Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.14

That nothing is done but by the beck of this Providence. That by it desolations come upon men and cities; therefore we do not the parts of good and godly men to murmur or mourn for them. Finally, an exhortation to obey God against whom we strive unadvisedly and in vain. 

"If you conceive this rightly, and do believe heartily that this governing faculty insinuates itself, and, as the poet speaks, passes through every path of sea and eke of shore, I see not what further place can be left for your grief and grudging. For even the selfsame foreseeing intelligence which turns about the heaven daily, which causes the sun to rise and set, which brings forth and shuts up the fruits of the earth, produces all these calamities and changes which you so much marvel and mutter at. 

"Do you think that God gives us only pleasing and profitable things? No, he sends likewise noisome and hurtful; neither is anything contrived, tossed or turned, sin only excepted, in this huge theater of the world, the cause and fountain whereof proceeds not from that first cause of causes: for as Pindar says well, the dispensers and doers of all things are in heaven. And there is let down from thence a golden chain, as Homer expresses by a figment, whereto all these inferior things are fast linked. 

"That the earth has opened her mouth and swallowed up some towns, came of God's Providence. That elsewhere the plague has consumed many thousands of people, proceeds of the same cause. That slaughters, war, and tyranny rage in the Low Countries, there hence also comes it to pass. 

"From heaven, Lipsius, from heaven are all these miseries sent. Therefore Euripides said it well and wisely, that all calamities are from God. The ebbing and flowing of all human affairs depends upon that moon. The rising and fall of kingdoms comes from this sun. You therefore in losing the reins thus to your sorrow, and grudging that the country is so turned and overturned, do not consider what you are, and against whom you complain. What are you? A man, a shadow, dust? Against whom do you fret? I fear to speak it, even against God. 

"The ancients have fained that giants advanced themselves against God, to pull him out of his throne. Let us omit these fables: in very truth you querulous and murmuring men are these giants. For if it be so that God does not only suffer but send all these things, then you who thus strive and struggle, what do you else but, as much as in you lies, take the scepter and sway of government from him? 

"O blind mortality: the sun, the moon, stars, elements, and all creatures else in the world, do willingly obey that supreme law: only man, the most excellent of all God's works, lifts up his heel, and spurns against his maker. 

"If you hoist your sails to the winds, you must follow whither they will force you, not whither you will lead them. And in this great ocean sea of our life will you refuse to follow that breathing spirit which governs the whole world? Yet you strive in vain. For if you follow not freely, you shall be drawn after forcibly. 

"We may laugh at him who, having tied his boat to a rock, afterwards hauls the rope as though the rock should come to him, when he himself goes nearer to it. But our foolishness is far greater, who being fast bound to the rock of God's eternal Providence, by our hailing and pulling would have the same to obey us, and not we it. 

"Let us forsake this fondness, and if we are wise, let us follow that power which from above draws us, and let us think it good reason that man should be pleased with that which pleases God. 

"The soldier in camp, having a sign of marching forward given to him, takes up all his trinkets, but hearing the note of battle lays them down, preparing and making himself ready with heart, eyes, and ears, to execute whatsoever shall be commanded. So let us in this our warfare follow cheerfully and with courage wherever our general calls us. We are hereunto adjured by oath, says Seneca, even to endure mortality, nor to be troubled with those things which it is not in our power to avoid. We are born in a kingdom, and to obey God is liberty."