_Gen. 20:6_—Of Abimelech: “_I also withheld thee from sinning against me_”; _31:24_—“_And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, and said unto him, Take heed to thyself that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad_”; _Psalm 19:13_—“_Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me_”; _Hosea 2:6_—“_Behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she shall not find her paths_”—here the “_thorns_” and the “_wall_” may represent the restraints and sufferings by which God mercifully checks the fatal pursuit of sin (see Annotated Par. Bible _in loco_). Parents, government, church, traditions, customs, laws, age, disease, death, are all of them preventive influences. Man sometimes finds himself on the brink of a precipice of sin, and strong temptation hurries him on to make the fatal leap. Suddenly every nerve relaxes, all desire for the evil thing is gone, and he recoils from the fearful brink over which he was just now going to plunge. God has interfered by the voice of conscience and the Spirit. This too is a part of his preventive providence. Men at sixty years of age are eight times less likely to commit crime than at the age of twenty-five. Passion has subsided; fear of punishment has increased. The manager of a great department store, when asked what could prevent its absorbing all the trade of the city, replied: “Death!” Death certainly limits aggregations of property, and so constitutes a means of God’s preventive providence. In the life of John G. Paton, the rain sent by God prevented the natives from murdering him and taking his goods. (_b_) Permissive,—God permits men to cherish and to manifest the evil dispositions of their hearts. God’s permissive providence is simply the negative act of withholding impediments from the path of the sinner, instead of preventing his sin by the exercise of divine power. It implies no ignorance, passivity, or indulgence, but consists with hatred of the sin and determination to punish it.