“Your way was in the sea, Your path in the great waters, and Your footsteps were not known. You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” (Psalm 77:19–20))
- The design of Providence may sometimes lie very hid; and therefore it is good to wait, and not be rash (Ps 77.19).
- Sometimes Providence seems to forget the promise; it is not so, but only the time of the promise is not then come (Gen 15.4, with 16.2).
- Sometimes Providence seems to go quite cross to the promise, and God’s work to go contrary to his word. But wait ye, they will assuredly meet (Gen 22).
- Oftimes Providence favours a design, which yet will be blasted in the end, for that it was not the purpose of God (Jonah 1.3).
- Oftimes Providence will run counter in appearance to the real design, and, by a tract of dispensations, will seem to cross it more and more, till the grave-stone appear to be laid on it. And yet ‘at evening-time it shall be light’ (Zech 14.7).
- Providence many times lays aside the most likely means, and brings about his work by that which nothing is expected of (2 Kings 5.11-12).
Lastly, Sometimes Providence works by contraries, as the blind man was cured with laying clay on his eyes. Learn to live by faith, and be frequent in meditation and self-examination, and be much in prayer.
– THOMAS BOSTON