Calvin as Gadfly: Greater than we are

The right thing to do here is to look to the end which Scripture has in view the teaching that all things are divinely ordained. So, first: the Foresight and Care of God is for all things past, and all thing present, and all things future.

Secondly: in ruling over all things, it works at one time with the real things involved, at another without the real things involved (that is: above them, as a cause which they do not manage), and at another against the things involved.

Last: the design of God is to show that He takes care of the whole human race, but is especially vigilant in governing the Church, for which he has a special purpose as his special possession.

It’s important to realize that, although God’s fatherly care and fatherly discipline is often blatantly obvious as his providences are played out, sometimes the causes of events are concealed. We’re tempted to think at those times that we’re just the victims of chance, or to think that God amuses himself by tossing men up and down like balls.

But the counsel of God is the highest of reasoning, if we think about it soberly and seriously, knowing that he is so much greater than we are; his purposes are either to train his people to patience, correct their faulty urges and inclinations, housebreak their baser desires, teach them it is better to give than to receive, and wake them up from lazy dozing; or, on the other hand, to knock the proud down as they should be knocked down, defeat the craftiness of those who have other gods, and frustrate all their schemes.