Nature hath made one world,
and art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for
nature is the art of God.
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.
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