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James Robert Boyd employed a useful method of teaching the substance of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. First, he presented the particular question, followed by the great doctrinal truths comprehended within, supported by Scripture. Then, he listed practical lessons to be derived from those truths. Finally, he gave illustrations of these teachings to bring them home.
Today, we give an example of his method as it pertains to Q. 11 of the Shorter Catechism in The Westminster Shorter Catechism: With Analysis, Scriptural Proofs, Explanatory and Practical Inferences, and Illustrative Anecdotes (1854). It is a good subject for meditation, and Boyd’s teaching is a good reminder of a precious Scriptural truth.
Q. 11. WHAT ARE GOD’S WORKS OF PROVIDENCE?
God’s works of Providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.
What Truths are embraced in this Answer?
God preserves all his creatures. — Psal. cxiv. 15. The eyes of all wait upon thee: and thou givest them their meat in due season.
God governs all his creatures. — Psal. ciii. 19. His kingdom ruleth over all.
God directs and governs all the actions of his creatures. — Prov. xvi. 9. A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
God’s works of providence are most holy. — Psal. cxlv. 17. The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.
God’s works of providence are most wise. — Isa. xxviii. 29. The Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.
God’s works of providence are most powerful. — Psal. lxvi. 7. He ruleth by his power for ever.
What Lessons do you derive from the above Doctrines?
I learn (1.) That there is no such thing as blind fate; that there is a divine agency which guides, and protects, and governs; that it reaches to all places, beings, and events. (2.) To commit myself and all other creatures to the care and guidance of my Creator, and to endeavor at all times to act in obedience to his supreme will. (3.) That events which seem accidental, are nevertheless ordered by the Lord, as when the Bible informs us (1 Kings, xxii. 34) of a certain man who drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness. God’s providence directed the arrow to the mark. (4.) That the providence of God is merely the accomplishment of his eternal purposes concerning his creatures, and that all the circumstances of my life are regulated by his wisdom and power. Hence (5.) I must not murmur or complain when affliction befalls me, nor be ungrateful to God when he prospers me and gladdens me in my course. (6.) That the cause of religion — the church of Christ — is safe. (7.) That even the wickedness of man is overruled for good, as in the case of the envy of Joseph’s brethren, the crucifixion of our Saviour, and the sensuality of Henry VIII. of England.
What Illustrations can you give?
There is a habit of saying, “Such a thing will TURN UP,” as if it depended on chance; whereas nothing will turn up but what has been ordered. When a man becomes a Christian, he is written upon, “TO BE PROVIDED FOR,” and he ought, therefore, to notice, as he goes on, how Providence does provide for him.
When the Protestants in Rochelle were besieged by the French king, God, by his providence, sent in a number of small fishes that fed them, such as were never seen before in that harbor.
The raven, a bird that has not natural affection enough to feed its own young, yet providentially carried nourishment to the Hebrew prophet Elijah.
The Book of Esther details a series of the most wonderful providences in behalf of the Jewish people, when in great danger of a universal massacre.
The Rev. Richard Cecil has correctly observed, that “we are too apt to forget our actual dependence on Providence, for the circumstances of every instant. The most trivial events may determine our state in the world. Turning up one street instead of another, may bring us into company with a person whom we should not otherwise have met; and this may lead to a train of other events, which may determine the happiness or misery of our lives.”
OVERRULING PROVIDENCE. — “All these things are against me,” thought good old Jacob, when he exclaimed in the bitterness of his soul, “Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and will ye take Benjamin away?” And it did seem as if these bereavements would “bring down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.” But it was all cleared up when “he saw the wagons” which Joseph had sent to carry him and all his numerous family down to Egypt, and save them alive, during the terrible seven years’ famine. So Joseph himself must have thought, when his brethren cast him into the pit; when they sold him as a slave to the Ishmaelites; and when, upon the false charge of an adulterous woman, he was thrown into prison, without any hope of relief, or any prospect of it, except by a violent and ignominious death. But how was it, when he found himself suddenly raised to the vice-royalty of Egypt, and that God had sent him down to preserve the life of his venerable father, and of the very brethren who had so cruelly sold him to the passing caravan? “All these things are against us,” undoubtedly, thought our Puritan ancestors, when they were persecuted from city to city, and could find no secure resting-place short of this great Western wilderness; but God sent his angel before them, and what glorious foundations of civil and religious liberty did they lay upon these shores, for the building up of a great nation. We see in all these and numberless other striking examples, how much better care God takes of his people than they could take of themselves, and how he overrules the most adverse and trying events for their highest good. Indeed, this is a matter of every-day experience. Almost any person who has arrived at the age of forty, can recollect times when his favorite plans were thwarted, and it did seem as if the course of Providence was against him, when, as it proved in the end, it was all in his favor, and saved him from losses or calamities, in which the carrying out of his plans would inevitably have involved him. — Dr. Humphrey
