_God's Providence_
In facts from Christian and philosophical standpoints it has been
demonstrated that the infallible Supreme Ruler of all human spirits has
made His final provision for the safety of each and every individual
soul for its temporal and eternal welfare. Now I must prove to my
readers' perfect satisfaction that to discard all the dignities and
privileges of a high priest and become a lowly worker for Christ, it is
not a mere accident nor is it an act of necessity as far as temporal
necessities are concerned; but, it is a magnificent living monument of
God's Providential manifestations. In order to protect my reader in his
judgment from any undue prejudice I have taken pains to present herewith
all the obtainable facts in regard to God's Providence existing and
exercising its office upon even to the most microscopical atom. Because,
it is required by the law of justice, to comprehend this great attribute
of God's Providence, in order to understand, how, all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to His purpose.
The Latin etymology of the word Providence is from (Providentia,
Pro-videre), and originally meant foresight. The corresponding Greek
word (Pronoia) means forethought. By a well-known figure of speech,
called metonymy, we use a word denoting the means by which we accomplish
anything to denote the end accomplished; we exercise care over anything
by means of foresight, and indicate that care by the word foresight. On
the same principle the word Providence is used to signify the care God
takes of the universe. As to its inherent nature, it is the power which
God exerts, without intermission, in and upon all the works of his
hands. In the language of the school-men it is a continual creation
(creation continua). But defined as to its visible manifestations, it is
God's preservation and government of all things. As a thing is known by
its opposites, the meaning of Providence is elucidated by considering
that it is opposed to fortune and fortuitous accidents.
Providence, considered in reference to all things existing, is termed by
Knapp universal; in reference to moral beings, special; and in reference
to holy or converted beings, particular. Every thing is an object of
Providence in proportion to its capacity. The Disciples, being of more
value than many sparrows, were assured of greater providential care. By
Providence being universal is intended, not merely that it embraces
classes of objects or greater matters, but that nothing is too minute or
insignificant for its inspection.
Providence is usually divided in three divine acts, Preservation,
Co-operation and Government. 1. By preservation is signified the
causing of existence to continue. 2. Co-operation is the act of God
which causes the powers of created things to remain in being. It is not
pretended that the existence of the powers of the things are ever
separated, but only that they are distinguishable in mental analysis.
Co-operation varies with the nature of the objects towards which it is
exercised. 3. Government, as a branch of Providence, is God's
controlling all created things so as to promote the highest good of the
whole. To this end every species of being is acted upon in a way
confirmable to its nature; for instance, inanimate things by the laws of
physical influence; brutes according to the laws of instinct; and free
agents according to the laws of free agency. Moreover, as Providence has
respect to the nature which God has been pleased to design to each
various object, so, in common with every other divine act, it is
characterized by divine perfections. It displays omnipresence,
omniscience, omnipotence, holiness, justice, and benevolence. It has
been sometimes contended that Providence does not extend to all things,
or to unimportant events, and chiefly for four reasons. Such an
all-embracing providence, it is said, would (1) be distracting to the
mind of God; or (2) would be beneath His dignity; or (3) would interfere
with human freedom; or (4) would render God unjust in permitting evil to
exist. In reply to these objections against a providence controlling all
things without exception, it may be observed that the third and fourth
suggest difficulties which press equally, in fact, upon all hypothesis,
not only as to providence, but as to creation, and which shall be more
fully explained in the sequel.
As to the first objection, that the minutiae of the creation are so
multifarious as to confuse the mind of God, we are content to let it
refute itself in every mind which has any just sense of divine knowledge
and wisdom. The second objection, that some things are beneath God's
notice, if it be not a captious cavil, must result from pushing too far
the analogy between earthly kings and the King of kings. It is an
imperfection in human potentates that they need vicegerents; let us not
then attribute such a weakness to God, fancying him altogether such a
one as ourselves. Again, it is to this day doubtful whether the
microscope does not display the divine perfections as illustriously as
the telescope; there is therefore no reason to deny a providence over
animalcula which we admit over the constellated heavens. What is it that
we dare call insignificant? The least of all things may be as a seed
cast in to the seed-field of time, to grow there and bear fruit, which
shall be multiplying when time shall be no more. We cannot always trace
the connections of things. We do not ponder those we can trace: or we
should tremble to call anything beneath the notice of God. It has been
eloquently said that where we see a trifle hovering unconnected in
space, higher spirit can discern its fibres stretching through the whole
expanse of the system of the world, and hanging on the remotest limits
of the future and the past. In reference to the third and fourth
objections before mentioned, namely, that an all-embracing providence is
incompatible with divine justice and human freedom, it should be
considered that, in contemplating God's Providence, the question will
often arise, why was mortal evil allowed to exist? But as these
questions meet us at every turn, and, under different forms, may be
termed the one and the only difficulty in theology, it is already
considered in the previous chapter of this work, and may therefore
require the less notice in the present article. We should in all
humility preface whatever we say on the permission of evil (such as,
mysticism, in religious bodies) with a confession that it is an
inscrutable mystery, which our faith receives, but which our reason
could not prove either to be or not to be demanded by the perfection of
God. But, in addition to the vindication of God's ways which may be
found in the over-ruling of evil for good, the following theories
deserve notice:--
1. Occasionalism, or the doctrine that God is the immediate cause of all
men's actions. It is so called, because it maintains that men only
furnish God an occasion for what he does. It degrades all second causes
to mere occasions, and turns men into passive instruments.
