An Help for the Ignorant, WSC Question 11
By John Brown of Haddington
QUEST. 11. What are God’s works of providence?
ANSW. God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.
Q. Wherein does God still continue to execute his decrees?
A. In the works of providence.
Q. What call you the providence of God?
A. It is that care which he takes of his creatures.
Q. What are the properties of God’s care or providence?
A. It is most holy, wise, and powerful.
Q. Wherein does the holiness of God’s providence appear?
A. In its tendency to encourage holiness, discourage sin, and bring glory to God out of it.
Q. How does God bring glory to himself out of sin?
A. In punishing it in some, forgiving it in others, and making the chief of sinners sometimes become the chief of saints, 2 Chronicles 33:11-13.
Q. How does the wisdom of God’s providence appear?
A. In his making all, even the worst things, tend to his own glory, and the good of his people; and in causing one thing answer many ends at once, Romans 8:28.
Q. Wherein does the powerfulness of God’s providence appear?
A. In his irresistibly bringing about great events by weak, or no means, or in opposition to them.
Q. What are the parts or branches of God’s providential care?
A. Preserving and governing.
Q. What mean you by God’s preserving his creatures?
A. His upholding of them in their being and works.
Q. What need is there of God’s preserving his creatures?
A. Because otherwise they would return to nothing.
Q. What is meant by God’s governing his creatures?
A. Directing them to the ends he has appointed them.
Q. What need is there of God’s governing all things?
A. Because otherwise they would run into confusion.
Q. Whence do you prove, that God preserves and governs all things?
A. From scripture and reason.
Q. How does scripture prove it?
A. It declares that God upholds all things, and directs our steps, and that we live and move in him; and it foretold a multitude of events before they took place, Hebrews 1:3, etc.
Q. How does reason prove it?
A. It shows that without God so many jarring creatures could never be preserved in such order, or directed to one common end: nor could sun, moon, stars, etc. observe such exact order and revolutions, nor any miraculous event happen.
Q. What is the object of God’s providence?
A. All his creatures, and all their actions.
Q. How is God’s providence exercised about angels?
A. In permitting some to sin, and lie therein; establishing the rest in holiness and happiness, and employing them in the administrations of his mercy and justice.
Q. How is God’s providence peculiarly exercised about men?
A. In giving or withholding from them the ordinary means of salvation, and enabling them to improve [prove, test], or suffering them to abuse these means, as he sees meet.
Q. About whom is providence especially exercised?
A. About the church of God, eſpecially about Christ her head, and his real members, Isaiah 42:1, etc.
Q. How prove you that God’s providence extends to the meanest creatures?
A. Because the hairs of our head are numbered, and sparrows cannot fall to the ground without him, Matthew 10:29-30.
Q. Is it not mean [inferior] for God to care for such inconsiderable things?
A. No; whatever he hath made, is not below his care: his care of high creatures shows his majesty, and his care of the meanest creatures shews his great condescension.
Q. Are not all creatures equally mean [inferior] when compared to God?
A. Yes; for he is infinite, and they are all finite; and so equally at an infinite distance from him.
Q. What actions of creatures are the object of God’s providence?
A. All their actions, whether natural, accidental, or moral.
Q. How is God’s providence exercised about natural actions?
A. In exciting the natural instinct, and giving power and opportunity to follow it.
Q. How is God’s providence exercised about casual or accidental actions, as killing a man with a bowshot at a venture, etc.?
A. In joining or disjoining the circumſtances of these actions otherwise than the authors intended, Exodus 21:13.
Q. How is God’s providence more generally exercised about moral and reasonable actions?
A. In prescribing a law to be the rule of them, and annexing rewards and punishments thereto.
Q. How may moral actions be distinguished?
A. Into good and evil.
Q. Are no reasonable actions indifferent, that is, neither good nor evil?
A. They may be indifferent in their nature; but with respect to their manner and end [intended purpose], they must be either good or evil.
Q. How is God’s providence specially exercised about good actions?
A. In stirring up to, directing in, and giving power and opportunity for them.
Q. How is God’s providence exercised about sinful actions?
A. In concurring to the substance of the act; and in permitting, bounding, and over-ruling to his own glory the sinfulness thereof, Isaiah 37:29.
Q. Doth this any way make God the author of sin?
A. No; when God so hates and punishes sin, he can never in any respect be the author of it.
Q. Does God’s exciting or concurring in actions any way check the free will of creatures?
A. No.
Q. Whence is it then that men raise an outcry against God’s providential concurrence with all, especially sinful actions, as if that and his decree put a force upon the will of creatures?
A. It arises from their great pride and ignorance, in measuring God by themselves: for because they could not effect the matter of a sinful action, and not its sinfulness, neither absolutely decree, or infallibly determine another to an action, without forcing his will, they conclude God is incapable to do it; forgetting that as the heavens are high above the earth, ſo are God’s ways above our ways, Isaiah 55:9.
Q. How is God’s providence with respect to actions ordinarily called?
A. His providence about moral actions is called his moral government; and his providence about all other motions and actions is called his natural government.
Q. How may the providence of God with respect to its effects be distinguished?
A. Into ordinary and extraordinary.
Q.What call you ordinary providence?
A. That which produces common events by ordinary means.
Q. What call you God’s extraordinary providence?
A. That which produces miracles.
Q. What is a miracle?
A. An event beyond or contrary to the power of second causes, as raising the dead, healing the sick, by a word, etc.
Q. Wherein is God’s providence often dark and mysterious?
A. In its secret tract, and outward appearance.
Q. How is it mysterious in its secret tract?
A. In bringing about the most glorious events by the most improbable means.
Q. What are some instances of this?
A. Joseph’s dignity in Egypt was brought about by hatred, slavery, and imprisonment; and Christ’s exaltation, and his people’s salvation, by his cursed and shameful death.
Q. What does this teach us?
A. To believe always that God is taking the best way to accomplish his promise, though providence seem to contradict it.
Q. How is God’s providence mysterious in its outward appearance?
A. In the temporal prosperity of the wicked, and adversity of God’s dearest saints.
Q. Why does God take this course?
A. To shew his own contempt of worldly things, wean his people’s hearts from the world, and gain them to himself.
Q. Whether are saints losers or gainers when God empties them of worldly good things, in order to gain them to himself?
A. They are the greatest gainers.
Q. When shall all dark providences be cleared up?
A. When we enter on the state of glory in heaven.
Q. What will the saints then think and say of all providences?
A. They will admire the love, grace, and wisdom that ran through them all; and with joy and thanksgiving cry out, He hath done all things well.
Q. What attributes of God are manifested in the works of providence?
A. His independency, infinity, wisdom, power , holiness, justice, goodness, truth, etc.