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

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. But there is another way, full of meanders and
labyrinths, and that is a more particular and obscure method of His
providence, directing the operations 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 unknown and secret way.

This cryptic 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 bare grammercy to my
good stars. 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, or powder plot, contrived a
miscarriage in the letter. I like the victory of '88 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 winds.

There is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose and straggling way,
nor any effect whatever but hath its warrant from some universal or
superior cause. 'Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a
game at tables; for even in sortileges and matters of greatest
uncertainty there is a settled and pre-ordered course of effects. It is
we that are blind, not fortune. Because our eye is too dim to discover
the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink
the providence of the Almighty.