The divine will considered in its eternal decrees, and holy execution of them. By…

1. Either God preserves Creatures naturally or freely: not naturally, for then he should preserve them perpetually, and so every Fly must run parallel in Eternity with an Angel; nor naturally, for then he should preserve them uniformly, and so every mortal body would subsist without food as well as the immaterial Spirits; therefore he preserves them freely. There be various ways of Preservation, viz. Preservation of Creatures as to their Being, and as to their adjuncts of order, beauty, goodness and truth; Preservation of them as to their individuals and as to their kinds; Preservation of individuals by means and without means; preservation of them in perpetuum and for certain periods of time. Now all this variety of Preservations doth evidently display the glorious liberty of the divine Will in the dispensing thereof. Angels are preserved in their individual Beings, and that in perpetuum, and that without means; but the Nodus perpetuitatis is the divine ¹pleasure; or else their Immortality would ⟨p. 150⟩dissolve in a moment. Men, Beasts and Vegetables are preserved in their Individuals, but 'tis by means, and but for a time, and lest the kind should perish with the individuals; Generation is a supplement to their Mortality, and the ruler in all this is the Will of God. As for Preservation by means, it is God who bringeth food out of the earth, Psal. 104. 14. and when 'tis in our hand, we cannot eat thereof unless God give us an heart, Eccl. 6. 2. and when we do eat thereof, 'twill not be the staff of life to us without the word of his blessing, Matth. 4. 4. without this we may eat and not be satisfied, drink and not be filled, Hag. 1. 6, 9. Every Creature saith, The blessing is not in me, but in the Will of God. As for the Periods of Preservation, they are all fixed in the divine Decree; there the days of men are determined, their months numbered, and their unpassable bounds appointed,