Providence - quotes from Calvin

I've been reading some of Calvin's Institutes lately. Although I thought the book terribly too dense at the beginning(!), I'm beginning to really like it -- at least this last chapter on providence! It seems especially good today after wondering over past decisions, the times when I think, well, if I could do it again and have that happen and not this. :P It's good knowing He's sovereign over all.

"We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things -- that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, he decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed. Hence we maintain, that by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined. What then, you will say, does nothing happen fortuitiously, nothing contingently? I answer it was a true saying of Basil the Great, that fortune and chance are heathen terms; the meaning of which ought not to occupy pious minds."

"In short, Augustine everywhere teaches, that if anything is left to fortune, the world moves at random."

"All future events being uncertain to us, seem in suspense as if ready to take either direction. Still, however, the impression remains seated in our hearts, that nothing will happen which the Lord has not provided."

"What seems to us contingence, faith will recognize as the secret impulse of God. The reason is not always equally apparent, but we ought undoubtedly to hold that all the changes which take place in the world are produced by the secret agency of the hand of God."

Calvin, J., ( 2008). The World, Created by God, Still Cherished and Protected by Him. Each and All of Its Parts Governed by His Providence. The Institutes. Massachusetts: Institutes of Christian Religion.

What an impetus for faith -- without regard to the degree or sort of difficulty, His sovereignty is eternal! I really like the hymn by William Cowper, in which he says, " Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face."

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"
Hebrews 11:1