2. His ends are of a higher strain than the aims of men. Who would
John Baptist is so astonished at the strange condescension of his Saviour to be baptized of him, that he forbids it, Mat. 3:14; man is a weak creature, and cannot trace or set out the wisdom of God.
But this mysteriousness and darkness of providence adds a lustre to it, as stones set in ebony, though the grounds be dark, make the beauty and sparkling the clearer.
1. His ways are above human methods. Dark providences are often the groundwork of some excellent piece he is about to discover to the world. His methods are like a plaited picture, which on the one side represents a negro, on the other a beauty. He lets Sarah's womb be dead, and then brings out the root of a numerous progeny. He makes
Jacob a cripple, and then a prince to prevail with God; he gives him a wound and then a blessing. He sends not the gospel till reason was nonplussed, and that the world, in that highest wisdom it had at that time attained unto, was not able to arrive to the knowledge of God. 1
Cor. 1:21, 'After that the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe.'
2. His ends are of a higher strain than the aims of men. Who would have thought that the forces Cyrus raised against Babylon, to satisfy his own ambition, should be a means to deliver the Israelites, and restore the worship of God in the temple? God had this end, which Isaiah prophesied of, and Cyrus never dreamt of: Isa. 44:28, 'That saith of Cyrus, Thou art my shepherd, and shalt perform all my pleasure, even saying that Jerusalem shall be built,' &c.; and this a long time before Cyrus was born, Isa. 45:1. Pharaoh sent Israel away in the very night, at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, the time prefixed by God. He could not keep them longer because of God's promise, he would not because of God's plagues. God aims at the glorifying his truth, in keeping touch with his word. Pharaoh designs not the accomplishing God's will, but his deliverance from God's judgments.