deep of the two.) So that it is clear, that this rule also, of gathering the future success of actions, is weak and fallacious; and that in some sorts of events, after things have been contrived and put together with the utmost exactness, a link or two of the chain happening to break, the coherence of the whole is thereby dissolved; and then, how fairly soever the antecedent may have promised us, we shall yet in the close of all find ourselves lurched of the consequent.

3. Men generally measure the issue and success of any enterprise according to the preparations made for it, and the power employed in it; it being a rule of judging which the world cannot be beaten off from, that ten thousand must needs chase a thousand, and a thousand put an hundred to flight. Victory, on much the stronger side, seems still to be foreseen and foretold as certainly as a necessary effect in the bowels of its cause. And yet we shall find, that it is not always the bigger weight, but sometimes the artificial hand holding and managing the balance, which turns the scale. And in like manner, when we have raised armies and manned out fleets, are we not still in the hand of Providence? in that hand, which sometimes sets the crown of victory upon the weak and the few, and disappoints the hopes and breaks the force of the confident and numerous? Could any take up surer and better grounded presages of victory, from a survey of his own stupendous power, than Xerxes might, when he came to fetter the Hellespont, and to swallow up the (comparatively) despicable strength of the Athenians? Or could any thing look more invincible, than the Spanish armada sent against the English navy? But

for all this, we find that there is no commanding the sea, without being able to command the winds too; and he who cannot do this, let him not pretend to the other. What a poor thing is preparation, to be trusted to, in opposition to accident. And what a pitiful defence is multitude on the one side, where omnipotence takes the other. If we read and believe scripture, we shall find Gideon, with his three hundred men, armed with lamps and pitchers, routing and destroying the vast and innumerable host of the Midianites and can any rational man be confident of the greatest forces which human power can raise, if he believes that the same God, who did that, is still in being, and still as able to do the same things as ever? Nay, should we take an exact survey of all passages in history to this purpose, such a pleasure does Providence seem to take in defeating the counsels of confident and presuming men, that perhaps in the greatest battles which were ever fought, we shall find as many victories obtained by a less number over a greater, as by a greater over a less: and what then must become of the commonly received rules? But to keep nearer home, and to the day too; if human force and preparation could have determined the event of things, and Providence had proceeded by the same measures which men judge, the business of this day, I am sure, had been desperate, and as impossible in the event, as it was once in the opinion and discourse of some, who, having done their utmost to prevent it, had the good luck to get too much by it, when it came to pass. For were not the usurpers just before the king's restoration as strong as ever? Did they not sit lording it in the head of victorious fleets and armies, with their feet

upon the neck of three conquered enslaved kingdoms? and striking such an awe and terror into all about them, that the boldest of their adversaries durst not so much as stir or open their mouths either against their persons or proceedings? And now in this state of things, who would have imagined, that any one could have entered into the strong man's house, and have bound him, but one who had been much stronger? Or that any thing could have recovered the lost sceptre, but a triumphant sword? Or that the crown, being once fought off from the royal owner's head, could have ever returned to it, but by being fought on again? These and no other methods of restoring the king did either his friends or his enemies think of; but so infinitely unlikely and unfeasible were they, that his enemies feared them as little as his friends had grounds to hope for them.

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When, behold! on a sudden, and in the height of all their pride, policy, and power, Providence gives them a turn, and they see the whole web, which with so much pains, cost, and cunning, they had been so long a weaving, unravelled before their eyes moment, and themselves clear off the stage, without having settled any one of those innovations either in church or state, which they had been swearing and lying, whining and praying, plundering and fighting, and cutting throats for, (all in the Lord,) for near twenty years together; but instead thereof, the ancient government restored, and happily set upon its former bottom, (could it have kept itself there ;) and all this (to phrase it in the words of a late historian a) so easily, and with so little noise, that the wresting a Dr. Peter Heylin.

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of that usurped power out of their hands cost not so much as a broken head or a bloody nose; for the getting of which they had wasted so many millions of treasure, and more than one hundred thousand lives, not to mention the loss of souls: by such unlikely and unforeseeable ways does Providence sometimes bring about its great designs, in opposition to the shrewdest conjectures and contrivances of men. And thus much for the other general argument, proving the inability of any human wisdom to comprehend the designs of Providence, taken from those false rates and grounds, by which men generally forejudge of the issue or event of actions.

And now, for the use and improvement of what has been discoursed by us hitherto, we may from the foregoing particulars infer these three things.

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1. The extreme folly and vanity of making the future event, or presumed success of any enterprise, the rule of our present actings about the same. rule, as such, should be a thing both certain in itself, and certainly known to be so. But there is no future contingent, which we promise ourselves, though under the greatest probability of event imaginable, but is still a thing in itself uncertain; and consequently, being capable of failing us in the issue, can be no rational certain rule to guide us for the present. And moreover, as a rule in any human action whatsoever ought to be (as we have here shewn) both certain, and certainly known to be such, upon the stock of bare prudence and reason; so ought it likewise to be lawful, or morally good, upon the accounts of conscience and religion; and therefore nothing contrary to the same ought to be admitted as a rule for men to act by, whether in a private or a

public capacity. In a word, conscience, duly steering by principles of morality and religion, is the sole assured director of all human actions or designs. So that when any political sinister consideration would draw men off from a present confessed duty, upon presumption or supposal of some future advantage, (to ensue thereby for the service of some great interest, civil or religious,) still that advantage is but presumed or supposed, and so not always sure to follow the illegal actions; but the guilt of it always does. And of this we have a remarkable, but sad instance in the late royal martyr, who had but one thing lay heavy upon his conscience in all his sufferings, and which he always lamented even to his dying day, namely, the death of the great earl of Strafford. And we may easily imagine the tumults and struggles in his princely breast, when it was assaulted on both sides about that unhappy action. On the one hand, his conscience urged to him the unlawfulness of condemning a person, of whose innocence he always declared himself so fully satisfied. On the other, the stream of the popular fury beat high and fierce upon the throne itself, and seemed to threaten all, if he did not sacrifice that great minister. Now here was a present, certain duty on the one side, persuading him not to violate his conscience; and a supposed future advantage on the other, to wit, his own and his kingdom's security, which induced him to balk his conscience for that person. And we know what course he took; but did it answer his expectations? Did it abate the popular rage at all? Or did it secure either his own or his kingdom's peace? Nay, on the contrary, did not the cutting down of that great bank let in a torrent which over