Let the reader remember that the providence we mean is
not one by which the Deity, sitting idly in heaven, looks on at what is
taking place in the world, but one by which he, as it were, holds the
helms and overrules all events. Hence his providence extends not less to
the hand than to the eye (that is to say, he not only sees, but ordains what he wills to be done.). When Abraham said to his son, God will
provide, (Gen. 22: 8,) he meant not merely to assert that the future
event was foreknown to Gods but to resign the management of an unknown
business to the will of Him whose province it is to bring perplexed and
dubious matters to a happy result. Hence it appears that providence
consists in action. What many talk of bare prescience is the merest
trifling. Those do not err quite so grossly who attribute government to
God, but still, as I have observed, a confused and promiscuous
government which consists in giving an impulse and general movement to
the machine of the globe and each of its parts, but does not specially
direct the action of every creature. It is impossible, however, to
tolerate this error. For, according to its abettors, there is nothing in
this providence, which they call universal, to prevent all the
creatures from being moved contingently, or to prevent man from turning
himself in this direction or in that, according to the mere freedom of
his own will. In this way, they make man a partner with God - God, by
his energy, impressing man with the movement by which he can act,
agreeably to the nature conferred upon him while man voluntarily
regulates his own actions. In short, their doctrine is, that the world,
the affairs of men, and men themselves, are governed by the power, but
not by the decree of God. I say nothing of the Epicureans, (a pest with
which the world has always been plagued,) who dream of an inert and idle
God, and others, not a whit sounder, who of old feigned that God rules
the upper regions of the air, but leaves the inferior to Fortune.
Against such evident madness even dumb creatures lift their voice.
My intention now is, to refute an opinion which has very generally
obtained - an opinion which, while it concedes to God some blind and
equivocal movement, withholds what is of principal moment, viz., the
disposing and directing of every thing to its proper end by
incomprehensible wisdom. By withholding government, it makes God the
ruler of the world in name only, not in reality. For what, I ask, is
meant by government, if it be not to preside so as to regulate the
destiny of that over which you preside? I do not, however, totally
repudiate what is said of an universal providence, provided, on the
other hand, it is conceded to me that the world is governed by God, not
only because he maintains the order of nature appointed by him, but
because he takes a special charge of every one of his works. It is true,
indeed, that each species of created objects is moved by a secret
instinct of nature, as if they obeyed the eternal command of God, and
spontaneously followed the course which God at first appointed. And to this we may refer our Saviour's words, that he and his Father
have always been at work from the beginning, (John 5:17;) also the words
of Paul, that "in him we live, and move, and have our being," (Acts
17:28;) also the words of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who,
when wishing to prove the divinity of Christ, says, that he upholdeth
"all things by the word of his power," (Heb. 1:3.) But some, under
pretext of the general, hide and obscure the special providence, which
is so surely and clearly taught in Scripture, that it is strange how any
one can bring himself to doubt of it. And, indeed, those who interpose
that disguise are themselves forced to modify their doctrine, by adding
that many things are done by the special care of God. This, however,
they erroneously confine to particular acts.
- John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.16.4)
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