ENTHUSIASTIC PERVERSIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE.
No species of enthusiasm, perhaps, is more extensively prevalent, and
certainly none clings more tenaciously to the mind that has once
entertained it, and none produces more practical mischief, than that
which is founded on an abuse of the doctrine of a particular Providence.
It is by the fortuities of life that the religious enthusiast is
deluded. Chance, under a guise stolen from piety, is his divinity. He
believes, and he believes justly, that every seeming fortuity is under
the absolute control of the divine hand; but in virtue of the peculiar
interest he supposes himself to have on high, he is tempted to think
that these contingencies are very much at his command. This belief
naturally inclines him to pay more regard to the unusual, than to the
common course of events. In contemplating God as the disposer of
chances, he becomes forgetful of him who is the governor of the world by
known and permanent laws. All the honor which he does to one of the
divine attributes, is in fact stolen from the reverence due to another;
but he should remember that "the Lord abhorreth robbery for offering."
A propensity to look more to chance than to probability is known
invariably to debilitate the reasoning faculty, as well as to vitiate
the moral sentiments; and these constant effects are more often
aggravated than mitigated by the accession of religious sentiments. The
illusions of hope then assume a tone of authority which effectually
silences the whispers of common sense; and the imagination, more highly
stimulated than when it fed only on things of earth, boldly makes a prey
of the divine power and goodness, to the utter subversion of humble
piety. A sanguine temper, quickened by perverted notions of religion,
easily impels a man to believe that he is privileged or skilled to
penetrate the intentions of Providence towards himself; and the
anticipations he forms on this ground acquire so much consistency by
being perpetually handled, that he deems them to form a much more
certain rule of conduct than he could derive from the forecastings of
prudence, or even from the dictates of morality.
Delusions of this kind are the real sources of many of those sad
delinquencies which so often bring reproach upon a profession of
religion. The world loves to call the offender a villain; but in fact he
was not worse than an enthusiast. He who, in conducting the daily
affairs of life, has acquired the settled habit of calculating rather
upon what is possible than upon what is probable, naturally slides into
the mischievous error of paying court to Fortune, rather than to Virtue;
nor will his integrity or his principles of honor be at all strengthened
by the mere metonymy of calling Fortune—Providence. It is easy to fix
the eye upon the clouds in expectation of help front above with so much
intentness that the tables of right and wrong, which stand before us,
shall scarcely be seen. This very expectation is a contempt of prudence;
and it is not often seen that those who slight Prudence, pay much regard
to her sister—Probity.
Or if consequences so serious do not follow from the notion that the
fortuities of life are an available fund at the disposal of the favorite
of heaven, yet this belief can hardly fail to spread an infection of
sloth and presumption through the character. The enthusiast will
certainly be remiss and dilatory in arduous and laborious duties. Hope,
which is the incentive to exertion in well-ordered and energetic minds,
slackens every effort if the understanding be crazed. The wheel of toil
stands still while the devotee implores assistance from above. Or if he
possesses more of activity, the same false principle prompts him to
engage in enterprises from which, if the expected contingent to be
furnished by "Providence," be deducted, scarcely a shred of fair
probability remains to recommend the scheme.
If the course of events in human life were as constant and uniform as
the phenomena of the material world, none but madmen would build their
hopes upon the irregularities by which it is diversified. Nor would the
enthusiast do so if he gave heed to the principles that impose order
upon the apparent chaos of fortuities from which the many-colored line
of human life is spun. To expose, then, the error of those who, on
pretext of faith in providence, build presumptuous expectations upon the
throws of fortune, we must analyse the confused mass of contingences to
which human life is liable. This analysis leaves the folly and
impropriety of the enthusiast without excuse.
* * * * *
Any one who recalls to his recollection the incidents, great and small,
that have filled up the days of a year past, will find it easy to divide
them into two classes, of which the first, and the larger, comprises
those events which common sense and experience might have enabled him to
anticipate, and which, if he were wise, he did actually anticipate, so
far as was necessary for the regulation of his conduct. The ground of
such calculations of futurity is nothing else than the uniform course of
events in the material world, and the permanent principles of human
nature, and the established order of the social system: for all these,
though confessedly liable to many interruptions, are yet so far constant
as to afford, on the whole, a safe rule of calculation. If there were no
such uniformity in the course of events, the active and reasoning
faculties of man would be of no avail to him; for the exercise of them
might as probably be ruinous as serviceable. In the whirl of such a
supposed anarchy of nature, an intelligent agent must refrain from every
movement, and resign himself to be borne along by the eddies of
confusion. But this is not the character of the world we inhabit: the
connection of physical causes and effects is known and calculable, so
that the results of human labor are liable to only a small deduction on
account of occasional irregularities. We plant and sow, and lay up
stores, and build, and construct machines in tranquil hope of the
expected benefit; and indeed, if the variations and irregularities of
nature were much greater and more frequent than they are, or even if
disappointment were as common as success, the part of wisdom would still
be the same; for the laws of nature, though never so much broken in upon
by incalculable accidents, would still afford _some_ ground of
expectation; and an intelligent agent will always prefer to act on even
the slenderest hope which reason approves, rather than to lie supine in
the ruinous wheel-way of chance.
