A Sermon Delivered Before the Prince of Orange (1688) by Gilbert Burnet

from Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon Delivered Before the Prince of Orange (23 December 1688) Psalm cxviii. v. 23.

It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our Eyes. Things do sometimes speak, and Times call aloud; and as all Men are before-hand with me, in the choice of this Text, at least in applying it to the present time, so that amasing Concurrence of Providences, which have conspired to hatch and bring forth, and perfect this extraordinary Revolution, would lead one very naturally to use these words, even tho we had no such Verse in Scripture; for we have before us a Work, that seems to ourselves a Dream, and that will appear to Posterity a Fiction: a Work about which Providence has watched in so peculiar a manner, that a Mind must be far gone into Atheism, that can resist so full a Conviction as this offers us in favour of that Truth. And if a thread of happy steps of the one hand, and of mistaken ones on the other, can upon any occasion be made an Argument, we have it here in its utmost force. It is the Lord's doing, not as the Heavens and the Earth, as the Revolutions of Day and Night, and the whole Chain of Second Causes are his Work: The whole Springs of Nature are wound up by him, so that all things are in some sort his doing: He gives also a secret Direction to all second Causes to accomplish his Eternal Purposes. He knows all the foldings of our Hearts, and the composition of our Natures so well, that without putting us under a force, he can bring about whasoever pleases him. He also on some great occasions does Violence to Nature, and puts her out of her Channel in those extraordinary Productions that are called Miracles. But besides all these, there are times in which the great Governour of Heaven and Earth will convince the World, that he is not an unconcerned Spectator of Human Affairs: But because Men are apt to be so partial to themselves, and to their own Opinions, as to look on every favourable Accident as a Smile from Heaven, and that Sanguine People are as ready on the one hand to think themselves God's Favourites, and the special Objects of his Care, as Melancholy Men on the other, in the sourness of thought that oppresses them, construe everything that succeed ds not according to their Wishes, as the effect of some cross Aspect on them; it is necessary to find the true Temper between flattering ourselves too much, and the charging ourselves too severely; and to examine Providence by such equal and just measures, that we may neither put too much on the common course of Second Causes, nor ascribe too much to such Specialties as our Partialities may incline us to imagine appear in our favours: for because we are always kind to ourselves, we are very apt to believe that Heaven is so too.