2. Mechanism. Many, alarmed at the consequences which occasionalism
would seem to involve, have embraced an opposite scheme. They criticise
the definition of the laws of nature, and contend that occasionalism
derives all its plausibility from adroitly availing itself of the
ambiguities of language. They would have us view the creation as a
species of clock, or other machinery, which, being once made and wound
up, will for a time perform its movements without the assistance or even
presence of its maker. But reasons press too far the analogy between the
Creator and an artisan. So excellent a man as Baxter was misled by this
hypothesis, which evidently is as derogatory to God as occasionalism is
fatal to the moral agency of man.
3. The authors of the third scheme respecting the mode in which
Providence permits sin sought to be "Eclectics" or to find a path
intermediate between Mechanism and Occasionalism. In their judgment, man
is actuated by God, and yet is at the same time active himself. God
gives man the power of action, and preserves these powers every moment,
but he is not the efficient cause of free actions themselves. This they
say, is involved in the very idea of a moral being, which would cease to
be moral if it were subjected to the control of necessity, and not
suffered to choose and to do what it saw to be the best according to the
laws of freedom. But it is asked, why did God create men free, and
therefore fallible? It were presumption to think of answering this
question adequately. It belongs to the deep things of God. But, among
the possible reasons, we may mention, that if no fallible beings had
been created, there could have been no virtue in the universe; for
virtue implies probation, and probation a liability to temptation and
sin. Again, if some beings had not become sinful, the most glorious
attributes of God would never have been so fully exerted and displayed.
How could His wisdom and mercy and grace have been adequately
manifested, except by suffering a portion of His creatures to become
such as to demand the exercise of those attributes? How else could He
have wrought the miracle of educing good from evil? In this connection
we may allude to the third chapter of Romans, where as in other
passages, it is declared, that the good which evil may be over-ruled to
produce, cannot palliate, much less excuse, the guilt of sinners, or of
those who say, "Let us do evil that good may come."
Among the proofs of Divine Providence may be reckoned the following:--1.
One argument in proof of Providence is analogous to one mode of proving
a creation. If we cannot account for the existence of the world without
supposing its coming into existence, or beginning to be; no more can we
account for the world continuing to exist, without supposing it to be
preserved; for it is as evidently absurd to suppose any creature
prolonging as producing its own being. A second proof of Providence
results from the admitted fact of creation. Whoever has made any piece
of mechanism, therefore takes pains to preserve it.
Parental affection moves those who have given birth to children to
provide for their sustenation and education. It is both reasonable and
scriptural to contemplate God as sustaining the universe because He made
it. Thus David, having promised that the world was made by God,
immediately descends to the course of his Providence. (Ps. xxiii. 6.)
The creation also evinces a Providence by proving God's right to rule,
on the admitted principle that every one may do what he will with his
own.
A third proof of Providence is found in the divine perfections. Since,
among the divine perfections, are all power and all knowledge, the
non-existence of Providence, if there be none, must result from a want
of will in God. But no want of will to exercise a Providence can exist,
for God wills whatever is for the good of the universe, and for His own
glory; to either of which a Providence is clearly indispensable. God
therefore has resolved to exercise His power and knowledge so as to
subserve the best ends with His creation. "He that denies Providence,"
says Charnock, "denies most of God's attributes; he denies at least the
exercise of them; he denies his omniscience, which is the eye of
Providence; mercy and justice, which are the arms of it; power, which is
its life and motion; wisdom, which is the rudder whereby Providence is
steered; and holiness, which is the compass and rule of each motion."