And notwithstanding its many real, and many apparent irregularities,
there is also a settled order of causes and effects in the human system,
as well as in the material world. The foundation of this settled order
is, the sameness of human nature in its animal intellectual and moral
constitution, of which the anomalies are never so great as to break up
all resemblance to the common pattern. Then those conventional modes of
thinking and acting which sway the conduct of the mass of mankind,
strengthen the tendency to uniformity, and greatly counteract all
disturbing causes. Then again the sanctioned institutions of society
give stability and permanence to the order of events, and altogether
afford so much security in calculating upon the future, that, whoever by
observation and reflection has become well skilled in the ordinary
movements of the machinery of life may, with confidence and calmness, if
not with absolute assurance of success, risk his most important
interests upon the issue of plans wisely concerted.
Skill and sagacity in managing the affairs of common life, or wisdom in
council and command, is nothing else than an extensive and ready
knowledge of the intricate movements of the great machine of the social
system; and the high price which this skill and wisdom always bears
among men, may be held to represent two abstractions; first, the
perplexing Irregularities of the system to which human agency is to be
conformed; and then, the real and substantial Uniformity of the
movements of that system. For it is plain that if there were no
perplexing irregularities, superior sagacity would be in no request; or,
on the other hand, if there were not a real constancy in the course of
affairs, even the greatest sagacity would be found to be of no avail,
and therefore would be in no esteem.
There is then a substantial, if not an immovable _substratum_ of causes
and effects, upon which, for the practical and important purposes of
life, calculations of futurity may be formed. And this is the basis, and
this alone, on which a wise man rests his hopes, and constructs his
plans; he well knows that his fairest hopes may be dissipated, and his
best plans overthrown; and yet, though the hurricanes of misfortune were
a thousand times to scatter his labors, he would still go on to renew
them in conformity with the same principles of calculation; for no other
principles are known to him, and the extremest caprices of Fortune will
never so prevail over his constancy as to induce him to do homage to
Chance.
* * * * *
The second, and the less numerous class of events that make up the
course of human life, are those which no sagacity could have
anticipated; for though in themselves they were only the natural
consequences of common causes, yet those causes were either concealed,
or remote, and were, therefore, to us and our agency the same as if they
had been absolutely fortuitous. By far the larger proportion of these
accidents arises from the intricate connections of the social system.
The thread of every life is entangled with other threads beyond all
reach of calculation, the weal and woe of each depends, by innumerable
correspondences, upon the will, and caprices, and fortune, not merely of
the individuals of his immediate circle, but upon those of myriads of
whom he knows nothing. Or, strictly speaking, the tie of mutual
influence passes, without a break, from hand to hand, throughout the
human family: there is no independence, no insulation, in the lot of
man; and therefore there can be no absolute calculation of future
fortunes; for he whose will or caprice is to govern that lot stands,
perhaps, at the distance of a thousand removes from the subject of it,
and the attenuated influence winds its way in a thousand meanders before
it reaches the point of its destined operation.
Both these classes of events are manifestly necessary to the full
development of the faculties of human nature. If, for example, there
were no constancy in the events of life, there would be no room left for
rational agency; and if, on the other hand, there were no inconstancy,
the operations of the reasoning faculty would fall into a mechanical
regularity, and the imagination and the passions would be iron-bound, as
by the immobility of fate. It is by the admirable combination of the two
principles of order and disorder, of uniformity and variety, of
certainty and of chance, that the faculties and desires are wrought up
to their full play of energy and vivacity of reason and of feeling. But
it is especially in connection with the doctrine of Providence that we
have at present to consider these two elements of human life; and as to
the first of them, it is evident that the settled order of causes and
effects, so far as it may be ascertained by observation and experience,
claims the respect and obedience of every intelligent agent; since it is
nothing less than the will of the Author of nature, legibly written upon
the constitution of the world. This will is sanctioned by immediate
rewards and punishments; health, wealth, prosperity, are the usual
consequents of obedience; while sickness, poverty, degradation, are the
almost certain inflictions that attend a negligent interpretation, or a
presumptuous disregard of it. The dictates of prudence are in truth the
commands of God; and his benevolence is vindicated by the fact, that the
miseries of life are, to a very great extent, attributable to a contempt
of those commands.
But there is a higher government of men, as moral and religious beings,
which is carried on chiefly by means of the fortuities of life. Those
unforeseen accidents which so often control the lot of men, constitute a
_superstratum_ in the system of human affairs, wherein, peculiarly, the
Divine Providence holds empire for the accomplishment of its special
purposes. It is from this hidden and inexhaustible mine of
chances—chances, as we must call them—that the Governor of the world
draws, with unfathomable skill, the materials of his dispensations
towards each individual of mankind. The world of nature affords no
instances of complicated and exact contrivance, comparable to that which
so arranges the vast chaos of contingencies, as to produce, with
unerring precision, a special order of events adapted to the character
of every individual of the human family. Amid the whirl of myriads of
fortuities, the means are selected and combined for constructing as many
independent machineries of moral discipline as there are moral agents in
the world; and each apparatus is at once complete in itself, and
complete as part of a universal movement.
