Sect. 17.--This is the ordinary and open way of his
providence, which art and industry have in good part
discovered; whose effects we may foretell without an
oracle. To foreshow these is not prophecy, but prog-
nostication. There is another way, full of meanders
and labyrinths, whereof the devil and spirits have no
exact ephemerides: and that is a more particular and
obscure method of his providence; directing the opera-
tions of individual and single essences: this we call
fortune; that serpentine and crooked line, whereby he
draws those actions his wisdom intends in a more un-
known and secret way; this cryptic<18> and involved
method of his providence have I ever admired; nor
can I relate the history of my life, the occurrences of
my days, the escapes, or dangers, and hits of chance,
with a bezo las manos to Fortune, or a bare gramercy to
my good stars. Abraham might have thought the ram
in the thicket came thither by accident: human reason
would have said that mere chance conveyed Moses in
the ark to the sight of Pharaoh's daughter. What a
labyrinth is there in the story of Joseph! able to con-
vert a stoick. Surely there are in every man's life
certain rubs, doublings, and wrenches, which pass a
while under the effects of chance; but at the last, well
examined, prove the mere hand of God. 'Twas not
dumb chance that, to discover the fougade,<19> or powder
plot, contrived a miscarriage in the letter. I like the
victory of '88<20> the better for that one occurrence which
our enemies imputed to our dishonour, and the partiality
of fortune; to wit, the tempests and contrariety of