3. There can be no reason rendered why God should not actually
because he can bear with the injuries of wicked men, otherwise the world would not continue a moment.
Angels, though powerful, holy, wise and patient creatures, yet being creatures, they want the infiniteness of all these qualifications which are necessary to this government. Though they are knowing, yet they know not men's hearts; though they are wise, yet they may be charged with a folly uncapable of this; though holy, yet not able in this respect to manage it to the ends and designs of an infinite holiness; though nimble, yet cannot be in all parts of the world at every turn: but the providence of God is infallible, because of his infinite wisdom; indefatigable, because of his omnipotency; and righteous, because of his goodness.
3. There can be no reason rendered why God should not actually govern the world, since he only hath a right and fitness. If God doth not actually govern it, it is either because he cannot, or because he will not.
(1.) Not because he cannot. This inability must be either for want of knowledge, or want of power. The one, if asserted, would deny his omnipotence, the other his omniscience; the one would make him a weak God, the other an ignorant God, and consequently no God.
(2.) Not because he will not; if he can and will not, it is, say some, a testimony of envy, that he maligns the good of his creatures; but not to insist upon this; this must be either because of the,
[1.] Difficulty. This cannot be. What difficulty can there be in a single word, or one act of his will, which can be done by God without any molestation, were there millions of worlds as well as this? For still they would be finite, and so governable by an infinite superior. May we not more reasonably think the forming such a mass would require more pains than the government of it? The right stringing an instrument is more trouble to a skilful musician, than the tripping over the strings afterwards to make an harmony. What difficulty can
it be to Omnipotence? Is it a greater labour to preserve and govern, than it was to create? Doth not the soul order every part of the body, and all its functions, without any pain to it? and shall not the God that made that soul so indefatigable, much more manage the concernments of the world without labour to himself? Is it not as easy with God to guide all these things by one single act of his will, as for me, by an act of my soul, to do many things without a distinct act of cogitation or consideration before? Can it be more laborious to him to govern the world, than it is to know all things in the world?
He sees all things in an instant by one act of his understanding, and he orders all creatures in a moment by one act of his will. Can one act of his will be more painful than one act of his understanding? Can he with a word make this great ball? and can he not with as much ease order all to conform to the law of his own righteous will? Can a continual eruption of goodness be a difficulty to an infinite being, which we find natural to the sun, to the fountains, to the sea, to many works of that omnipotent goodness? Or, [2.] Disparagement. Denial of God's providence over the lesser things of the world did arise from the consideration of the state of monarchs, who thought it an abridgment of their felicity and dignity, to stoop to such low considerations as the minutula of their estates might exact from them, but left them to their vice-gerents. But they consider not that the felicity of God as it respects the creature, is to communicate his goodness to as many subjects as he had made capable of his care. If it were his glory to create the world, can it be his dishonour to govern it? The glorifying his wisdom is as honourable to him as the magnifying his power; though both are eminent in creation and providence, yet his wisdom is more signal in the governing, as his power was in framing of the world.
Why was it not as much a disparagement to God to create things contemptible in our eyes, as since he hath created them to take care of them, and marshal them for his glorious ends? The sun in the heavens is a shadow of God, which doth not disdain to communicate its natural goodness, and emit its beams to the meanest creatures,