1. God the great Creator of all things upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his certain foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

2. In relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and unerringly; yet, by the same providence, he orders them to come about according to the nature of secondary causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

3. God, in his ordinary providence, makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against, them, at his pleasure.

4. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God do so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extends even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and people. Such do not happen by a bare permission, but are joined with a most wise and powerful bounding, ordering and governing of them, in various dispensations, for his own holy purposes, yet so that the sinfulness of them comes only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, is not nor can be the author or approver of sin.

5. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God often leaves his own children for a season to various temptations and the corruption of their own hearts

• to chastise them for their former sins, or to show to them the hidden strength of the corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, so that they may be humbled,
• to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself,
• to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for various other just and holy purposes.

6. As for those wicked and ungodly people whom God blinds and hardens, as a righteous judge, for their former sins, he not only withholds from them his grace by which they might have been enlightened in their understandings and worked upon in their hearts, but also sometimes withdraws the gifts they had, and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasions of sin. In addition, he gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan, by which it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even by those means which God uses for the softening of others.

7. As the providence of God in general reaches to all creatures, so, after a most special manner, it takes care of his Church, and disposes all things to the good of it.