2. Then censure not God in his dark providences. As we are often too
David was in extremity, and Absalom alone prospering in his designs? But when Absalom comes to open force, God arises, an oak catches him, his mule forsakes him, and Joab despatches him.
Sennacherib had prospered in his conquest of Judea, taken many strong towns, laid siege to Jerusalem, solicits the people to revolt, blasphemes the God of heaven, and then an angel comes and makes a dreadful slaughter in a night, and he, returning to his own country, is killed by his own sons, 2 Kings 19:7, 35, 36, 37. God's arrows shall never miss their mark, and he hath more than one to strike into the hearts of his enemies: Ps. 18:14, 'He sent out his arrows and scattered them.' What reason then to fear even multitudes, who can never be too strong for that God who gave them that little strength they have!
Secondly, The second duty to which we are exhorted. If all God's providences tend to the good of his church and people,
2. Then censure not God in his dark providences. As we are often too hasty in our desires for mercy, and are not content to stay God's time, so we are too hasty in making constructions of providence, and will not stay God's leisure of informing us. When God seems at the beginning of every providence to speak the same language as Christ did to Peter in washing his feet, John 13:7, 'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter,' the instruments are visible, the action sensible, but the inward meaning still lies obscured from our view. We are too short-sighted to apprehend and judge of God's works; man cannot understand his own way, Prov. 20:24, much less the ways of an infinite God. God's judgments are a great deep, Ps.
36:6; we may sooner fathom the deepest part in the sea, understand all the turnings of those subterranean passages, lave out the ocean with a spoon, or suck in, into our bellies, that great mass of waters, than understand the ways of God with our shallow brains. He makes darkness his pavilion; he is sometimes very obscure in his ways.
Neither the greatness of his means, nor the wisdom of his workings, can be fully apprehended by men. We have sense to feel the effects, but not heads to understand the reasons and methods of the divine