Of Providence
Section 5.1
God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible fore-knowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
In opposition to Fatalists and others, who maintain that, in the original constitution of the universe, God gave to the material creation physical, and to the intelligent creation moral laws, by which they are sustained and governed, independently of his continued influence ; this section teaches that there is a providence, by which God, the great Creator of all things, upholds and governs them all ; and that this providence extends to all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least.
1. That there is a providence may be inferred from the nature and perfections of God; from the dependent nature of the creatures; from the continued order and harmony visible in all parts of the universe; from the remarkable judgments
66 CONFESSION OF FAITH. [^CHAP. V.
that have been inflicted on wicked men, and the signal deliverances that have been granted to the Church and people of God; and from the prediction of future eveiHs, and their exact fulfilment. In the Bible, the providence of God is everywhere asserted. " His kingdom ruleth over all," and he " worketh all things after the counsel of his own will" — Ps. ciii. 19; Eph. i. 11.
Two things are included in the notion of providence, — the preservation and the government of all things. God preserves all things by continuing or upholding them in existence. The Scripture explicitly asserts, that " he upholds all things by the word of his power," and that " by him all things consist."— Heb. i. 3; Col. i. 17. He preserves the diiferent species of creatures, and sustains the several creatures in their individual beings; hence he is called " the Preserver of man and beast." — Job. vii. 20 ; Ps. xxxvi. 6. God governs all things by directing and disposing them to the end for which he designed them. " Our God is in the heavens, he hath done whatsoever he pleased." — Ps. cxv. 3. " He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth : and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou ?" — Dan. iv, 35. The government of God may be considered in a twofold view, — natural and moral. This twofold view of his government arises from the two general classes of creatures which are the objects of it. The irrational and inanimate creatures are the subjects of his natural government. The rational part of the creation, or those creatures who are the fit subjects of moral law, as angels and men, are the subjects of his moral government.
2. The providence of God extends to all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least. " Some," says Dr Dick, " maintain only a general providence, which consists in upholding certain general laws, and exclaim against the idea of a particular providence, which takes a concern in indi-\dduals and their affairs. It is strange that tlie latter opinion should be adopted by any person who professes to bow to the authority of Scripture, — M'hich declares that a sparrow does not fall to the ground without the knowledge of our heavenly Father, and that the hairs of our head are all numbered, — or by any man who has calmly listened to the dictates of reason. If God has certain designs to accomplish with respect to, or by means of, his intelligent creatures, I should wish to know how his intention can be fulfilled without particular attention to their circumstances, their movements, and all the events of their life ? . . . . How can a whole be taken care of without
SECT, 1.] OF PROVIDENCE. 67
taking care of its parts ; or a species be preserved if the individuals are neglected ? "
The providence of God extends to the inanimate creation. He who fixed the laws of nature, still continues or suspends their ojjeration according to his pleasure ; they are dependent on his continued influence, and subject to his control; and to assert the contrary would be to assign to the laws of nature that independence which belongs to God alone. — Ps. cxix. 91, civ. 14 ; Job xxxviii. 31-38. The providence of God likewise reaches to the whole animal creation. "The beasts of the forest are his, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." They are all his creatures, and the subjects of his providence. — Ps. civ. 27, 28. Angels, too, are the subjects of God's providence. The good angels are ever ready to obey his will, and are employed by him in ministering, in various ways, to the saints on earth. — Heb. i. 14. The evil angels are subject to his control, and can do no mischief without his peniiission. — Job. i. 12. The providence of God also extends to all human affairs ; the affairs of nations are under his guidance and control. "He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them : he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again. He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty." — Job xii. 19, 23. This the humbled monarch of Babylon was taught by painful experience, and was constrained to acknowledge " tliat the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of meri, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." — Dan. iv. 25. TJie providence of God is also to be recognised in the affairs oi families. " God setteth the solitary in families," — " he setteth the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock ; again they are minished and brought low, through oppression, affliction, and sorrow." — Ps. Ixviii. 6, cvii. 39, 41. The providence of God likewise extends to indinduals, and to their minutest concerns. The birth of each individual, the length of his days, and all the events of his life, are regulated and superintended by the most wise and holy providence of God. — Acts xvii. 28; Job xiv. 5.
