[ 1083] God onely to be eyed in the midst of Afflictions.
JAcob, when he saw the Angells ascending and descending,* 1.1 enquired who stood at the top of the ladder,* 1.2 and sent them. David, though he knew the second cause of the famin that fell out in his daies,* 1.3 to be the drought, yet he enquired of the Lord, what should be the cause of that judgment. And Iob could discern Gods arrowes in Sathans hand, and Gods hand on the arms of the Sabaean robbers, chap. 1. So should we do in like case, see God in all our afflictions: In the visible means,* 1.4 see by faith the invisible Author, and not look so much upon the malice of men, or rage of devills, as if either of them were unlimited; not upon chance, as if that idoll were any thing in the world, or that things casuall unto us, were not fore-appointed by God, even to the least circumstance of the greatest or least af∣fliction, to the falling of a hair off from our heads, Matth. 5. 37.