Westminster Confession of Faith: Chapter 5:1-4 Of Providence
1. God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things,
from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible fore- knowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
2. Although, in relation to the fore-knowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of
second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
3. God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.
4. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His
providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can
be the author or approver of sin. |