If the special intentions of Providence towards individuals were
effected by the aid of supernatural interpositions, the power and
presence of the Supreme Disposer might indeed be more strikingly
displayed than it is; but his skill much less. And herein especially is
manifested the perfection of the divine wisdom, that the most surprising
conjunctions of events are brought about by the simplest means, and in a
manner so perfectly in harmony with the ordinary course of human
affairs, that the hand of the Mover is ever hidden beneath second
causes, and is descried only by the eye of pious affection. This is in
fact the great miracle of providence—that no miracles are needed to
accomplish its purposes. Countless series of events are travelling on
from remote quarters towards the same point; and each series moves in
the beaten track of natural occurrences; but their intersection, at the
very moment in which they meet, shall serve, perhaps, to give a new
direction to the affairs of an empire. The materials of the machinery of
Providence are all of common quality; but their combination displays
nothing less than infinite skill.
Having then these two distinguishable classes of events before us,
namely, those which may be foreknown by human sagacity, and those which
may not; it is manifest that the former exclusively is given to man as
the sphere of his labors, and for the exercise of his skill; while the
latter is reserved as the royal domain of sovereign bounty and infinite
wisdom. The enthusiast, therefore, who neglects and contemns those
dictates of common sense which are derived from the calculable course of
human affairs, and founds his plans and expectations upon the unknown
procedures of Providence, is chargeable not merely with folly, but with
an impious intrusion upon the peculiar sphere of the divine agency. This
impiety is shown in a strong light when viewed in connection with those
great principles which may be not obscurely discerned to govern the
dispensations of Providence towards mankind.
* * * * *
In the divine management of the fortuitous events of life, there is, in
the first place, visible, some occasional flashes of that retributive
justice, which, in the future world, is to obtain its long postponed and
perfect triumph. There are instances which, though not very common, are
frequent enough to keep alive the salutary fears of mankind, wherein
vindictive visitations speak articulately in attestation of the
righteous indignation of God against those who do evil. Outrageous
villanies, or appalling profaneness, sometimes draw upon the criminal
the instant bolt of divine wrath, and in so remarkable a manner that the
most irreligious minds are quelled with a sudden awe, and confess the
hand of God. And again there is just perceptible, as it were, a gleam of
divine approbation, displayed in a signal rewarding of the righteous,
even in the present life: a blessing "which maketh rich" rests sometimes
conspicuously upon the habitation of disinterested and active virtue:
"the righteous is as a tree planted by the rivers of water: whatsoever
he doeth, prospers." In these anomalous cases of anticipated
retribution, the punishment or the reward does not arrive in the
ordinary course of common causes; but starts forth suddenly from that
storehouse of fortuities whence the divine providence draws its means of
government. If the oppressor, by rousing the resentment of mankind, is
dragged from the seat of power, and trodden in the dust; or if the
villain who "plotteth mischief against his neighbor on his bed," is at
length caught in his own net, and despoiled of his wrongful gains, these
visitations of justice, though truly retributive, belong plainly to the
_known_ order of causes and effects: they are nothing more than the
natural issues of the culprit's course; and therefore do not declare the
special interference of Heaven. But there are instances of another kind,
in which the ruin of villany or of violence comes speeding as on a shaft
from above, which, though seemingly shot at random, yet hits its victim
with a precision and a peculiarity that proclaims the unerring hand of
divine justice.
In like manner there are remarkable recompenses of integrity, of
liberality, of kindness to strangers, and, most especially, of duty to
parents, which arrive by means so remote from common probability, and
yet so simple, that the approbation of him who "taketh pleasure in the
path of the just," is written upon the unexpected boon. There are few
family histories that would not afford examples of such conspicuous
retributions. Nevertheless, as they are confessedly rare, and
administered by rules absolutely inscrutable to human penetration, there
can hardly be a more daring impiety than, in particular instances, to
entertain the expectation of their occurrence. Yet the enthusiast finds
it hard to abstain, in his own case, from such expectations; and is
tempted perpetually to indulge hopes of special boons in reward of his
services, and is forward and ingenious in giving an interpretation that
flatters his spiritual vanity to every common favor of providence; the
bottles of heaven are never stopped but to gratify his taste for fine
weather! A readiness to announce the wrath of heaven upon offenders, is
a presumption which characterizes, not the mere enthusiast, but the
malign fanatic, and therefore comes not properly within our subject; and
yet the species of enthusiasm now under consideration is very seldom
free from some such impious tendency.
* * * * *
In the divine management of the fortuities of life, there may also be
very plainly perceived a dispensation of moral exercise, specifically
adapted to the temper and powers of the individual. No one can look back
upon his own history without meeting unquestionable instances of this
sort of educational adjustment of his lot, effected by means that were
wholly independent of his own choice or agency. The casual meeting with
a stranger, or an unexpected interview with a friend; the accidental
postponement of affairs; the loss of a letter, a shower, a trivial
indisposition, the caprice of an associate; these, or similar
fortuities, have been the determining causes of events, not only
important in themselves, but of peculiar significance and use in that
process of discipline which the character of the individual was to
undergo. These new currents in the course of life proved, in the issue,
specifically proper for putting in action the latent faculties of the
mind, or for holding in check its dangerous propensities. Whoever is
quite unconscious of this sort of _overruling_ of his affairs by means
of apparent accidents, must be very little addicted to habits of
intelligent reflection.
