without variation. Now as this is not the cafe, it neceffarily follows from Solomon's reasoning, that, if the race is not to the fwift, if knowledge and learning do not always fecure men from want, nor care and industry always make men rich,-nor art and fkill infallibly make men high in the world; that there is fome other caufe which mingles itself in human affairs, and governs and turns them as it pleases; which caufe can be no other than the First Cause of all things, and the fecret and over-ruling providence of that Almighty God, who though his dwelling is fo high, yet he humbleth himself to behold the things that are done in earth, raifing up the poor out of the duft, and lifting the beggar from the dunghill, and contrary to all hopes putting him with princes, even with the princes of

his people; which by the way, was the cafe of David, who makes the acknowledgment! And no doubt-one reafon, why God has felected to his own difpofal, fo many inftances as this, where events have run counter to all probabilities,—was to give teftimony to his providence in governing the world, and to engage us to a confideration and dependence upon it, for the event and fuccefs of our undertakings*. For undoubtedly-as I faid, it should feem but fuitable to nature's laws, that the race fhould ever be to the fwift,and the battle to the ftrong;-it is reafonable that the beft contrivances and means fhould have beft fuccefs,-and fince it often falls out otherwise in the cafe of man, where the wifeft projects

Vide TILLOTSON's fermon on this fubject,

are

are overthrown,—and the most hopeful means are blafted, and time and chance happens to all;-you must call on the Deity to untye this knot;—for though at fundry times-fundry events fall out-which we, who look no farther than the events themselves, call chance, because they fall out quite contrary both to our intentions and our hopes,--though at the fame time, in refpect of God's providence over-ruling in these events, it were profane to call them chance, for they are pure defignation, and tho' invifible, are still the regular difpenfations of the fuperintending power of that Almighty Being, from whom all the laws and powers of nature are derived, who, as he has appointed,--fo holds them as inftruments in his hand: and without invading the liberty and free

will

will of his creatures, can turn the pasfions and defires of their hearts to fulfil his own righteoufnefs, and work fuch effects in human affairs, which to us feem merely cafual,-but to him, certain and determined, and what his infinite wisdom fees neceffary to be brought about for the government and prefervation of the world, over which Providence perpetually prefides.

When the fons of Jacob had caft their brother Jofeph into the pit for his destruction,-one would think, if ever any incident which concerned the life of man deferved to be called chance, it was this -That the company of Ifhmaelites fhould happen to pass by, in that open country, at that very place, at that time too, when this barbarity was committed. After he was rescued by fo favourable a VOL. II. B

con

contingency, his life and future fortune still depended upon a series of contingencies equally improbable; for inftance, had the business of the Ifhmaelites who bought him, carried them from Gilead, to any other part of the world befides Egypt, or when they arrived there, had they fold their bond-flave to any other man but Potiphar, throughout the whole empire,-or, after that disposal, had the unjust accusations of his master's wife caft the youth into any other dungeon, than that where the king's prisoners were kept, or had it fallen out at any other crisis than when Pharaoh's chief butler was caft there too, had this, or any other of these events fallen out otherwise than it did, -a feries of unmerited misfortunes had overwhelmed him,-and in confequence the whole land of Egypt and Canaan.

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