This argument for a Providence might be made much more impressive, did
our limits allow us to expand it, so as to show, step by step how almost
every attribute, if not directly, yet by implication, demands that God
put forth an unceasing sovereignty over all His works.
A fourth proof of God's Providence appears in the order which prevails
in the universe. We say the order which prevails, aware of the
occasional apparent disorder that exists, which we have already noticed,
and shall soon treat of again. That summer and winter, seed time and
harvest, cold and heat, day and night, are fixed by law, was obvious
even to man who never heard of God's covenant with Noah. Accordingly the
ancient Greeks designated the creation by a word which means order
(cosmos). But our sense of order is keenest where we discern it in
apparent confusion. The motions of the heavenly bodies are eccentric and
intervolved, yet are most regular when they seem most lawless. They were
therefore compared by the earliest astronomers to the discords which
blend in a harmony, and to the wild starts which often heighten the
graces of a dance. Modern astronomy has revealed to us so much
miraculous symmetry in celestial phenomena, that it shows us far more
decisive proofs of a Ruler seated on the circles of the heavens, than
were vouchsafed to the ancients. Moreover, many discover proofs of a
Providence in such facts as the proportion between the two sexes, the
diversities of the continents, as well as human nature and the nature of
all things continuing always the same; since such facts show that all
things are controlled by an unchanging power.
An objection to proofs of Providence, derived from the order of the
universe, is thought to spring from the seeming disorders to which we
cannot shut our eyes. Much is said of plagues and earthquakes, of
drought, flood, frost and famine, with a thousand more natural evils.
But it deserves consideration whether, if there were no Providence,
these anomalies would not be the rule instead of the exception; whether
they do not feelingly persuade us that that curse of nature is upheld by
a power above nature, and without which it would fall to nothing;
whether they may not be otherwise necessary for more important ends than
fall within the scope of our knowledge.
[Illustration: REV. M. GOLDEN
The High Priest in Church Ceremonial Attire]
A fifth proof of Providence is furnished by the fact that so many men
are here rewarded and punished according to a righteous law. The wicked
often feel compunctious visitings in the midst of their sins, or smart
under the rod of civil justice, or are tortured with natural evils. With
righteous all things are in general reversed. The miser and envious are
punished as soon as they begin to commit their respective sins; and some
virtues are their own present reward. But we would not dissemble that we
are here met with important objections, although infinitely less, even
though they were unanswerable, than beset such as would reject the
doctrine of Providence.
It is said, and we grant, that the righteous are trodden under foot, and
the vilest men exalted; that the race is not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong; that virtue starves, while vice is fed, and that
schemes for doing good are frustrated, while evil plots succeed. But we
may reply:
1. The prosperity of the wicked is often apparent, and well styled a
shining misery. Who believes that Nero enthroned was happier than Paul
in chains?
2. We are often mistaken in calling such or such an afflicted man good,
and such or such a prosperous man bad.
3. The miseries of good men are generally occasioned by their own
faults, since they have been so fool-hardy as to run counter to the laws
by which God acts, or have aimed at certain ends while neglecting the
appropriate means.
4. Many virtues are proved and augmented by trials, and not only proved,
but produced, so that they would have had no existence without them.
Many a David's noblest qualities would never have been developed but for
the impious attempts of Saul. Job's integrity was not only tested but
strengthened by Satan being permitted to sift him as wheat. Passions,
experience and hope were brought as ministering angels to man, of whom
the world was not worthy, through trials of cruel mockings and
scourgings.
5. The unequal distribution of good and evil, so far as it exists,
carries our thoughts forward to the last judgment, and a retribution
according to the deeds done in the body, and can hardly fail of throwing
round the idea of eternity a stronger air of reality than it might
otherwise have done. All perplexities vanish as we reflect that, "He
cometh to judge the earth."
6. Even if we limit our views to this world, but extend them to all our
acquaintances, we cannot doubt that the tendencies, though not always
the effects, of vice are to misery, and those of virtue to happiness.
