to the counsel of
his own will, and not ours, and therefore, no wonder that the product of
our actions does not answer our intentions and devices, because the
supreme rule and measure of them is above our power, and without our
knowledge. And therefore, though there were never so many devices in the
heart of man, never so wisely or lawfully contrived and ordered, though
the mine be never so well prepared, and all ready for the firing of it,
yet the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand, Prov. xix. 21, and xvi. 9.
That higher determination may blow up our best consultations or drown
them, for man's goings are of the Lord, how then can a man understand his
paths? Prov. xx. 24. And yet the most part of men, in all these things,
lose the remembrance of this fatal and invincible subordination to God,
and propose their own affairs and actions, as if themselves were to
dispose of them, and when their own resolutions and projects seem
probable, they begin to please themselves in them, in the forethought of
what they will do, or what they may have or enjoy to morrow afterward;
there is a present secret complacency and gloriation, without any serious
reminding the absolute dependence of all things upon the will of God, and
their independence upon our counsels without forecasting and often
ruminating upon the perpetual fluctuation and inconstancy of human
affairs, but, as if we were the supreme moderators in heaven and earth, so
we act and transact our own business in a deep forgetfulness of him who
sits in heaven, and laughs at all our projects and practices and
therefore, the Holy Ghost would have this secret but serious thought to
season all our other purposes and consultations,--"If the Lord will," &c.
Whereas though we ought to say and think this, it is scarce minded, and
then we know not what shall be to morrow for our life itself is a vapour.
Herein is a strong argument,--you lay your designs for to morrow, for a
year, for many years, and yet ye know not if ye shall be to morrow. How
many men's projects are cast beyond that time that is measured out on
God's counsel! And what a ridiculous thing must that be to him, if it be
not done with submissive and humble dependence on him! In a word time is
with child of innumerable things, conceived by the eternal counsel of God.
Infinite and inconceivably various are those conceptions which the womb of
time shall at length bring forth to light. Every day, every hour, every
minute is t