stop his influence, the most sufficient of
them all should evanish, as the sun beams dry up the streams of a
fountain, and disappear as the image of the glass, Psal. civ. 29, 30. O
that place were a pertinent object of a Christian's meditation, how much
of God is to be pressed out of it by a serious pondering of it! "Thou
hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they
die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are
created." It is even with the very being and faculties of the creature as
with the image in the glass, which, when the face removes, it is seen no
more. The Lord, as it were, breathes into them a being, and when he takes
in his breath they perish, and when he sends it out again they are
renewed. We do not wonder at the standing of the world, but think, if we
had been witnesses of the making of it, we would have been filled with
admiration. But certainly it is only our stupidity that doth not behold
that same wonder continued, for what is the upholding of this by his power
but a very continued and repeated creation,--which influence were able to
bring a world out of nothing? If this had not been before the virtue and
power he employs now in making them subsist, that same alone, without any
addition of power, would have in the beginning made all thus to be of
nothing, so that the continuance of the world is nothing else but an
uninterrupted and constant flux and emanation of these things from God, as
of light from the body of the sun. And then to meditate how all these
things are for him and his glory, though we know no use nor end of them,
yet that his majesty hath appointed them to show forth, one way or other,
the glory of his name in them, and those things which to our first and
foolish apprehensions seem most contrary to him, and, as it were, to
spread a cloud of darkness over his glorious name--the sins and perverse
doings of men and angels, the many disorders and confusions in the world,
which seem to reflect some way upon him, that yet he hath holy and
glorious ends in them all, yea, that himself is the end of all, I say, to
meditate on these things till our soul received the stamp of reverence,
and fear, and faith in God,--this would certainly be the most becoming
exercise of a Christian, to bring all things down from God, that we might
return and ascend with all things again unto God.

This is the most suitable employment of a man, as reasonable, much more