De Moor X:5: The Efficient of Providence, Part 1

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Providence is a Work of God, α.  On account of the most luminous testimonies of Sacred Scripture, in which, a.  the Saints everywhere attribute this Work to God unto the glory of His mighty works, which manifest themselves in this, Nehemiah 9:6, etc.; in which, b.  God Himself no less claims this Work for Himself, Isaiah 45:6, 7; Job 38-41.

β.  The same is evident from all those Reasons, whereby we proved that the Creation is the Work of God and His alone, Chapter VIII, § 6, 7; which we have observed in § 1 of this Chapter concerning Providence or Creation continued, and in § 3 concerning the Existence of Providence flowing necessarily from God’s Independence, in comparison with the Dependence of all Creatures.  Hence from the Works of Providence Scripture everywhere teaches us to ascend to God, Acts 14:17; Job 12:7-9; Psalm 19:1-6.

Thus we set God over against, 1.  All Fortune and Chance, whereby the Epicureans were dreaming all things perpetually carried along, as they were similarly ascribing the first rise of this World to a fortuitous Concourse of Atoms.  The Gentiles held Fortune as a goddess dispensing human affairs, and in the one city of Rome here temples were many under various names.  JUVENAL,[1] Satire X at the end, holding up human folly for ridicule, writes:  Thou hast no (others:  thou art without) deity, if there be prudence:  but we make thee, O Fortune, a goddess, and place thee in heaven.  Thus someone also yet speaks in SENECA’S Hippolyto, verses 974-976:

Human affairs in no order

Does Fortune govern, and disperses with a blind

Hand her gifts, favoring the worse.

PLINY,[2] in his Natural History, book II, chapter VII:  In all the world and in every place, and at all hours, by the voices of all Fortune alone is invoked:  one alone is named, is accused, is put to trial, is taken into account; she alone is praised, is blamed and worshipped with insults:  changeable, and even esteemed blind by most, wandering, inconstant, uncertain, variable, and the patroness of the unworthy.  To her are brought all charges, to her all receipts:  and in the whole account of mortals she alone fills both sides of the ledger.  We are so at the mercy of fate, that Fate herself takes the place of God, by whom God is shown to be uncertain:  see more things concerning Fortune in ROSINUS’ Antiquitatibus Romanis,[3] book II, chapter XVI, and in the notes of Dempster on the same;[4] and also in VOSSIUS’[5] de Idololatria Gentili, book II, chapter XLIII, who recounts the varying opinions of the ancient Philosophers concerning Fortune; likewise in LELAND, de Utilitate et Necessitate Revelationis Christi, part I, section II, chapter XVII, pages 471, 472, 491, 492.

There is no need for us to convince Christians with many arguments of the foolishness of an opinion of this sort, which states that all things are done by blind Fortune or Chance, which things are conducted with such great Counsel, that we can attain to it by no counsel, if I might speak with CICERO, book II de Natura Deorum, chapter XXXVIII.

Hence Christians concede no place for Fortune or Chance, except with respect to second Causes, when we wish to signify that to us falls an Event prosperous or unexpected.  Indeed, this distinction between these two words obtains, if we attend to the principal use of them; that a thing is said to be done by Fortune, if things undertaken by me succeed above expectation, as when a fisherman catches a great many fish of the best sort:  but a thing is said to happen by Chance, when it happens unexpectedly and beyond imagination, as when a fisherman spreads his net to catch fish, but in the meantime draws forth a golden tripod with his net.  And so with respect to us and second causes of this sort even CALVIN admits this manner of speaking, Institutes, book I, chapter XVI, § 9, when he otherwise rightly prefaced it in § 8:  What then? you will ask:  does nothing happen fortuitously or contingently?  I answer, that it was rightly said by Basil the Great:  that Fortune and Chance are Pagan terms, with the signification of which the minds of the pious ought not to be occupied.  For, if all success is the blessing of God, and all calamity and adversity His curse:  now no place is left for fortune or chance in human affairs.  Upon which matter he also cites the words of AUGUSTINE.

[1] Decimus Junius Juvenalis was a Roman poet, flourishing at the turn of the second century.

[2] Gaius Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the Elder (23-79), distinguished himself as a learned author, a celebrated Roman Procurator, and a courageous soldier.  In his Natural History, Pliny in encyclopedic fashion attempts to cover the entire field of human knowledge as it stood in his day.  It remains an invaluable resource in the fields of history, geography, literature, and Biblical studies.

[3] Johannes Rosinus (1551-1626) was a German Lutheran theologian, educator, and antiquarian.  He is remembered for his Romanis Antiquitatibus, compiled from classical sources.

[4] Thomas Dempster (1579-1625) was a Scottish Roman Catholic scholar and classicist.  He is remembered for his brilliant mind and extraordinary memory, but also for his quarrelsome temperament.  Dempster produced an annotated edition of Rosinus’ Romanarum Antiquitatum.

[5] Gerhard Johann Vossius (1577-1649) was a Dutch classical scholar and theologian.  In 1619, his Historia Pelagiana brought him into suspicion of Arminianism.