(2.) We shall proceed to consider the providence of God, as conversant about evil actions. This is a subject which contains in it a very great difficulty; for we must use the utmost caution, lest we advance any thing that may argue him to be the author of sin; and yet we are not to suppose that the providence of God is to be wholly excluded from those actions that are sinful; for there is certainly some meaning in such scriptures as these, when God says, concerning Pharaoh, _I will harden his heart_, Exod. iv. 21. and, _Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for the Lord thy God hardened his heart, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand_, Deut. ii. 30. and elsewhere it is said, concerning Shimei, _The Lord said unto him curse David_, 2 Sam. xvi. 10. and, concerning Joseph’s brethren, who sold him into Egypt, it is said, _It was not you that sent me hither, but God_, Gen. xlv. 8. and concerning the false prophets that deceived Ahab, it is said, _The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets_, 1 Kings xxii. 22. These, and such-like scriptures, are not to be expunged out of the Bible, but explained in a way consistent with the divine perfections; and nothing can be inferred from them, if this be not, that the providence of God is some way conversant about those actions that are sinful; but yet it is not in such a way, as either argues him to be the author or approver of sin.[38] Accordingly I would choose to express myself, concerning this matter, to this effect: That the providence of God is conversant about those actions, to which sin is annexed, rather than that it is conversant about sin itself, or the obliquity, or sinfulness thereof. Now, that we may understand this matter, we must distinguish between what is natural, and what is sinful in an action; the former is from God; the latter, from ourselves. This is often illustrated by such similitudes as these. The motion of a bowl is from the hand that throws it; but the irregularity of the motion is from the bias that turns it aside. So the motion of a horse is excited by the whip, or spur of the rider; but if it goes lame, the defect, or halting that it has in its motion, proceeds from an inward indisposition in the horse, and not from the rider. Others illustrate it by a similitude, taken from the sun’s drawing forth vapours from the earth, by that heat, which has a tendency to exhale them; but the stench that attends what is exhaled from a dunghill, is not from the sun, but from the nature of the subject from whence it is drawn forth. So the providence of God enables sinners to act in a natural way; but the sinfulness, irregularity, or moral defects, that attend those actions, is from the corruption of our own nature: or, to speak more plainly, the man that blasphemes, could not think, or utter his blasphemy, without the concurrence of the common providence of God, which enables him to think or speak.