Certainly, this is the employment we were made for, to deduce all things from God till we can again reduce all to him with glory, to bring all down from his everlasting counsels, until we send all up to his eternal glory, together with the sacrifice of our hearts, to behold all things to be of him, that is, of his eternal counsel and decree.—to have their rise in the bosom of that, and then, through him, to proceed out of the bosom of his decree and purpose, by his power, _quasi obstetricante potentia_, and then to return with all the promise and glory to his ever glorious name, “for whom are all things.” There is none but they will allow God some government in the world. Some would have him as a king, commanding and doing all by deputies and substitutes. Some would have his influence general, like the sun’s upon sublunary things, but how shallow are all men’s thoughts in regard of that which is? God has prepared, indeed, his throne in the heavens. That is true, that his glory doth manifest itself in some strange and majestic manner above, but the whole tenor of Scripture shows that he is not shut up in heaven, but that he immediately cares for, governs, and disposes all things in the world, for his kingdom is over all. It is the weakness of kings, not their glory, that they have need of deputies, it is his glory, not baseness, to look to the meanest of his creatures. It is a poor resemblance and empty shadow that kings have of him, he rules in the kingdoms of men, and to him belongs the dominion and the glory. He deserves the name of a king, whose beck heaven and earth obey. Can a king command that the sea flow not? Can a parliament act and ordain that the sun rise not? Or will these obey them? Yet at his decree and command the sun is dark, the sea stands still, the mountains tremble; “at thy rebuke the sea fled.” Alas! what do we mean that we look upon creatures, and act ourselves as if we were independent in our being and moving? How many things fall out and you call them casual and attribute them to fortune? How many things do the world gaze upon, think upon, and discourse upon, and yet not one thought, one word of God all the time? What more contingent than the falling of a sparrow on the ground? And yet even that is not unexpected to him, but it flows from his will and counsel. What less taken notice of or known than the hairs of your head? Yet these are particularly numbered by him, and so that no power in the world can add to them or diminish from them without his counsel. O what would the belief of this do to raise our hearts to suitable thoughts of God above the creatures, to increase the fear, faith, and love of God, and to abate from our fear of men, and our vain and unprofitable cares and perplexities? How would you look upon the affairs of men,—the counsels, contrivances, endeavours, and successes of men,—when they are turning things upside down, and plotting the ruin of his people, and establishing