Thomas Boston
1. Beware of drawing an excuse for your sin from the providence of God. Every sin is an act of rebellion against God, a breach of His holy law, and deserves His wrath and curse. It therefore cannot be authorised by an infinitely-holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity without detestation and abhorrence. Though He has by a permissive decree allowed moral evil to be in the world, yet that has no influence on the sinner to commit it. For when men commit sin, they do not intend to fulfil God’s decree – which is an absolute secret to every mortal – but to gratify their own lusts and perverse inclinations.
2. Beware of murmuring and fretting under any dispensations of providence you meet; remember that nothing falls out without a wise and holy providence, which knows best what is fit and proper for you. And in all cases, even amidst the most afflicting incidents that befall you, learn to submit to the will of God, as Job did when he said, in consequence of a train of the heaviest calamities that happened to him: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). In the most distressing case, say with the disciples, “The will of the Lord be done” (Ac 21:14).
1Taken, with editing, from Boston’s Works, vol 1. These are some exhortations which conclude a chapter on “the providence of God”.
3. Beware of anxious cares and diffidence about your provision in the world. The Lord has cautioned His followers against this: “Take no thought [that is, no anxious and perplexing thought], saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” (Mt 6:31). Never let the fear of man stop you from duty, but let your souls learn to trust in God, who guides and superintends all the events and administrations of providence (Mt 10:28,29), by whatever hands they are performed.
4. Do not slight means, seeing God works by them. He that has appointed the end orders the means necessary for gaining the end. Do not rely on means, for they can do nothing without God (Mt 4:4). Do not despond if there are no means, for God can work without them, as well as with them. “I . . . will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen” (Hos 1:7). If the means are unlikely, He can work above them; Abraham “considered not his own body now dead . . . neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom 4:19). If the means be contrary to the desired end, He can work by contrary means, as He saved Jonah by the whale that devoured him. The fish swallowed up the prophet, but by the direction of providence, it vomited him out on dry land.
5. Happy are the people whose God the Lord is, for all things shall work together for their good. They may sit secure, exercising faith in God, come what will. They have ground for prayer, for God is a prayer-hearing God; He will be inquired of by His people as to all their concerns in the world. And they have ground for the greatest encouragement and comfort amidst all the events of providence, seeing they are managed by their covenant God and gracious friend, who will never neglect or overlook His dear people and whatever concerns them. “For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Heb 13:5).