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All changes, successes, disappointments–all that is memorable in the annals of history, all the risings and falls of empires, all the turns in human life–take place according to God’s plan. In vain men contrive and combine to accomplish their own counsels. Unless they are parts of His counsel likewise, the efforts of their utmost strength and wisdom are crossed and reversed by the feeblest and most unthought-of circumstances. But when He has a work to accomplish and His time is come, however inadequate and weak that means He employs may seem to a carnal eye, the success is infallibly secured: for all things serve Him, and are in His hands as clay in the hands of the potter. Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints! –John Newton, 1787