Doubtless every man's choice and conduct determine, to a great extent,
his lot and occupation; but not seldom, a course of life much better
fitted to his temper and abilities than the one he would fain substitute
for it, has, year after year, and in spite of his reluctances, fixed his
place and employment in society; and this unchosen lot has, if we may so
speak, been constructed from the floating fragments of other men's
fortunes, drifted by the accidents of wind and tide across the billows
of life, till they were stranded at the very spot where the individual
for whom they were destined was ready to receive them. By such strong
and nicely-fitted movements of the machine of Providence it is, that the
tasks of life are distributed where best they may be performed, and its
burdens apportioned where best they may be sustained. By accidents of
birth or connection, the bold, the sanguine, the energetic, are led into
the front of the field of arduous exertion; while by similar fortuities,
quite as often as by choice, the pusillanimous, the fickle, the
faint-hearted, are suffered to spend their days under the shelter of
ease, and in the recesses of domestic tranquillity.
But who shall profess so to understand his particular temper, and so to
estimate his talents, as might qualify him to anticipate the special
dispensations of Providence in his own case? Such knowledge, surely,
every wise man will confess to be "too wonderful" for him. To the
Supreme Intelligence alone it belongs to distribute to every one his
lot, and to "fix the bounds" of his abode. Yet there are persons, whose
persuasion of what _ought_ to be their place and destiny is so
confidently held, that a long life of disappointment does not rob them
of the fond hypotheses of self-love; and just in proportion to the
firmness of their faith in a particular providence, will be their
propensity to quarrel with Heaven, as if it debarred them from their
right in deferring to realize the anticipated destiny. Presumption, when
it takes its commencement in religion, naturally ends in impiety.
Men who look no farther than the present scene, may, with less glaring
inconsistency, vent their vexation in accusing the blindness and
partiality of fate, which has held their eminent talents and their
peculiar merits so long under the veil of obscurity; but those who
acknowledge at once a disposing providence and a future life, might
surely find considerations proper for imposing silence upon such
murmurings of disappointed ambition. Let it be granted to a man that his
vanity does not deceive him, when he complains that adverse fortune has
prevented his entering the very course upon which nature fitted him to
shine, and has, with unrelenting severity, confined him, year after
year, to a drudgery in which he was not qualified to win even a common
measure of success: all this may be true; but if the complainant be a
Christian, he cannot find it difficult to admit that this clashing of
his fortune with his capacities, or his tastes, may have been the very
exercise necessary to ensure his ultimate welfare. Who will deny that
the reasons of the divine conduct towards those who are in training for
an endless course must always lie at an infinite distance beyond the
range of created vision? Who shall venture even to surmise what course
of events may best foster the germ of an imperishable life; or who
conjecture what contraventions of the hopes and interests of an
individual may find their reasons and necessity somewhere in the wide
universe of consequences incalculably remote?
Whether the promise "that all things shall work together for good to
those who love God," is to be accomplished by perpetual sunshine or by
incessant storms, no one can anticipate in his own case: or if any one
were excepted, it must be the enthusiast himself, who might almost with
certainty calculate upon receiving a dispensation the very reverse of
that which it has been the leading error of his life to anticipate. He
might thus calculate, both because his expectations are in themselves
exorbitant and improbable, and because the presumptuous temper from
which they spring loudly calls for the rebuke of heaven.
* * * * *
Amid the perplexities which arise from the unexpected events of life, we
are not left without sufficient guidance; for although, in particular
instances, the most reasonable calculations are baffled, and the best
plans subverted, yet there remains in our hands the immutable rule of
moral rectitude, in an inflexible adherence to which we shall avoid what
is chiefly to be dreaded in calamity—the dismal moanings of a wounded
conscience. "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely," even in the path
of disaster. And while, on the one hand, he steadily pursues the track
which prudence marks out; and, on the other, listens with respectful
attention to the dictates of honor and probity, he may, without danger
of enthusiasm, ask and hope for the especial aids of Divine Providence,
in overruling those events that lie beyond the reach of human agency.
