“The will of God is contrasted with what such Philosophers call Contingence: a term by which they denote an accident which comes of its own accord in events, without any fixed direction of it from above.” – Calvin

We have formerly adverted to a leading tenet of the Stoics, that the distinction between pleasure and pain is imaginary, and that consequently the highest wisdom consists in being utterly unmoved by the events of life. The present illusion is to their notion of Fate, a mysterious and irresistible necessity, over which those beings whom they blindly worshiped were supposed to have as little control as inhabitants of the earth. Calvin demonstrates that the serenity of the Christian differs not more widely from Stoical apathy, than the doctrine of a special Providence which is here taught by our Savior differs from Stoical Fate; that the believer in Providence adores “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,” (Isaiah 57:15,) who “hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and whose kingdom rulers over all,” (Ps 103:19) and, far from viewing the will of God as swayed by a higher power, traces every event “to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the Council of his own will, (Ephesians 1:11.)

– William Pringle