3. Fix not your eye only upon the sensible operations of providence,
in Sion for the raising a noble structure; and in what shape soever he appears in his preparations, he will in his perfection of it appear in glory: Ps. 102:16, 'When the Lord shall build up Sion, he shall appear in glory;' and evidence that he was restoring whilst we thought him destroying, and healing whilst we thought him wounding. As God hath settled a gradual progress in his works of creation, so by degrees he brings his everlasting counsels to perfection. The seasons of the year are not jumbled together, but orderly succeed one another; and the coldness of the winter is but a preparation for a seasonable spring and a summer harvest. We do not unrighteously accuse God of disorder in his common works, why should we do it in his special works of providence? Do we disparage the musician's skill for the jarring and intelligible touches in the tuning the instrument, but rather wait for the lesson he intends to play? If we stay for God's fuller touches of this great instrument of the world in the way of his providence, it will, like David's harp, chase away that evil spirit from us which is now too apt to censure him.
3. Fix not your eye only upon the sensible operations of providence, but the ultimate end. As in a watch the various wheels have different motions, yet all subservient to one end, to tell the true hour of the day and the motion of the sun, so are all the providences of God.
Should any have been preserved in the deluge upon some high mountain who had not known the design of the ark, and had seen it floating upon such a mass of waters, he would have judged the people in it in a deplorable condition, and have concluded that it would have broke against the mountain, or been overturned by the waves; yet that was Noah's preservative. Had any of us been with Christ, and acknowledged him the Saviour of the world, and yet seen him crucified in such a manner by men, and judged only by that, what wise and what just constructions should we have made of that providence? Much the same as some of his disciples did: Luke 24:21,
'We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel;' but the whole design is spoiled, we are fools, and he an impostor. Yet this, which seemed to be the ruin of redemption, was the necessary highway to it by God's constitution. No other way was it to be