that befalls us or others,—whatever we observe in the world, that is the subject of the thoughts and discourses of men, and turns men’s eyes after them—that all that is of God, that is, it is in the world, it started out of nothing at his command, it is, because his power gave it a being, and in this consideration to overlook, and in a manner forget, all second causes, to have such affecting and uptaking thoughts of the first principle of all these motions, as to regard the lower wheels, that are next us, no more than the hand or the sword that a man strikes us with as if these second causes had no influence of their own but were merely acted and moved by this supreme power, as if God did nothing by them, but only at their presence. We should so labour to look on those things he doth by creatures, as if he did them alone without the creatures, as if he were this day creating a world. Certainly, the solid faith of God’s providence will draw off the covering of the creature, and espy the secret almighty power which acts in every thing to bring forth his good pleasure concerning them. And then to consider, with that same seriousness of meditation that the same everlasting arm which made them, is under them to support them, that the most noble and excellent creatures are but streams, rays, images and shadows of God’s majesty, which, as they have their being by derivation, so they have then continuance by that same continued influence, so that if he would interpose between himself and them, or withdraw his countenance, or 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