Cosmologia Sacra

BOOK the Third.

CHAP. 1. Of the Nature of God’s Government, or of Providence.

Providence, what, 1. The being hereof demonstrated from the Creation, 2, 3, 4. From the imperfection of the creature, 5. And the constitution of the universe, 6. The nature hereof, 7. Of universal extent, 8. Proved, 9, 10, 11, 12. Of a becoming form, 13. With the ministry of second causes, 14, 15, 16. And their due order, 17, 18. In their dominion seen among corporeal principles, 19. Among motions, 20. In that of celestial bodies, over the earth, 21. Particularly, that of the sun, 22, 23, 24. Of the moon; seen in those effects esteemed natural, 25, 26, 27, 28. And preternatural, 29, 30. In the dominion of the vital, over the corporeal world, 31, 32. Yet with limitation, 33. And in that seen among all the parts of the vital; as among brutes, the phantastic, 34. The arbitrary, of man over brutes, 34. And the civil, among men, 35, 36. In that also, of the superior world, over the minds of men, 37. Proved, 38, 39, 40. Yet with limitation, 41, 42, 43. And that of the superior world within itself, 44, 45.

CHAP. 2. Of the Ends of Providence: And first, in this Life.

The ends of things with respect to providence, 1. Not always seen, 2. For divers causes, 3, 4, 5, 6. Yet our enquiries into them, not to be stinted, 7. No real contingents, 8. What, so called, 9. What meant, by fortune, 10. No accident, really minute, 11. As God works by accidents, so by suspending good counsels, 12. And frustrating the best precaution; called fate, 13. The symmetry of providence, how seen, 14, 15, 16. To be owned, in the most natural effects, 17, 18. And in all agreeable events, 19. Providence, good and just, 20, 21. Notwithstanding the permission of moral, and the forecast of penal evil, 22, 23, 24. Which men commonly bring upon themselves, 25. The one, sometimes visibly congruous to the other, 26, 27. The divine goodness apparent, in over-ruling of both. Sundry instances; In the body of man, 28, &c. to 33. In the greater parts of the world, as the air, water, &c. 34. In minerals, plants, and animals, &c. 35. to 40. All which, we are fitted to command, 40. In fitting us also, to serve one another. By certain similitudes in nature, 41. By some dissimilitudes, 42, 43. And the different dispensation of her gifts, 44. Yet so, as that every one hath, or may have, the substance of all good, 45. In bringing good out of evil; whereof sundry instances, In the greater parts of the world.