John Calvin on Divine Providence

"In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will." Ephesians 1:11

God sustains, nourishes, and cares for everything He has made, even to the least sparrow. (Matthew 10:29)

God's providence, as it is taught in Scripture, is opposed to fortune and chance. There is no such thing as fortune or chance--these are pagan terms, with which the minds of the godly ought not to be occupied.

All events are governed by God's secret plan!

They babble and talk absurdly who, in the place of God's providence, substitute bare permission--as if God sat in a watchtower awaiting chance events, and His judgments thus depended upon human will.

It is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God's sure command.

Nothing, including human suffering, happens by chance.

God so regulates all things, that nothing happens but what He has knowingly and willingly decreed.

Each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God!

No creature has a force more wondrous or glorious than that of the sun. The sun does not daily rise and set by blind instinct of nature--but God Himself, to renew our remembrance of His fatherly favors toward us, governs its course.

In times of adversity, believers comfort themselves with the solace that they suffer nothing except by God's ordaining and command, for they are under His all-controlling hand.

You may want to read the "1689 Baptist Confession of Faith" on the subject of Divine Providence. (one page)