n
such a continual circumgiration, as a captive king, who was drawing
Sesostris's chariot, said, when he was looking often behind him. The king
of Egypt, Sesostris, demanded for what end did he look so often about him?
Says he, "I am looking to the wheel, musing upon the vicissitudes and
permutations of it, how the highest parts are instantly the lowest." And
this word repressed the king's vain glory.(280) Now, in this constant
wheeling of outward things, which is the soul that enjoys true quiet and
peace? Even that soul that is fixed, as it were, in the centre upon God,
that hath its abode in him; though the parts without be in a continual
violent motion, yet the centre of the wheel is at much peace, is not
violently turned, but gently complies to the changes of the other. And
then consider the madness of this,--"Thou knowest not, &c." There are two
reasons in the things themselves,--inconstancy, and independency on us; but
this is as pressing as any,--our ignorance of them; they are wholly in the
dark to us, as it were in the lower parts of the earth. As there is no
more in our power but the present hour,--for to yesterday we are dead
already, for it is past and cannot return, it is as it were buried in the
grave of oblivion, and to to-morrow we are not yet born, for it is not
come to the light, and we know not if ever it will come,--so there is no
more in our knowledge but the present hour. The time past, though we
remember it, yet it is without our practical knowledge, it admits of no
reformation by it; and the time to come is not born to us, and it is all
one as if we were not born to it. And indeed, in the Lord's disposing of
all affairs under the sun, after this method, there is infinite wisdom and
goodness both, though at the first view men would think it better that all
things went on after an uniform manner, and that men knew what were to
befall them. Yet, I say, God hath herein provided for his own glory and
the good of men,--his own glory, while he hath reserved to himself the
absolute dominion and perfect knowledge of his works, and exercises them
in so great variety, that they may be seen to proceed from him; and for
our good,--for what place were there for the exercise of many Christian
virtues and graces, if it were not so? What place for patience, if there
were no cross dispensations? What place for moderation, if there were no
prosperity? If there were not such variety and vicissitude, how should the
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