"God, Who created everything, also upholds everything. He directs, regulates, and governs every creature, action, and thing, from the greatest to the least, by His completely wise and holy providence. He does so in accordance with His infallible foreknowledge and the voluntary, unchangeable purpose of His own will, all the the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy." (Heb. 1:3, Dan. 4:34-35, Psa. 135:6, Acts 17:25-26,28, Job 38-41, Matt. 10:29-31, Matt. 6:26,30, Neh. 9:6, Psa. 114:14-16, Prov. 15:3, 2 Chron. 16:9, Psa. 104:24, Psa. 145:17, Acts 15:18, Psa. 94:8-11, Eph. 1:11, Psa. 33:10-11, Isa. 63:14, Eph. 3:10, Rom. 9:17, Gen. 45:7, Psa. 145:7.)
"God is the first cause, and in relationship to Him everything happens unchangeably and infallibly. However, by this same providence, He orders things to happen from secondary causes. As a result of these secondary causes, some things must inevitably happen; others may or may not happen depending on the voluntary intentions of the agents involved; and some things do not have to happen but may, depending on other conditions." (Acts 2:23, Jer. Jer. 32:19, Gen. 8:22, Jer. 31:35, Exod. 21:13, Deut. 19:5, I Kings 22:28,34, Isa. 10:6-7, Gen. 50:19,20).
"God uses ordinary means to work out His providence day by day. But, as He pleases, He may work without, beyond, or contrary to these means." (Acts 27:24, 31, 44; Isa. 55:10-11, Hos. 2:21-22, Matt. 4:4, Job 34:10, Rom. 4:19-21, 2 Kings 6:6, Dan. 3:27, i Kings 18:17-39, John 11:43-45, Rom. 1:4).
-- Westminster Confession of Faith (1647).
"In the Westminster Confession of Faith the statement is made that that
is true which by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from
Scripture. This statement should not be used as a justification for
deductive exegesis. One must not start with the idea of the sovereign
control of God over all things and deduce from it the idea that there is no
human responsibility. Nor must one begin with the idea that there is no
human responsibility and deduce from it the ideas that there is no absolute
control by God over the wills of men. But to say that one must not engage
in this sort of deduction is not to say that the Bible can teach that which
is contradictory. It is not to say that the Bible can teach both that God
elects men to salvation and at the same time that they have the power to
reject the grace of God…."
--Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 38 (emphasis his)