" As the doctrine of a particular providence is agreeable both to Scripture and to reason, so it is recommended by its obvious tendency to promote the piety and the consolation of mankind. To a God who governed the world solely by general laws, we might have looked iip with reverence, but not with the confidence, and gratitude, and hope, which arise fi-om the belief that he superintends its minutest affairs. The thought that he * compasses our paths and is acquainted with all our ways ; ' that he watches our step.s, and orders
^ CONFESSION OF FAITH. []CHAP. V.
all the events in our lot ; guides and protects us, and supplies our wants, as it were, with his own hand ; this thought awakens a train of sentiments and feelings highly favourable to devotion, and sheds a cheering light upon the path of life. We consider him as our Guardian and our Father ; and, reposing upon his care, we are assured that, if we. trust in him, no evil shall befal us, and no real blessing shall be withheld." *
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Chapter 5: Of Providence
God's most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing of all His creatures
Of Providence
Section 5.1
God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible fore-knowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
Of Providence
Section 5.2
Although, in relation to the fore-knowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly: yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
Of Providence
Section 5.3
God in His ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at His pleasure.
Of Providence
Section 5.4
The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be, the author or approver of sin.
Of Providence
Section 5.5
The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption, and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.
Of Providence
Section 5.6
As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous Judge, for former sins, doth blind and harden, from them He not only withholdeth His grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon in their hearts; but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had, and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes occasions of sin; and, withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan: whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God useth for the softening of others.
Of Providence
Section 5.7
As the providence of God doth in general reach to all creatures, so after a most special manner, it taketh care of His Church, and disposeth all things to the good thereof.
This Section therefore teaches —
1st. That God having created the substances of which all things are composed out of nothing, having endued these substances with their respective properties and powers, and having out of them formed all things organic and inorganic, and endowed them severally with their respective properties and faculties, he continues to sustain them in being and in the possession and exercise of those properties during the entire period of theii existence.
2d. That God directs all tlie ac^tions of his creatures according to their respective properties and relations.
3d. That his providential control extends to all his creatures and all their actions of every Kind.
4th. That his providential control is in all respects the consistent execution of his eternal, immutable and sovereign purpose.
5th. That the final end of his providence is the manifestation of his own glory.
1st. With regard to the question how God is concerned in upholding and preserving the things he has made, three different classes of opinion have prevailed :
(1.) Deists and Rationalists generally regard God as sustaining no other relation to his works than that of the first of a series of causes and effects. He is supposed to touch the creation only at its commencement, and having given to things a permanent independent being exterior to himself, he leaves them to the unmodified exercise of their own faculties.
(2.) Pantheists regard all the phenomena of the universe of every kind as merely the various modes of one universal absolute substance. The substance is one, the modes many ; the substance abides, the modes rapidly succeed each other; the substance is God, the modes we call things. Some true Christian theologians have taken a view of the relation of God to the world which comes perilously near, if it does not coincide with, this great pantheistic heresy. This view is that God's power is constantly exerted in continually creating every individual thing again and again every fraction of duration ; that created things have no real being of their own, and exist only as thus they are each moment the
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product of creative energy ; and hence that the immediate cause of the state or action of any creature one moment of time is not its state or action the previous moment, but the direct act of divine creative power.
If this be so, it is plain that God is the only real agent in the universe ; that he is the immediate cause of all things, including all evil passions and wicked thoughts and acts; that consciousness is a thorough delusion, and the free agency and moral accountability of man vain imaginations.
(3.) The third view is the true one, and it stands intermediate between the two ^bove stated extremes. It may be stated as follows: (a.) God gave to all substances, both material and spiritual, a real and permanent existence as entities.
(6.) They really possess all such active and passive properties as God has severally endued them with.
(c.) These properties have a real and not merely an apparent efficiency as second causes in producing the effects proper to them.
(d.) But these created substances, although possessing a real existence exterior to God, and exerting real efficiency as causes, are not self-existent; that is, the ground of their continued existence is in God and not in them. Though not to be confounded with God, they are not to be separated from him, but "m hiin live and move, and have all their being.''
(e.) The precise nature of the exercise of divine energy whereby God interpenetrates the universe with his presen(;e, embraces it and all things therein in his power and upholds them in being, is not revealed, and of course is indiscoverable.