These tendencies are especially clear if our view embraces a whole
life-time, and the clearer the longer the period we embrace. The
Psalmist was at first envious at the foolish, when he saw the prosperity
of the wicked; but as his views became more comprehensive, and he
understood their end, his language was, "How are they brought into
desolation as in a moment; they are utterly consumed with terrors." The
progressive tendency of vice and virtue to reap each its appropriate
harvest is finally illustrated by Bishop Butler, best of all perhaps in
his picture of an imaginary kingdom of the good, which would peacefully
subvert all others, and fill the earth. Indeed, as soon as we leave what
is immediately before our eyes, and glance at the annals of the world,
we behold so many manifestations of God, that we may adduce as a sixth
proof of Providence the facts of history. The giving and transmission of
a revelation, as the Mosaic and the Christian--the raising up of
Prophets, Apostles and Defenders of the Faith--the ordination of
particular events, such as the Reformation--the more remarkable
deliverance noticed in the lives of those devoted to the good of the
world, etc., all indicate the wise and benevolent care of God over the
human family. But the historical proof of a Providence is perhaps
strongest where the wrath of man has been made to praise God, or where
efforts to dishonor God have been constrained to do him honor. Testimony
in favor of piety has fallen from the impious, and has had a double
volume, as coming from the unwilling. They who have fought against the
truth have been used by God as instruments of spreading the knowledge of
it, awakening an interest in it, or stimulating Christians to purify it
from human additions, and to exhibit its power. The scientific
researches also with which infidels have wearied themselves to overthrow
a revelation have proved at last fatal to their daring scepticisms. Too
many histories, like Gibbons', have been written as if there were no God
in the heavens, swaying the sceptre of the earth. But a better day is
approaching; and it is exhilarating to observe that Alison, the first
British historian of the age, writes in the spirit which breathes in the
historical books of the Bible, where the free actions of man are
represented as inseparably connected with the agency of God. If we may
judge of the future by the past, as the scroll of time unrolls, we, or
our posterity, and some think glorified spirits in a yet higher degree,
shall see more and more plainly the hand of God operating, till every
knee shall bow. Judgments, now a great deep, shall become as the light
that goeth forth. The tides of ambition and avarice will all be seen to
roll in subserviency to the designs of God. To borrow the illustration
of another, "we shall behold the bow of God encircling the darkest
storms of wickedness, and forcing them to manifest His glory to the
universe."
As a seventh ground for believing in Providence, it may be said that
Providence is the necessary basis of all religion. For what is
religion? One of the best definitions calls it the belief in a
super-human power, which has great influence in the human affairs, and
ought therefore to be worshiped. But take away this influence in the
human affairs, and you cut off all motive to worship. To the same
purpose is the text in Hebrews: "He that cometh to God must believe that
He is, and He is a rewarder of such as diligently seek Him." If then the
religious sentiments thrill us not in vain--if all attempts of all men
to commune with God have not always and everywhere been idle--there must
be a Providence.
In the eighth place, we may advert for a moment to the proof of
Providence from the common consent of mankind, with the single exception
of atheists. The Epicureans may be classed with atheists, as they are
generally thought to have been atheists in discourse, and a God after
their imaginations would be, to all intents and purposes, no God. The
Stoics were also atheists, believing only in a blind fate arising from a
perpetual concatenation of causes contained in nature. The passages
acknowledging a Providence in Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and all the
ancient moralists, are numerous and decisive, but too accessible or
well-known to need being quoted.
In the last place, the doctrine of Providence is abundantly proved by
the Scriptures. Some times it is declared that the Most High ruleth in
the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will; as much as to
say that nothing can withstand His power. Again, lest we may think some
things beneath His notice, we read that He numbereth the hairs of our
heads, careth for lilies, and disposeth all the lots which are cast. The
care of God for man is generally argued, a fortiori, from His care for
inferior creatures. One Psalm (xci) is devoted to show the providential
security of the Godly: another (xciii) shows the frailty of man; and a
third (civ) the dependence of all orders in creation on God's Providence
for food and breath. In Him, it is elsewhere added, we live, and move,
and have our being. He, in the person of Christ, sustaineth all things
by the Word of His power, and from Him cometh down every good and
perfect gift. But nowhere perhaps is a Providence so pointedly asserted
and so sublimely set forth as in some of the last chapters of Job; and
nowhere so variously, winningly, and admirably exhibited as in the
history of Joseph.
And nowhere could be found more brilliantly illuminating its substance
than in our own hearts and lives. The fool hath said in his heart, there
is no God. To undervalue God's Providence it is the most dreadful insult
that a fool could dare conceive in his mind against God's existence. But
the wise hearken to His voice.
My son, if thou wilt receive my words,
And hide my commandments with thee;
So that thou incline thine ear to wisdom,
And apply thy heart to understanding;
Yea, if thou criest after knowledge,
And liftest up thy voice for understanding;
If thou seekest her as silver,
And searchest for her as for hid treasures;
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord,
And find the knowledge of God.