pursues the rational purposes of his own art; that to the excellence of the metal, he may also add the curiousness of the figure? But now is it not, think you, much more ridiculous for such blind, silly worms as we, to call God's works to an account? and to censure whatsoever thwarts our humour, or transcends our apprehensions?

God has put darkness under his feet, that we cannot spy out his ways; but his wisdom gives us good security for their reasonableness. The greatest artificers, we know, will often, even in the day-time, immure themselves in a dark room, and work by a candle and what wonder is it, if God is more careful to conceal the arts and mysteries of his providence from the inquisitive eye of those, whose duty is to admire, rather than to understand them? It is one great piece of art, to conceal art.

God delights to pose and baffle the bold reasons of men with the riddles of his actions; to try their humility, where their discernment fails; and to lead them, by an implicit faith in the wisdom of the doer, where they see not the reason of the work. Let therefore the consideration of the divine wisdom be a third ground to warrant the righteousness of God's strangest actions, beyond all human exception. And this naturally introduces the third proposition, viz.

III. Though God's will and power be a sufficient reason of any evil inflicted upon men, yet he never inflicts it, but for the great end of advancing his glory, and that usually in the way of their good.

This is sufficiently clear in the present instance: for God inflicted a native blindness upon this poor man, not only because he might, and because he

would, but that afterwards, by this wonderful removal of it, both the Messiah should be discovered, and himself and others should have a pregnant occasion of being converted to him, the advantage of which was infinite. And questionless, the man had cause to congratulate himself this fortunate affliction: for had it not been for this blindness, he might have been like the rest of the Jews, having eyes, but not seeing nor perceiving, but remaining spiritually blind and obstinate. And to have open eyes, but a sealed heart, would have been like a window opened in the night-time, which, however it was open, would have let in no light. But by this unusual providence, Christ takes occasion to dart a beam of saving light into his understanding, and so gave him cause of ever blessing God for that bodily affliction, which was the happy occasion of such a spiritual deliverance.

Now this glorious design of God, in bringing these calamities on men, is expressed in those words of the text, that the works of God might be made manifest in him. And the works that God intends thus to glorify are usually these.

1. The miraculous works of his power. Had not God suffered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to be cast into the furnace, he had not had that opportunity to have convinced the heathen of that power, which was able to overrule and control natural agents in their most necessary operations; to countermand the burning in the midst of the flame; and when the furnace was seven degrees hotter, to cause it to operate below the degree of four. God sometimes by his power inflicts a sickness, that he may

many years cruel bondage to the Israelites, it was the absolute, entire resolve of his own will, not their merit for it was foretold by God to Abraham, long before they had any being, and therefore before they could merit any such doom by their sin. But then it was to usher in those stupendous miracles, by which God professed to get himself a name, and transmit a never-dying awe and renown of his power to all posterity. He was (as I may so say) now building himself a pyramid in the midst of Egypt: and what if he was so long afflicting his people, and took so great a compass of time to prepare himself a name, that was to last to eternity!

Now what man is there, that can arm himself with reason and submission, who would refuse to be miserable, when his misery is matter of God's glory? He is made by this a kind of sharer with God; for as long as God's action shall be spoke of, he also shall be mentioned as the subject of it. For in all curious works, the matter upon which they are wrought wears some of the glory of the artificer; and there is no admiring the image, but you must also see the wood, stone, or metal upon which it is carved.

Besides, in the things that we are discoursing of, it is not pain that is misery, but the sting of sin that envenoms it; for sin is not only the sting of death, but also of every affliction; and take but away this sting, the serpent may bite, but he cannot poison us. It is rare to see the notions of the very heathen about this. Cicero, speaking of Regulus, who, I think, suffered as much as man could well suffer, says, that in the midst of all those torments, Regulus could not properly be called miserable; because he

neither procured nor, bore them sinfully. Hence brutes are not properly capable of misery, because not of sin. The poor beast or fowl that is torn, hunted, and slaughtered, is not miserable; but he that slaughters and devours him for his luxury and his sin, he is properly and truly miserable: he has the misery, though the other has the pain.

And there is as much difference between a man's suffering for God's pleasure, and for his own sin, as there is between burning upon the altar, and burning in hell. So long therefore as the creature suffers barely from God's will and for his glory, he is only made to quit his own pleasure, to serve a greater and a better; and this is not his misery, but his privilege.

2. The other works that God manifests are the works of his grace. The word ev signifies not only in, but upon, or about. And I have thought good to husband the sense so, as to take in both acceptations. In the former I shewed, that God took such strange courses, to glorify his miraculous works upon men. I shall now shew, that he takes these ways sometimes to glorify his gracious works within them. We know the bowels of the earth are rent and torn, before the riches of the earth can be discovered.

Grace would lie dormant and concealed, did not God sometimes employ as strange a power to discover, as he does to infuse it. How could that excellent spirit and ruling wisdom, that Joseph was endued with, have shined forth to the world, had he not been led through such a maze and compass of troubles and distracting afflictions by the special disposal of Providence? God's power might have war

to the Egyptians, he only sold what, upon the best terms of propriety in the world, was his own. When he put him into prison, and the dungeon, we know, that even the supreme power amongst men may, for some causes, imprison those that are not guilty: and who knows but this imprisonment of Joseph was not so much intended for a punishment as a preservative; for a temptation may be repulsed once and again, and yet rally and return, and prevail at last.

But God, in all this, drove at a divine purpose. He had conferred great gifts, illustrious faculties upon Joseph, and therefore was resolved not to lose the glory of their discovery. And was it not worthy his being hated of his brethren, and being sold out of his country, to give such a noble example of fidelity and chastity, as to stand a monument of it in holy writ, for the admiration and imitation of all following ages? Was not the iron and the dungeon tolerable, when it was a means to shew forth that spirit to the world, which made Joseph the possessor of it, next to Pharaoh; and declared the God of Joseph, the giver of it, to be above him? The truth is, neither those that sold, nor those to whom they did sell him, but Joseph who was sold, had the best bargain.

We have shewn, that it was not for Job's sin that God afflicted him; but because he was freely pleased to do so yet there was a reason of this pleasure, which was, to discover that grace of patience, given him by God, to the astonishment of the world, and the confutation of the Devil; whom we find so impudent as to bear God down to his face, that he had never a servant in the world who would suffer such things from him, without sinning against him. And