The Ways of Providence - Christadelphian Studies

THE WAYS OF PROVIDENCE
what is called chance. The flames produced by the
servant maid in the grate are not God s doings, but the
result of the conditions God has established and fixed ;
but the flames that consume the sympathisers of Korah,
Dathan and Abiram are the direct work of God. So
with a thousand illustrations, from the capture of a fly
by a spider to the vast elliptical revolution of the unmeasured
comet; the occurrences and phenomena of
" nature,'' though all in God, and known to Him, and
cannot take place without Him, are the result of fixed
affinities existing in His will, but not manipulated by
H s volition in their details. He can and does interfere
where necessaiy, and this is the distinction between
what He does and what He does not do. A recognition
of this distinction will prepare the mmd to discriminate
between those incidents in human history which are the
direct work of God, and those countless millions of
incidents with which He has no more to do than with
the selection of which blades of grass on the hill side
are to be consumed by the browsing cattle. It will
therefore qualify us to read the hand of God in cuirent
events, as well as in the history of the past in our individual
lives, as well as in the affairs of nations.