Prayer and calculation are duties never incompatible, never to be
disjoined, and never to shackle one the other. For while those events
only which are probable ought to be assumed as the basis of plans for
futurity, yet, whatever is not manifestly impossible, or in a high
degree improbable, may lawfully be made the object of submissive
petition. Few persons, and none who have known vicissitudes, can look
back upon past years without recollecting signal occasions on which they
have been rescued from the impending and apparently inevitable
consequences of their own misconduct, or imprudence, or want of ability,
by some extraordinary intervention in the very crisis of their fate, or,
perhaps, they have been placed by accident in circumstances of peril,
where as it seemed, there remained not a possibility of escape. But
while the ruin was yet in descent, rescue, which it would have been
madness to expect, came in to preserve life, fortune, or reputation,
from the imminent destruction. That such conspicuous deliverances do
actually occur is matter of fact; nor will the Christian endure that
they should be attributed to any other cause than the special care and
kindness of his heavenly Father: and yet, as they belong to an economy
which stretches into eternity and as they are not administered on any
ascertained rule, they can never come within the range of our
calculations, or be admitted to influence our plans: a propensity to
indulge such expectations indicates infirmity of mind, and is in fact an
intrusion upon the counsels of infinite wisdom.
Nevertheless, so long as these extraordinary interventions are known to
consist with the rules of the divine government, they may be
contemplated as possible without violating the respect that is due to
its ordinary procedures; and may, therefore, without enthusiasm, be
solicited in the hour of peril or perplexity. The gracious "Hearer of
prayer", who, on past and well-remembered occasions has signally given
deliverance, may do so again, even when, if we think of our own
imprudence, we have reason to expect nothing less than destruction. What
are termed by irreligious men 'the fortunate chances of life', will be
regarded by the devout mind as constituting a hidden treasury of boons,
held at the disposal of a gracious hand for the incitement of prayer,
and for the reward of humble faith. The enthusiast who, in contempt of
common sense and of rectitude, presumes upon the existence of this
extraordinary fund, forfeits, by such impiety, his interest in its
stores. But the prudent and the pious, while they labor and calculate in
strict conformity to the known and ordinary course of events, shall not
seldom find that, from this very treasury of contingencies, "God is rich
to them that call upon him".
In minds of a puny form, whose enthusiasm is commonly mingled with some
degree of abject superstition, the doctrine of a particular providence
is liable to be degraded by habitual association with trivial and solid
solicitudes. This or that paltry wish is gratified, or vulgar care
relieved, 'by the kindness of providence;' and thanks are rendered for
helps, comforts, deliverances, of so mean an order, that the respectable
language of piety is burlesqued by the ludicrous character of the
occasion on which it is used. The fault in these instances does not
consist in an error of opinion, as if even the most trivial events were
not, equally with the most considerable, under the divine management;
but it is a perversion and degradation of feeling which allows the mind
to be occupied with whatever is frivolous, to the exclusion of whatever
is important. These petty spirits, who draw hourly, from the matters of
their personal comfort or indulgence, so many occasions of prayer and
praise, are often seen to be insensible to motives of a higher kind:
they have no perception of the relative magnitude of objects; no sense
of proportion; and they feel little or no interest in what does not
affect themselves. We ought, however, to grant indulgence to the
infirmity of the feeble; and if the soul be indeed incapable of
expansion, it is better it should be devout in trifles, than not devout
at all. Yet these small folks have need to be warned of the danger of
mistaking the gratulations of selfishness for the gratitude of piety.
It is a rare perfection of the intellectual and moral faculties which
allows all objects great and small, to be distinctly perceived, and
perceived in their relative magnitudes. A soul of this high finish may
be devout on common occasions without trifling; it will gather up the
fragments of the divine bounty, that "nothing be lost"; and yet hold its
energies and its solicitudes free for the embrace of momentous cares. If
men of expanded intellect, and high feeling, and great activity, are
excused in their neglect of small things, this indulgence is founded
upon a recollection of the contractedness of the human mind, even at the
best. The forgetfulness of lesser matters, which so often belongs to
energy of character, is, after all, not a perfection, but a weakness and
a more complete expansion of mind, a still more vigorous pulse of life,
would dispel the torpor of which such neglects are the symptoms.
* * * * *
Thwarted enthusiasm naturally generates impious petulance. If we
encumber the Providence of God with unwarranted expectations, it will be
difficult not so to murmur under disappointment as those do who think
themselves defrauded of their right. In truth, amidst the sharpness of
sudden calamity, or the pressure of continued adversity, the most sane
minds are tempted to indulge repinings which reason, not less than
piety, utterly condemns. The imputation of defective wisdom, or justice,
or goodness, to the Being of whom we can form no notion apart from the
idea of absolute knowledge, rectitude, and benevolence, is too absurd to
need a formal refutation; and yet how often does it survive all the
rebukes of good sense and religion! So egregious an error could not find
a moment's lodgment in the heart, if it did not meet a surface of
adhesion where presumption has been torn away. The exaggerations of
self-love not quelled, but rather inflated by an enthusiastic piety,
inspire feelings of personal importance so enormous, that even the
infinitude of the divine attributes is made to shrink down to the
measure of comparison with man. When illusions such as these are rent
and scattered, how pitiable is the conscious destitution and meanness of
the denuded spirit! with how cruel a shock does it fall back upon its
true place in the vast system of providence!
* * * * *
Whoever entertains, as every Christian ought, a strong and consoling
belief of the doctrine of a Particular Providence, which cares for the
welfare of each, should not forget to connect with that belief some
general notions, at least, of that system of Universal Providence which
secures individual interests, consistently with the well-being of the
whole. Such notions, though very defective, or even in part erroneous,
may serve first to check presumption, and then to impose silence upon
those murmurs which are its offspring.