That God always continues to exert his almighty power in upholding in being and in the possession and use of their endowments all things he has made is proved —
(1.) From the fact that continued dependence is inseparable from the idea of a creature. The abiding cause of the creature's continued existence must ever be in God, as it is not in itself.
(2.) The relation of the creation to God cannot be analogous to that of a product of human skill to its maker. The one is exterior to his work. The intelligence and the power of the other is eternally omnipresent to every element of his work.
(3.) A sense of absolute dependence for continued being, power and blessedness is involved in the religious consciousness of all men.
(4.) It is explicitly taught in Scripture: "By him all things consist.'' Col. i. 17; Heb. i. 3. **He upholds all things by the word of his power." Heb. i. 3. " In him we live and move and have our being." Acts xxvii. 28. "Oh bless our God, which holdeth our soul in life.'' Ps. Ixvi. 8, 9; Ixiii. 8; xxxvi. 6.
2d. That God governs the actions of his creatures; and
3d. That his irovernment extends to all his creatures and all their actions, is proved :
(1.) By the fact that the religious nature of man demands the re^'ognition of this truth. It is involved in the sense of dependence and of subjection to a moral government wiiich is involved in all religious feeling, and is recognized in all religions.
(2.) It is evidenced in the indications of intelligence everywhere present in the operations of external nature. The harmony, the due proportion and the exquisite concurrence in action which continue among so many elements throughout ceaseless changes prove beyond question the presence of an intelligence embracing all and directing each.
(3.) The same is likewise indicated in the intelligent design evidently pursued in the developments of human history during long periods and throughout vast areas, and embracing myriads of agents. "That God is in history" is a conclusion of just science as well as a dictate of true religion.
(4.) The Scriptures abound in prophesies fulfilled and unfulfilled, and promises and threatenings. Many of these are not mere enunciations of general principles, but specific declarations of purpose with reference to his treatment of individuals conditioned upon their conduct. The fulfilment of these could not be left to the ordinary course of nature, since there is often no natural connection between what is threatened or promised an<l the conditions on which they are suspended. God must therefore, by a constant providential regulation of the system of things, execute his own word to his creatures.
(5.) The Scriptures explicitly declare that such a providential control is exerted (a) over the physical world [a] in general. Job xxxvii. 6-13; Ps. civ. 14; cxxxv. 6,7; cxlvii. 15-18. [6] Individual events in the natural world, however trivial. Matt. x. 29. (6.) Over fortuitous events. Job v. 6 ; Prov. xvi. 33. [c ) Over the brute creation. Ps. civ. 21-27; cxlvii. 9. (rJ.) Over the general affairs of men. Job xii. 23 ; Isa. x. 12 -15 ; Dan. ii. 21 ; iv. 25. (e.) Over the circumstances of individuals. 1 Sam. ii. 6, 7, 8 ; Prov. xvi. 9 : James iv. 13-15. (/.) Over the free actions of men. Ex.
xii. 36 ; Ps. xxxiii. 14, 15 ; Prov. xix. 21 ; xxi. 1 ; Phil, ii. 13. (g.) Over the sinful actions of men. 2 Sam. xvi. 10; Ps. Ixxvi. 10; Acts iv. 27, 28. (h.) Especially all that is good in man, in principle or action, is attributed to God's constant gracious control. Phil. ii. 13; iv. 13; 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10; Eph. ii. 10; Ps. cxix. 36; Gal. v. 22-25.
4th. That the providential control of all things by God is the consistent execution in time of his eternal and immutable purpose is evident (1) from the statement of the case. Since God's eternal purpose relates to and determines all that comes to pass, and since it is immutable, his providential control of all things must be in execution of his purpose. And since his purpose is infinitely wise, righteous and benevolent, and absolutely sovereign (as shown above), his providential execution of the decree must possess the same characteristics. (2.) The same is explicitly declared in Scripture : " He worketh all things after the council of his own will." Eph. i. 11 ; Isa. xxviii. 29 ; Acts xv. 18.
5th. It is evident that the chief design of God in his eternal purpose and in his works of creation must also be his chief end in all his providential dispensations. This has been shown above to be the manifestation of his own glory. It is also directly asserted as the final end of his providence. Rom. ix. 17 xi. 36.