1. Seek everything you need at the hands of God. It is not only the
1. Seek everything you need at the hands of God. It is not only the skilfulness of the pilot, but a favourable gale from heaven, which must conduct the ship to the intended port. As his providence is the foundation, so it is the encouragement of all prayer. The end of the Lord's prayer is, 'For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.'
The providential kingdom belongs to God. Power he hath to manage it, and his glory is the end of all. Seek to him therefore for the exercise of his power in thy concerns, and for his directing them to his glory in his providential administrations. Every one of our days, and both the mercy and the misery of them, depend upon him: Prov.
27:1, 'Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,' but God foresees all events; have recourse therefore to his care for every day's success. What are our contrivances without the leave and blessing of providence? Like the bubbles blown up from a nut-shell, easily broken by the next puff. Our labour will be as fruitless as Peter's, with all his toil, and catch nothing till God speaks the word, and sends the fish into our net, Luke 5:5. The way of man is not in himself: Jer. 10:23, 'O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walks to direct his steps.' Dangers are not within the reach of our eye to foresee, nor within the compass of our power to prevent. Human prudence may lay the platform, and God's power blast the execution when it seems to be grown up nearest to maturity. Hezekiah was happy in his affairs, because he was assisted by God; Ahaz unhappy, because he is deserted by God.
If we would have a clock go well, we must look chiefly to the motion of the chief wheel; a failure in that makes an error in all the rest.
Nothing can terminate its motion to our benefit without providence.
Coloured glass can reflect no beams without the sun's light, nor fruits be ripened without its influence. Our dependence on God is greater than theirs on the sun. God lets men play with their own wit and strength, and come to the brink of execution of their designs, and then blows upon them, that they may know there is a God in the earth. Pythagoras could say it was γελοῖον, a ridiculous thing to seek that which is brave and virtuous anywhere else than of God.* Cyrus is a brave pattern, who is mentioned in Scripture, and represented by Xenophon calling upon God when he was first chosen general;† and