A law of subordination manifestly pervades that part of the government
of God with which we are acquainted, and may fairly be supposed to
prevail elsewhere. Lesser interests are the component parts of greater;
and so closely are the individual fates of the human family interwoven,
that each member, however insignificant he may seem, sustains a real
relationship of influence to the community. The lot of each must
therefore be shapen by reasons drawn from many, and often from remote
quarters. Yet in effecting this complex combination of parts, infinite
wisdom prevents any clashing of the lesser with the larger movements;
and we may feel assured that, on the grounds either of mere equity or of
beneficence, the dispensations of Providence are as compactly perfect
towards each individual of mankind as if he were the sole inhabitant of
an only world. If Heaven, in its condescension, were to implead at the
bar of human reason, and set forth the motives of its dealings towards
this man or that, these motives might, no doubt, be alleged and
justified in every particular, without making any reference to the
intermingled interests of other men: and it might be shown that,
although certain events were in fact followed by consequences much more
important to others than to the individual immediately affected, yet
they did in the fullest sense belong to the personal discipline of the
individual, and must have taken place irrespectively of those foreign
consequences.
This perfect fitting and finishing of the machinery of Providence to
individual interests, must be premised; yet it is not less true that, in
almost every event of life, the remote consequences vastly outweigh the
proximate, in actual amount of importance. Every man prospers, or is
overthrown, lives, or dies, not for himself; but that he may sustain
those around him, or that he may give them place; and who shall attempt
to measure the circle within which are comprised these extensive
dependences? On principles even of mathematical calculation, each
individual of the human family may be demonstrated to hold in his hand
the centre lines of an interminable web-work, on which are sustained the
fortunes of multitudes of his successors. These implicated consequences,
if summed together, make up therefore a weight of human weal or woe that
is reflected back with an incalculable momentum upon the lot of each.
Every one is then bound to remember that the personal sufferings or
peculiar vicissitudes or toils through which he is called to pass, are
to be estimated and explained only in an immeasurably small proportion
if his single welfare is regarded; while their full price and value are
not to be computed unless the drops of the morning dew could be numbered.
Immediate proof of that system of interminable connection which binds
together the whole human family may be obtained by every one who will
examine the several ingredients of his physical, intellectual, and
social condition; for he will not find one of these circumstances of his
lot that is not, in its substance or quality, directly an effect or
consequence of the conduct, or character, or constitution of his
progenitors, and of all with whom he has had to do; if _they_ had been
other than they were, _he_ must also have been other than he is. And
then our predecessors must, in like manner, trace the qualities of their
being to theirs; thus the linking ascends to the common parents of all;
and thus must it descend, still spreading as it goes, from the present
to the last generation of the children of Adam.
Nor is this direct and obvious kind of influence the only one of which
some plain indications are to be discerned; and without at all following
the uncertain track of adventurous speculation, it may fairly be
surmised that the same law of interminable connection, a law of moral
gravitation, stretches far beyond the limits of the human family, and
actually holds in union the great community of intelligent beings.
Instances of connection immensely remote, and yet very real, might be
adduced in abundance: the influence of history upon the character and
conduct of successive generations is of this kind. Whatever imparts
force or intensity to human motives, and by this means actually
determines the course of life, may assuredly claim for itself the title
and respect due to an efficient cause, and must be deemed to exert an
impulsive power over the mind. Now the records of history, how long
soever may have been the line of transmission which has brought them to
our times, fraught as they are with instances applicable to all the
occasions of real life, do thus, in a very perceptible degree, affect
the sentiments and mould the characters of mankind; nor will any one
speak slightingly of this species of causation who has compared the
intellectual condition of nations rich in history with that of a people
wholly destitute of the memorials of past ages. The story of the
courage, or constancy, or wisdom of the men of a distant time becomes,
in a greater or a less degree, a subsidiary cause of the conduct of the
men of each succeeding generation. Thus the few individuals in every age
to whom it has happened to live, and act, and speak under the focus of
the speculum of history, did actually live, and labor, and suffer for
the benefit of mankind in all future times; just as truly as a father
toils for the advantage of his family. And if the whole amount of the
influence which has in fact flowed from the example of the wise, the
brave, and the good, could have been placed in prophetic vision before
them, while in the midst of their arduous course, would not these
worthies contentedly and gladly have purchased so immense a wealth of
moral power at the price of their personal sufferings?
Here, then, as a plain matter of fact, is an instance of boundless
causation, connecting certain individuals with myriads of their species,
from age to age, and forever. It is an instance, we say, and not more:
for the voice of history is but a preluding flourish to that voluminous
revelation which shall be made, in the great day of consummation, of all
that has been acted and suffered upon earth's surface. In that day, when
the books of _universal history_ are opened and read, it shall doubtless
be found that no particle has been lost of aught that might serve to
authenticate the maxims of eternal wisdom, or to vindicate the righteous
government of God. And all shall be written anew, as "with a pen of iron
on the rock forever," and shall stand forth as an imperishable lesson of
warning or incitement to after-comers on the theatre of existence.
