Our wills, our fates, do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”
But, with a slight change of title and text, the same theme is pursued, in the section next ensuing, through another fugue-course of variations.
MAN DEVISING, GOD DIRECTING.
Proverbs xvi. 9.
“A man’s heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.” Man devises, God directs; man proposes, God disposes. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and practicable, plausible, easy of accomplishment, and sure of success. But the counsel of the Lord puts a veto on the scheme; and the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.
Luther charges it against princes and potentates in his day, that when they take in hand an enterprise, they do not pray before they begin, but set to work calculating: three times three make nine, twice seven are fourteen—so-and-so will do so-and-so—in this manner will the business come to a prosperous issue: “but our Lord God says unto them, For whom then do ye hold me? for a cypher? Do I sit here above in vain, and to no purpose? Ye shall know, that I will twist your accounts about finely, and make them all false reckonings.”