Jer. 18. 11. Behold, I create evil, and devise a device against you. And Amos 3. 6. Is there evil in the City, and the Lord hath not done it? More particularly,
Set before you the Sovereignty of God. Eye §1him as a Being infinitely superior to you, at whose pleasure, you, and all you have is, Psal. 115. 3. which is the most conclusive reason and argument of submission, Psal. 46. 10. For if we, and all we have, proceeded from his Will, how equal is it, that we be resigned up to it? It is not many years agone since we were not, and when it pleased him to bring us upon the Stage of action, we had no liberty of indenting with him, on what •erms we would come into the world; or refuse to be, except we might have our being on such terms as we desired. His Sovereignty is gloriously displayed in his Eternal Decrees and temporal Providences. He might have put you into what rank of Creatures he pleased. He might have made you the most despicable Creatures, Worms or Toads: or, if men, the most vile, abject and miserable among men: and when you had run through all the miseries of this life, have damned you to Eternity, made you miserable for ever, and all this without any wrong to you. And shall not this quiet us under the common afflictions of this life?