Whatever degree of solidity may be attributed to considerations of this
kind, they are at least sufficiently supported by analogies to give them
a decided advantage over those petulant cavils wherewith we are prone to
arraign the particular dispensations of Providence towards ourselves.
Are such dispensations, when seen in small portions, mysterious and
perplexing? How can they be otherwise if, in their completed
measurements, they are to spread over the creation, and in their issues,
to endure forever?
* * * * *
The common phrase—"a mysterious dispensation of Providence," when used
as most often it is, contains the very substance of enthusiasm; and yet,
it must be confessed, of a venial enthusiasm; for the occasions which
draw it forth are of a kind that may be admitted to palliate a hasty
impropriety of language. To call any event that does not break in upon
the known and established order of natural causes—mysterious, is
virtually to assume a previous knowledge of the intentions of the
Supreme Ruler; for it is to say that his proceedings have baffled our
calculations; and in fact it is only when we have formed anticipations
of what ought to have been the course of events that we are tempted by
sudden reverses to employ so improperly this indefinite expression. All
the dispensations of Divine Providence, taken together, may, with
perfect propriety, be termed mysterious; since all alike are governed by
reasons that are hidden and inscrutable: but it is the height of
presumption so to designate some of them in distinction from others. For
example; a man eminently gifted by nature for important and peculiar
services, and trained to perform them by a long and arduous discipline,
and now just entering upon the course of successful beneficence, and
perhaps actually holding in his hand the welfare of a family or a
province, or an empire, is suddenly smitten to the earth by disease or
accident. Sad ruin of a rare machinery of intellectual and moral power!
But while the thoughtless may deplore for an hour the irreparable loss
they have sustained, the thoughtful few muse rather than weep; and in
order to conceal from themselves the irreverence of their own repinings,
exclaim—'How mysterious are the ways of heaven!' Yes; but in the present
instance, what is mysterious? Not that human life should at all periods
be liable to disease, or the human frame be always vulnerable; for these
are conditions inseparable from the present constitution of our nature;
and it is clear that nothing less than a perpetual miracle could exempt
any one class of mankind from the common contingencies of physical life.
The supposition of any such constant and manifest interposition,
rendering a certain description of persons intactible by harm; would be
impious as well as absurd. Nothing could suggest to a sane mind an idea
of this sort, if it did not gain admittance in the train of those eager
forecastings of the ways of God in which persons much addicted to
religious meditation are prone to indulge, and which, though they may
afford pleasure for a moment, are usually purchased at the cost of
relapses into gloomy, or worse than gloomy discontents.
There is a striking incongruity in the fact that the propensity to apply
the equivocal term, mysterious, to sudden and afflictive events, like
the one just specified, is indulged almost exclusively by the very
persons whose professed principles furnish them with a sufficient
explanation of such dispensations. If the present state were thought to
comprise the beginning and the end of the human system, and if, at the
same time, this system be attributed to the Supreme Intelligence, then
indeed the prodigious waste and destruction which is continually taking
place, not only of the germs of life, but of the rarest and of the most
excellent specimens of divine art, is a solecism that must baffle every
attempt at explanation. Let then the deist, who knows of nothing beyond
death, talk of the mysteries of Providence; but let not the Christian,
who is taught to think little of the present, and much of the future,
use language of this sort.
* * * * *
A popular misunderstanding of the language of Scripture relative to the
future state, has, perhaps, had great influence in enhancing the gloom
and perplexity with which Christians are wont to think and speak of
sudden and afflictive visitations of Providence.
Heaven—the ultimate and perfected condition of human nature, is thought
of amidst the toils of life, as an elysium of quiescent bliss, exempt,
if not from action, at least from the necessity of action. Meanwhile
every one feels that the ruling tendency and the uniform intention of
all the arrangements of the present state, and of almost all its
casualties, is to generate and to cherish habits of strenuous exertion.
Inertness, not less than vice, stamps upon its victim the seal of
perdition. The whole order of nature, and all the institutions of
society, and the ordinary course of events, and the explicit will of
God, as declared in his word, concur in opposing that propensity to rest
which belongs to the human mind, and combine to necessitate submission
to the hard, yet salutary conditions under which alone the most extreme
evils may be held in abeyance, and any degree of happiness enjoyed. A
task and duty is to be fulfilled, in discharging which the want of
energy is punished even more immediately and more severely than the want
of virtuous motives.
