Page:Religious Thought in Holland during the Nineteenth Century James Hutton Mackay.djvu/46

 AND THE REVEIL, 35

the same good God ,after He had created all things, has not dismissed them or given them up to chance or fortune, but governs them and rules them according to His holy will; so that nothing happens in this world without His ordinance; nevertheless God is neither the author nor is He guilty of any sin that is committed. . . . This doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation, since we are taught by it that nothing can befall us by chance, but by the disposition of our most bountiful Heavenly Father, who watches over us with a Fatherly care, keeping all creatures in such wise under His care that not a hair of our head (for they are all numbered) and not a little sparrow can fall to the ground without our Father. in whom we do entirely trust. . . And thus we reject that damnable error of the Epicureans, who say that God never troubles Himself about anything, but allows everything to fall out by chance.” It is true that in the doctrinal canons of Dort the Dutch possess in a concentrated form the deductions that were drawn by the Synod from Calvin’s doctrine of PI‘Edestination, and that have passed into the