Chapter 6: Of God's Providence

Q. What is the Providence of God?

A. That whereby God does preserve, and govern, dispose, and order all creatures with all their actions.

A. What scriptures do show that there is such a providence of God?

Q. Many, and namely these (John 5:17; Ephesians 1:11; Acts 17:25, 28; Lamentations 3:37; Ecclesiastes 3:1, 2, &c.).

Q. How else may the same be proved?

A. Such is the wisdom and knowledge of God, that nothing can come to pass, but he must needs know it, and such is his omnipotency, that what he absolutely would not have to be, he is able to hinder it, and therefore nothing falls out but he sees it, and by his providence has an hand therein.

Q. What are the parts of God's providence, or the several acts of it?

A. Preserving of the creatures and government of them.

Q. What need is there of the providence of God for the preservation of creatures?

A. Yes very much, as well as of his power for the creating of them.

Q. How may that appear?

A. Not only because making and preserving of the creatures are coupled together as acts of the same power, but also because otherwise the creatures could not continue in being, but would soon return to nothing.

Q. And why must the government of the creatures be also ascribed to God?

A. Partly because it would argue imperfection in God, if he should make creatures, and leave the government of them to others; and partly because the creatures would never certainly attain the ends for which they were created, if they were not governed by the same power by which they were created.

Q. What are the things whereto the providence of God does extend?

A. All things without exception of any (Romans 11:36; Ephesians 1:11).

Q. What are some sorts of them?

All persons, and all living things, though never so mean, and all the very accidents and circumstances of actions, as the times and seasons of them and the like.

Q. What kind of actions of the creatures are ordered by the providence of God?

A. All kind of actions, whether they be great or small, whether they be of kindness and favor to men, or of judgment and correction.

What else?

A. Actions that are most contingent and casual, and actions wherein the creature is most sinful and wicked.

Q. How far forth has God an hand by his providence in the sinful actions of creatures?

A. Partly by permitting sin to enter, when he could easily hinder the same, if he pleased; and partly by disposing and ordering of it for good ends.

A. How does God permit the entrance of sin?

A. Partly by leaving men to themselves, not bestowing upon them his grace, that might keep them from sin, and partly by letting Satan loose upon them to be blinded and misled by his temptations.

Q. How is this just that God should deny the assistance of his grace, and leave men to themselves, and the temptations of Satan?

A. Yes, it is very just, because he is debtor to none, but may bestow his grace where, and upon whom he pleases (Romans 11:35; Matthew 20:15).

Q. What else may be said for the clearing of God's justice herein?

A. God being the Judge of the world may punish sin with what punishment he sees meet, and so by giving sinners up to further sin (Psalm 81:11, 12; Romans 1:24, 25, 26, &c.; 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12).

Q. What may be some instance of God's disposing and ordering of sin for good ends?

A. The sin of Joseph's brethren when they sold him into Egypt, which God disposed and ordered for the preserving of Jacob and his house in time of famine (Genesis 45:5, 7 & 50:20).

Q. What else?

A. The sin of Amnon and Absalom, which God disposed and ordered for the correction and humiliation of David (2 Samuel 12:10, 11, 12).

Q. What may be a third instance hereof?

A. The great sin and wickedness of them who put the Lord Jesus Christ to death, as foul a fact as the sun ever saw, and yet even this did the Lord dispose and order for the redemption and salvation of his elect (Acts 2:23 & 4:27, 28).

Q. But if God by his providence have a stroke in ordering of the sins of men, is not God himself then tainted with sin?

A. No, by no means: for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither does any sin proceed from him, but contrarily he is then holy, holy, holy, when he gives men up to be hardened in their sins.

Q. What else may be said for the further learning of this truth?

A. God is so far from being tainted hereby with the uncleanness of sin, that his wisdom and goodness does hereby the more appear, in that he can work good by evil instruments, and make even sin itself to serve to his glory.

Q. But whether may not sinners then hereby have excuse for themselves, and lay the blame of their sin upon God?

A. If God did infuse corruption into the hearts of men, or incline them or command them to sins who else were unwilling so to do, then there were more color for this demand; but this cannot be affirmed with truth.

Q. What then is truth in this case?

A. God made man altogether righteous and upright, and gives men an holy commandment that prohibits all sin, and yet they sin of their own accord, and therefore their destruction (and so their sin as cause thereof) is of themselves.

Q. May not this be illustrated by some similitude, to show how God may have an hand in the evil actions of men, and yet all the sinfulness of the action be wholly of the creature and not of God?

A. As he that spurs a lame horse, is the cause of his going, but not of his halting, which is from the beast himself; and as the sun shining on a carcass, or a dunghill, is the cause of the savor, but not of the stench which is from the carcass itself; even so it is in this case.

Q. How or in what manner does the providence of God put forth, and show itself?

A. Most freely and as it pleases him, most commonly in the ordinary use of the means, and sometimes it pleases him to work without means.

Q. How else does the providence of God put forth and show itself?

A. Sometimes by working great and mighty works by weak means, sometimes by disappointing the best and the most probable means that they become ineffectual, and sometimes by working contrary to all means, and the natural course of things.