Here, then, is visible a great and serious incongruity between matter of
fact, and the common anticipations of the future state: it deserves
inquiry, therefore, whether these anticipations are really founded on
the evidence of Scripture; or whether they are not rather the mere
suggestions of a sickly spiritual luxuriousness. This is not the place
for pursuing such an inquiry; but it may be observed, in passing, that
those glimpses of the supernal world which we catch from the Scriptures
have in them, certainly, quite as much of the character of history as of
poetry, and impart the idea—not that there is less of business in heaven
than on earth, but more. Unquestionably, the felicity of those beings of
a higher order, to whose agency frequent allusions are made by the
inspired writers, is not incompatible with the assiduities of a
strenuous ministry, to be discharged, according to the best ability of
each, in actual and arduous contention with formidable, and perhaps
sometimes successful opposition. A poetic notion of angelic agency,
having in it nothing substantial, nothing necessary, nothing difficult,
and which consists only in an unreal show of action and movement, and in
which the result would be precisely the same apart from the
accompaniment of a swarm of butterfly youths, must be spurned by reason,
as it is unwarranted by Scripture. Scripture does not affirm or imply
that the plenitude of divine power is at all in more immediate exercise
in the higher world than in this: on the contrary, the revelation so
distinctly made of a countless array of intelligent and vigorous agents,
designated usually by an epithet of martial signification, precludes
such an idea. Why a commission of subalterns? why an attendance of
celestials upon the flight of the bolt of omnipotence? That bolt, when
actually flung, needs no coadjutor!
But if there be a real and necessary, not merely a shadowy agency in
heaven as well as on earth; and if human nature is destined to act its
part in such an economy, then its constitution, and the severe training
it undergoes, are at once explained; and then, also, the removal of
individuals in the very prime of their fitness for useful labor ceases
to be impenetrably mysterious. This excellent mechanism of matter and
mind, which, beyond any other of his works, declares the wisdom of the
Creator, and which, under his guidance, is now passing the season of its
first preparation, shall stand up anew from the dust of dissolution, and
then, with freshened powers, and with a store of hard-earned practical
wisdom for its guidance, shall essay new labors—we say not perplexities
and perils—in the service of God, who by such instruments chooses to
accomplish his designs of beneficence. That so prodigious a waste of the
highest qualities should take place as is implied in the notions which
many Christians entertain of the future state, is indeed hard to
imagine. The mind of man, formed as it is to be more tenacious of its
active habits than even of its moral dispositions, is, in the present
state, trained (often at an immense cost of suffering) to the exercise
of skill, of forethought, of courage, of patience; and ought it not to
be inferred, unless positive evidence contradicts the supposition, that
this system of education bears some relation of fitness to the state for
which it is an initiation? Shall not the very same qualities which here
are so sedulously fashioned and finished, be actually needed and used in
that future world of perfection? Surely the idea is inadmissible that an
instrument wrought up, at so much expense, to a polished fitness for
service, is destined to be suspended forever on the palace walls of
heaven, as a glittering bauble, no more to make proof of its temper!
A pious, but needless jealousy, lest the honor due to him "who worketh
all in all" should be in any degree compromised, has perhaps had
influence in concealing from the eyes of Christians the importance
attributed in the Scriptures to subordinate agency; and thus, by a
natural consequence, has impoverished and enfeebled our ideas of the
heavenly state. But assuredly it is only while encompassed by the
dimness and errors of the present life that there can be any danger of
attributing to the creature the glory due to the Creator. When once with
open eye that "excellent glory" has been contemplated, then shall it be
understood that the divine wisdom is incomparably more honored by the
skilful and faithful performances, and by the cheerful toils of agents
who have been fashioned and fitted for service, than it could be by the
bare exertions of irresistible power: and then, when the absolute
dependence of creatures is thoroughly felt, may the beautiful orders of
the heavenly hierarchy—rising, and still rising towards perfection—be
seen and admired without hazard of forgetting him who alone is
absolutely perfect, and who is the only fountain and first cause of
whatever is excellent.
The Scriptures do indeed most explicitly declare, not only that virtue
will be inamissible in heaven, but that its happiness will be unalloyed
by fear, or pain, or want. But the mental associations formed in the
present state make it so difficult to disjoin the idea of suffering and
of sorrow from that of labor, and of arduous and difficult achievement,
that we are prone to exclude action, as well as pain, from our idea of
the future blessedness. Yet assuredly these notions may be separated;
and if it be possible to imagine a perfect freedom from selfish
solicitudes, a perfect acquiescence in the will, and a perfect
confidence in the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, then also may
we conceive of toils without sadness, of perplexities without
perturbations, and of difficult or perilous service, without despondency
or fear. The true felicity of beings furnished with moral sensibilities,
must consist in the full play of the emotions of love, fixed on the
centre of good; and this kind of happiness is unquestionably compatible
with any external condition not positively painful: perhaps even another
step might be taken; but our argument does not need it. Yet it should be
remembered, that, in many signal and well-attested instances the fervor
of the religious affections has almost or entirely obliterated the
consciousness of physical suffering, and has proved its power to
vanquish every inferior emotion, and to fill the heart with heaven, even
amid the utmost intensities of pain. Much more, then, may these
affections, when freed from every shackle, when invigorated by an
assured possession of endless life, and when heightened by the immediate
vision of the supreme excellence, yield a fulness of joy, consistently
with many vicissitudes of external position.
Considerations such as these, if at all borne out by evidence of
Scripture, may properly have place in connection with the topic of this
section; for it is evident that the harassing perplexities which arise
from the present dispensations of Providence might be greatly relieved
by habitually entertaining anticipations of the future state somewhat
less imbecile and luxurious than those commonly admitted by Christians.