Notes from The Mystery of Providence

And as to the service of God, if your heats are spiritual, you may enjoy much communion with God in your very employments, and you have some intervals and respites for that purpose. Have you not more spare hours than you employ to that end? - pg78

Sin brought in sweat (Gen 3:19), but now, not to sweat increases sin. He that lives idly cannot live honestly, as is plainly enough intimated (1 Thess 4:11-12). - pg77

Do not be slothful and idle in your vocations…The command to Adam (Gen 3:19) no doubt reaches all his posterity, and Gospel-commands bind it upon Christians (Rom 12:11, 1 Thess 4:11). If you are negligent, you cannot be innocent. -pg79

And yet do not be so intent upon your particular callings as to make them interfere with your general calling. Beware you do not lose your God in the crowd and hurry of earthly business. -pg79

Remember always the success of your callings and earthly employments is by divine blessing, not human dilligence. “Be thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth’ (Deut 8:18). The devil himself was so far orthodox as to acknowledge it: ‘Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands’ (Job 1:10). Recommend therefore your affairs to God in prayer. ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass’ (Ps 37:4-5). And do not meddle with that which you cannot recommend to God in prayer for a blessing. pg77-80

Be well satisfied in that station and employment in which Providence has placed you, and do not so much as wish yourself in another. ‘Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called’ (1 Cor 7:20). Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good that you could do had you been left to your own option. pg 80

It pleases the Lord often to try and exercise His people this way, and make them cry: ‘How long, Lord, how long?’ (Ps 12:1-2). These delays, both for spiritual and temporal reasons, are frequent, and when they befall us we are too apt to interpret them as denials, and fall into a sinful despondency of mind, although there is no cause at all for it (Ps 31:12, Lam 3:8,44). It is not always that the return of prayer are despatched to us in the same hour they are asked of God; yet sometimes it falls out so (Isa 65:24, Da 9:23). But though the Lord means to perform for us the mercies we desire, yet He will ordinarily exercise to wait for them, and that for these reasons: 1. Our time is not the proper season for us to receive our mercies in. 2. Afflictive providences have not accomplished that design upon our heart they were sent for when we are so earnest and impatient for a change of them; and till then the rod must not be taken off (Isa 10:12) pg 138-9

It is usually found in the experience of all the saints that in whatever ordinance or duty they have any conscious communion with God, it naturally produces in their spirits a deep abasement and humiliation from the sense of divine condescension to such vile poor worms as we are. Thus Abraham, ‘which am but dust and ashes’ (Gen 18:27). the same effect follows our converse with God in His providences. Thus when God had in the way of His providence prospered Jacob, how does he lay himself at the feet of God, as a man overwhelmed with the sense of mercy! ‘I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth with thou hast shown they servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands’ (Gen 32:10). Thus also it was with David: ‘Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?’ (2 Sam 7:18). And I doubt not but some of your have found the same frame of heart upon you that these holy men here expressed. Can you not remember when God lifted you up by providence, how you cast down yourself before Him and have been viler in your own eyes than ever! Why, thus do all gracious hearts. What am I, that the Lord should do thus and thus for me! O that ever so great and holy a God should thus be concerned for so vile and sinful a worm! pg 145

Does God perform all things for His people? Do not distrust Him when new or great difficulties arise. Why should you think He that has done so many things for you will now do no more? Surely, ‘the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear’ (Isa 59:1); if anything put a stop to His mercy, it is your iniquities, your distrust and infidelity. ‘How long will it be ere you believe him?’ If a thousand and ten thousand trials and experiences of His tender care, faithfulness and love will cure this unbelief in you,you have them at hand to do it. If the infrequent confutations of this your distrust by the unexpected breakings-out of mercy for you under like discouragements will cure it, look back and you may see them. Certainly you have been often forced by Providence with shame and repentance to retract your rash censure of His care; and yet will you fall into the same unbelieving state again? O that you would once learn this great truth, that no man evre lacked that mercy which he did not lack a heart to trust and wait quietly upon God for. You never yet sought God in vain, except when you sought Him vainly. - pg183

We may conclude our afflictions to be sanctified, and to come from the love of God to us, when they do not alienate our hearts from God, but inflame our love to Him…A wicked man finds his heart rising against God when He smites him, but a gracious heart cleaves the closer to Him - pg202

The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts (Ps 10:3-4). Here you see Providence may give men ‘their hearts’ desire,’ and yet they never once open their desires to God in prayer about it. -pg 204

Hezekiah was a good man, but yet his weakness and corruption was betrayed by the alterations Providence made upon his conditions. When sickness and pains summoned him to the grave, what bitter complaints and despondencies are recorded (Isa 38)! And when Providence lifted him up again into a prosperous condition, what ostentation and vain-glory did he show (Isa 39:2)! David had more than a common stock of inherent grace, yet not enough to keep him in an evenness of spirit under great alterations. (Ps 30:6-7)…Paul is truly rich in grace whose riches or poverty neither hinders the acting or impoverishes the stock of his graces. -pg207

These gifts of Providence (riches, prosperity) are common to the worst of men, and are no special distinguishing fruits of God’s love. The vilest of men have been filled even to satiety with these thing. ‘Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish’ (Psa 73:7) -pg 208

Deeply consider the sinfulness and vanity of torturing your own thoughts about the issues of doubtful providences. There is much sin in so doing, for all our anxious and agitated emotions, what are they other than the immediate outcome and fruits of pride and unbelief? There is not a greater display of pride in the world than in the contests of our wills with the will of God. It is a presumptuous invading of God’s prerogative to dictate to His providence and prescribe to His wisdom. -pg 216

Think how repugnant an unsubmissive attitude is both to your prayers and professions.

You pray that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven, and yet when it seems contrary to your will or interest, you struggle or fret against it. You profess to heave committed your souls to His keeping, and to leave your eternal concerns in His hands, and yet cannot commit things infinitely less valuable unto Him. How contradictory are these things!

You profess as Christians to be led by the Spirit, but this practice shows you follow the perverse counsels of your own spirits. O then, regret no more, dispute no more, but lie down meekly at your Father’s feet, and say in all cases and at all times, ‘The will of the Lord be done.’ - pg 218