1. If Creaturss must be preserved, as well as made by God, then the prefent continuance and prefervation of all things, is a visible Argument of the Being of a God. Some Men will not believe that God made the World, because they did not fee him make it; but they see a World preferved, when there is no one thing in the World more able to preferve, than to make it felf; and who then is it that preferves this World, and all things in it? This must be a Work of Reason and Wisdom, as well as Power, and the only reasonable Creature in this visible World, is Man; and Man cannot preferve himself, and knows that he can preferve nothing else; and therefore the Prefervation of all things must be owing to fome invifible Caufe, whom we call GOD..

2. If we live, and move, and have our being in God, we are entirely his, and owe all Homage and Obedience to him; for he did not only make us, but we have our conftant dependance on him, we live and fubfift in him. Had he only made us at first, that had given him a title to us for ever; but could we have lived without him, when he had made us, tho' it had not been a lefs fault, yet it had been lefs foolish and abfurd, to have lived without any notice or regard of him; as fome ungrateful Perfons deal by their Friends and Patrons, when they have fet them up in the World, and enable them to live by themselves: But to forget that God in whom we live, who preferves and upholds us in Being every moment, is to affront a prefent Benefactor, if we value being; and though we cannot tempt God by this to let us fall into nothing, yet we fhall make it juft for him to Punish us, to preferve us in Being, to feel the

weight of his Wrath and Vengeance, which is infinitely worse; for happy had it been for fuch a Man, that he bad never been born.

3. For if he not only made, but upholds and preserves us in being, he must be our Sovereign Lord and Governor; for no other has any original and abfolute Intereft in us; we are in his Hands, and none can take us out of them, nor touch us, but by his Order. To give Being, and to preserve it, is the Foundation of all other Acts of Government, no other Being has a Right to govern, no other Power can goven. He alone can give Laws, can Reward or Punish, can govern Nature, can direct, over-rule, controul all other Powers, for all things are in his Hands, and therefore he Commands them all.

4. And this may convince us, how irresistible the Divine Power is; for all the Power of Creatures is derived from him, and depends on him, as Light does on the Sun, and therefore they can have no Power against him; and what diftraction then is it, to provoke that Almighty God, whom we cannot refift? Humble thy felf, Sinner, before thy Maker, thy Preferver, and thy Judge; obey his Will, to whofe Power thou muft fubmit; let him be thy Fear and thy Dread; thy only Fear, for thou needeft fear none else; all Power is his, none can resist him, none can act without him; he fets bounds to the Raging of the Sea, to the Fury of Princes, to the Madness of the People: Thou art fafe in his Hands, fafe in Obedience to his Will, but thou canst never escape him, never fly from him, never defend thy felf against him, for thou liveft in him.

5. This alfo proves that God muft fee and know all our Actions, for we live and move in D 3 him.

him. He is always prefent with us, privy to our moft fecret Thoughts and Counfels, obferves all our Wandrings, fees us in all our Retirements: There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity can hide them felves. This the Scripture in exprefs Words teaches, and the Reason of the thing speaks it for if we cannot think, nor move, nor fubfift without God, he must be always intimately prefent with us: which fhould poffefs us with a conftant Awe and Reverence of his Pure and All-feeing Eye.

CHA P. III.

Concerning God's Governing Pro-
vidence.

N

EXT to Prefervation, as that fignifies God's upholding all things in Being, and preferving and actuating their Natural Powers, we must confider God's Government of the World; for God is the Supreme and Sovereign Lord of the World, who doth whatsoever pleafeth him both in heaven and in earth; and therefore the Abfolute Government of all things must be in his Hands, or elfe fomething might be done, which he would not have done.

This all Men grant in general words, whọ own a Providence; but when they come to Particulars, there are fo many excepted cafes, which they will hardly allow God to have any thing to do in, that they seem to mean little more by God's Government, than a general Infpection

of

of Human Affairs, his looking on to fee the World govern it felf; for three parts of four of all that is done in the World, they refolve into bare Permiffion, as diftinguish'd from an Ordering and Difpofing Providence; and then it can fignify no more, than that God does not hinder it; and if this be all, God governs the World in fuch cafes no more than Men do: The only difference is, that God can hinder when he don't, but Men don't hinder, because they can't; but ftill merely not to hinder, does not fignify to govern.

But rightly to understand this matter, the best way is, to confider how the Scripture reprefents it; and because there are great variety of Acts in the Government of the World, of a very different Confideration, I fhall distinctly enquire into God's Government of Causes, and his Government of Events.

1. God's Government of Causes; and we muft confider three fort of Causes, and what the Scripture attributes to God, with respect to each. 1. Natural Caufes. 2dly, Accidental Causes, or what we call Chance, and Accident, and Fortune. 3dly, Moral Causes, and free Agents, or the Government of Mankind.

1. Natural Caufes, or God's Government of the Natural World, of the Heavens, and Earth, and Seas, and Air, and all things in them, which move and act by a neceffity of Nature, not by Choice. Now the Scripture does not only attribute to God all the Virtues and Powers of Nature, which belongs to Creation, and to a preferving Providence, but the Direction and Government of all their Natural Influences, to do what God has a mind fhould

be done. God does in fome measure govern the Moral by the Natural World; he rewards or punishes Men by a wholfome or peftilential Air, by fruitful or barren Seafons; he hinders or promotes their Designs, by Winds and Weather, by a forward or a backward Spring, and makes Nature give Laws to Men, and fet Bounds to their Paffions and Intrigues; to overthrow the most powerful Fleets and Armies; to defeat the wifeft Counfels, and to arbitrate the Differences of Princes, and the Fate of Men and Kingdoms. And if God govern Men by Nature, he must govern Nature too; for neceffary Caufes cannot be fitted to the Gowernment of free Agents, without the Directi'on and Management of a Divine Providence, which guides, exerts, or fufpends the Influences of Nature, with as much Freedom as Men act. Men do not always deferve well or ill; and if the kind or malign Influences of Nature must be tempered to Mens Deferts, to punish them when they do ill, and to reward them when they do well, Natural Causes, which of themfelvés act neceffarily without Wisdom or Counfel, must be guided by a Wife Hand.

Thus Reafon tells us it muft be, if God govern the World, and God challenges to himself this Abfolute and Sovereign Empire over Nature. God has beftowed different Virtues' and Powers on Natural Caufes, and in ordinary Cafes makes ufe of the Powers of Nature, and neither acts without them, nor against the Laws of Nature; which makes fome unthinking Men refolve all into Nature, without a God or a Providence: Becaufe, excepting the Cafe of Miracles, which they are not willing to believe, they fee every Thing elfe done by

the