B. A government and control extending to the free actions of men—(_a_) to men’s free acts in general; (_b_) to the sinful acts of men also.
(a) _Ex. 12:36_—“_Jehovah gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And they despoiled the Egyptians_”; _1 Sam. 24:18_—“_Jehovah had delivered me up into thy hand_” (Saul to David); _Ps. 33:14, 15_—“_He looketh forth Upon all the inhabitants of the earth, He that fashioneth the hearts of them all_” (_i. e._, equally, one as well as another); _Prov. 16:1_—“_The plans of the heart belong to man; But the answer of the tongue is from Jehovah_”; _19:21_—“_There are many devices in a man’s heart; But the counsel of Jehovah, __ that shall stand_”; _20:24_—“_A man’s goings are of Jehovah; How then can man understand his way?_” _21:1_—“_The king’s heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the watercourses: He turneth it whithersoever he will_” (_i. e._, as easily as the rivulets of the eastern fields are turned by the slightest motion of the hand or the foot of the husbandman); _Jer. 10:23_—“_O Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps_”; _Phil. 2:13_—“_it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure_”; _Eph. 2:10_—“_we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them_”; _James 4:13-15_—“_If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that._”
(_b_) _2 Sam. 16:10_—“_because Jehovah hath said unto him_ [Shimei]: _Curse David_”; _24:1_—“_the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah_”; _Rom. 11:32_—“_God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all_”; _2 Thess. 2:11, 12_—“_God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness._”
Henry Ward Beecher: “There seems to be no order in the movements of the bees of a hive, but the honey-comb shows that there was a plan in them all.” John Hunter compared his own brain to a hive in which there was a great deal of buzzing and apparent disorder, while yet a real order underlay it all. “As bees gather their stores of sweets against a time of need, but are colonized by man’s superior intelligence for his own purposes, so men plan and work yet are overruled by infinite Wisdom for his own glory.” Dr. Deems: “The world is wide In Time and Tide, And God is guide: Then do not hurry. That man is blest Who does his best And leaves the rest: Then do not worry.” See Bruce, Providential Order, 183 _sq._; Providence in the Individual Life, 231 _sq._