1. This will help us in our inquiries in present providences.
angels of darkness, the most famous oracles in the world ceasing about the time of Christ. To imagine to interpret the motions of providence, without a knowledge of Christ and the design of God for his church, is as vain as to imagine we can paint a sound, or understand a colour by our smell. Correct sense by reason in this work, and reason by faith. To what end hath God prescribed faith to succour us in the weakness of reason, if it had been capable to understand his ways without it, and if we make no use of it upon such occasions?
Fourthly. A fourth duty. Consider the former providences God hath wrought for the church in the past ages. Let him not lose the present glory of his past works: Ps. 102:18, 'This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord,' even for that work of his which is written to be done in former ages. God loves to have his former works read and pleaded.
It is a keeping a standing praise of him in the world. We have had the benefit of them; it is fit God should have the glory of them from us, as well as from those who immediately enjoyed them. Our good was bound up in every former preservation of the church. If the candlestick had been broken, where had the candle been? Had the church been destroyed, how could the gospel have been transmitted to us? Let the duty we owe to God's glory engage us to a consideration of them, and the benefit we have had by them also incite us. We usually forget not things that are strange, nor things that are profitable; his works of old have been works of wonder in themselves, and profitable to us. To what end are the praises of God discovered to the generations to come, but that they should reflect those praises to heaven again, and convey them down to the generations following? Ps. 78:4, 'Shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord.'
1. This will help us in our inquiries in present providences.
There is a beautiful connection between former and latter providences; they are but several links of one chain. The principle