A treatise of the incomparableness of God in his being, attributes, works and word…

2. He is incomparable in regard of Providence: 1. For Preservation none is like him, nay, none beside him doth this; O thou Preserver of Men, Job 7.20. Thy Visitation preserveth my Spirit, Job 10.12. God is unlike to Men; The Carpenters or Masons build Houses, and then leave them to the care and charge of others; but God keeps up what he sets up. His Providence succeedeth Creation, and is indeed a continual Creation: Thou preservest Man and Beast, Psal. 36.6. Not Food, or Air, or Sleep, but Thou preservest Man and Beast: And not only Men and Beasts, but all things subsist by him, Colos. 1.17. That Hand alone which made all, can maintain all; and that Power only which produced out of nothing, must preserve from nothing; Acts 17.28. In him we live, and move, and have our beings. That Being which gave us our Beings, must uphold us in our Beings; Heb. 1.3. He upholdeth all things by the Word of his Power, 1. Sustinendo, As a Pillar, or sure Foundation, upon which they stand. The Air which surrounds the Earth and Ocean, cannot bear a Feather, yet in it hangeth the massy weight ⟨p. 113⟩of Earth and Sea: Job 26.7. He hangeth the Earth (i. e. Earth and Sea, the terrestrial Globe,) upon nothing: His Power is the only Pillar that bears them up. 2. Influendo, As a Fountain from which they derive all their virtue and operations: The beings and motions of all his Creatures depend wholly upon his concurrence. If he suspend his Influence Coctum secundum, according to the School-men, the Fire will not burn, Dan. 3.27. Neither can the best Eyes see, though the faculty be well disposed, and the object be coloured, and at a good distance,