2. By the sudden changes which are made upon the spirits of men for
almighty power can temper so many jarring principles, and rank so many quarrelsome and turbulent spirits in a due order! If those brutish passions which boil in the hearts of men were let loose by that infinite power that bridles them, how soon would the world be run headlong into inconceivable confusions, and be rent in pieces by its own disorders?
2. By the sudden changes which are made upon the spirits of men for the preservation of others. God takes off the spirit of some as he did the wheels from the Egyptian chariots, in the very act of their rage.
Paul was struck down and changed while he was yet breathing out threatenings, &c. God sees all the workings of men's hearts, all those cruel intentions in Esau against his brother Jacob, but God on a sudden turns away that torrent of hatred, and disposeth Esau for a friendly meeting, Gen. 33:4. And he who had before an exasperated malice by reason of the loss of his birthright and blessing, was in a moment a changed man. Thus was Saul's heart changed towards
David, and from a persecutor turns a justifier of him, confesseth David's innocence and his own guilt: 1 Sam. 24:17, 18, 'Thou art more righteous than I, for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil,' &c. What reason can be rendered for so sudden a change in Saul's revengeful spirit, which had all the force of interest to support it, and considered by him at that very time? For, ver. 21, he takes special notice that his family should be disinherited, and David be his successor in the throne. How suddenly did God turn the edge of the sword and the heart of an enemy from Jehoshaphat, 2
Chron. 18:31. Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him, and God moved them to depart from him. The Holy Ghost emphatically ascribes it to God's motion of their wills, by twice expressing it. But stranger is the preservation of the Jews from Haman's bloody designs, after the decree was gone out against them. Mordecai the Jew is made Ahasuerus's favourite by a strange wheeling of providence. First, the king's eyes are held waking, Esther 6:1, 2, and he is inclined to pass away the solitariness of the night with a book, rather than a game, or some other court pastime; no book did he fix on but the records of that empire, no place in that voluminous book