Use Sixth. Is it so? Doth no man come to Jesus Christ by the will, wisdom, and power of man, but by the Father’s gift, promise, and drawing? Then there is room for Christians to stand and wonder at the effectual working of God’s providences, which he has used to bring them to Jesus Christ.
For although men are drawn to Christ by the power of the Father, yet that power puts forth itself in the use of means: and these means are divers, sometimes this, sometimes that; for God is at liberty to work by which, and when, and how he will; but let the means be what they will, and as contemptible as may be, yet God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, and that out of weakness can make strong, can, nay, doth often make use of very unlikely means to bring about the conversion and salvation of his people. Therefore, you that are come to Christ—and that by unlikely means—stay yourselves, and wonder, and, wondering, magnify almighty power, by the work of which the means hath been made effectual to bring you to Jesus Christ.
What was the providence that God made use of as a means, either more remote or more near, to bring thee to Jesus Christ? Was it the removing of thy habitation, the change of thy condition, the loss of relations, estate, or the like? Was it thy casting of thine eye upon some good book, thy hearing of thy neighbors talk of heavenly things, the beholding of God’s judgments as executed upon others, or thine own deliverance from them, or thy being strangely cast under the ministry of some godly man? O take notice of such providence or providences! They were sent and managed by mighty power to do thee good. God himself, I say, hath joined himself unto this chariot: yea, and so blessed it, that it failed not to accomplish the thing for which he sent it.
God blessed not everyone with his providences in this manner. How many thousands are there in this world, that pass every day under the same providences! but God is not in them, to do that work by them as he hath done for thy poor soul, by his effectually working with them. O that Jesus Christ should meet thee in this providence, that dispensation, or the other ordinance! This is grace indeed! At this, therefore, it will be thy wisdom to admire, and for this to bless God.
Give me leave to give you a taste of some of those providences that have been effectual, through the management of God, to bring salvation to the souls of his people.
(1.) The first shall be that of the woman of Samaria. She must need to go out of the city to draw water, not before nor after, but just when Jesus Christ her Saviour was comes from far, and set to rest him, being weary, upon the well. What a blessed providence was this! Even a providence managed by the almighty wisdom, and almighty power, to the conversion and salvation of this poor creature. For by this providence was this poor creature and her Saviour brought together, that that blessed work might be fulfilled upon the woman, according to the purpose before determined by the Father (John 4).
(2.) What providence was it that there should be a tree in the way for Zaccheus to climb, thereby allowing Jesus to call that chief of the publicans home to himself, even before he came down therefrom (Luke 19).
(3.) Was it not also wonderful that the thief, which you read of in the gospel, should, by the providence of God, be cast into prison, to be condemned even at that session that Christ himself was to die; nay, and that it should happen, too, that they must be hanged together, that the thief might be in hearing and observing of Jesus in his last words, that he might be converted by him before his death! (Luke 23).
(4.) What a strange providence was it, and as strangely managed by God, that Onesimus, when he was run away from his master, should be taken, and, as I think, cast into that very prison where Paul lay bound for the Word of the gospel; that he might there be by him converted, and then sent home again to his master Philemon! Behold “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).
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