GOD IN PROVIDENCE

A God able to make a universe is wise enough and great enough to control it. This is the well-nigh universal conviction of men.

1. This truth is directly affirmed in the Bible in every conceivable way. Neh. 9:6: "Thou art Jehovah, even thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all things that are thereon, the seas and all that is in them and thou preservest them all." Ps. 104: 3: "Who makest the clouds his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind"; verse 4: "Who maketh the winds His messengers; flames of fire His ministers"; verse 6: "The waters stood above the mountains"; verse 7: "At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away"; verse 9: "Thou hast set a bound that they cannot pass over"; verse 13: "He watereth the mountains from His chambers"; verse 14: "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle; and herb for the service of man"; verse 21: "The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God"; verse 27: "These wait all for Thee, that Thou mayest give them their food in due season"; verse . 28: "Thou givest unto them they gather; Thou openest thy hand, they are satisfied with good"; verse 29: "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust"; verse 30: "Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground." Col. 1: 17: "In Him all things consist." Heb. 1:3: "Upholding all things by the word of His power." Pages of similar quotations might be made; teaching the providence of God as impressively as human language . could state it. '.

2. God's providence is universal. It includes all worlds, and all orders of beings. No realm of nature could be exempt. God's providence must have to do alike with the infinite and the infinitesimal.

3. God's regulation and control of the universe must be contemplated in different aspects. First, comes His relation to physical; events which are subject to the laws of Cause and effect, and are directly and absolutely under the control of the Divine will. Under the head of physical events must be included the creation of matter, and all its changes and modifications not dependent upon finite will; and the creation of animal life, and even the creation of mind, with all its comprehensive sense, embracing both the material and the spiritual world.

4. Since the material universe is the work of God's hand, His control of matter, its forces and laws and movements, must be immediate and absolute. Matter is the instrument which he uses as he pleases. The constitution and forces of nature are the machinery He employs for working out His holy ends.

People have much to say about the laws of nature, as if somehow they were something quite apart from God, and could get on very well without Him. The simple fact is the laws of nature are nothing but God's regular method of using matter. As Phillips Brooks said: "The laws of nature are the hands of God, executing His will." It must further be borne in mind, that these laws of this physical machine are no end in themselves, and have no special significance save as they help on the moral plans of God. The material universe has no value in itself. Its adjustments and movements find their importance in their bearing on something beyond themselves in the realm of sentient and moral beings, whose welfare can be a rational end. "The material universe exists as a means, and not as an end."

5. There are those who would have us believe that God or something impressed the natural laws upon the material universe at the beginning, and that they are now changeless. There is now no need, and never has been, of his oversight, or intervention, or preservation, or further superintendence. God is now a supernumerary in the universe, a mere spectator of his machine of endless motion.

It is an unscriptural theory, and inconsistent with the absolute dependence of all things on God. Moreover, "God's infinite attributes imply that His control of this mechanism is complete and perfect; that He must be able to use it with absolute freedom in the furtherance of his plans; and that He cannot be restrained or hampered by the mere machinery, as men are hampered by their own constructions. It must be perfectly subservient to His will.

It must be true, moreover, that He can act upon this mechanism to modify or restrain its operation, either from within, through the forces themselves, beyond finite vision; or from without by manifest and miraculous interposition.

The occasion for any such interference cannot lie in God's inability to give the machinery originally any form that might please Him. The limitations are not in Himself, but in the necessities of finite moral creatures, to whom such a divine manifestation might be needful. Such absolute control of the material universe, on God's part, is involved in our conception of it, as, the work of His hand! "In short, that is the real meaning of creation, preservation and providence" (Fairchild's Theology, p. 94).

6. It is necessary to speak more of this preserving providence within the sphere of physical nature. It has been widely held that "if matter were left without the upholding power of God, even for an instant, it would fall into nonentity. Hence its continued existence must be through the unceasing conservation of His power." Cocker says: "The conception of the Divine conservation of the world as the simple, uniform, and universal agency of God, sustaining all created substances and powers in every moment of their existence and activity is the Catholic doctrine of Christendom." Miley adds: "This citation includes spiritual being just as it does the material; for if the doctrine be true respecting the essence of matter it must also be true respecting the essence of mind."

Miley thinks the accuracy of this view may be fairly questioned, and that a distinction has been overlooked between the essence of matter, and its orderly forms. He doubts whether the simple being of matter would fall into nothing or be annihilated of itself; but holds that the texts bearing on the subject refer not to mere masses of matter but to their organized forms. Yet he afterward says: "As matter is the creation of God, and continues to exist only on the condition of His good pleasure, and is wholly subject to His use for the purposes of His wisdom, it is, in a very profound sense, dependent upon Him. There is also a like dependence of mind. Such a dependence satisfies all the requirements of reason and Scripture."

7. Here we meet a curious doctrine that "PRESERVATION is A CONTINUOUS CREATION." Illustrious names are reckoned among the defenders of this theory, among them Augustine, Aquinas and Edwards. The latter stated his views thus: "It follows from what has been observed that God's upholding created substance, or causing its existence in each successive moment, is altogether equivalent to an immediate production out of nothing, at each moment; because its existence at each moment is not merely in part from God, but wholly from Him, and not in any part or degree from its antecedent existence. For the supposing that its antecedent existence concurs with God in efficiency, to produce some part of the effect, is attended with all the very same absurdities which have been shown to attend the supposition of its producing it wholly. Therefore the antecedent existence is nothing, as to any proper influence or assistance in the affair; and consequently God produces the effect as much from nothing as if there had been nothing before. So that this effect differs not at all from the first creation."

It seems incredible that such men should ever have entertained such an opinion. The objections against it are grave and insuperable.

(1) It would destroy all continuity of existence. If God creates any given thing each moment out of nothing, it ceases to be the same thing. It is something new and absolutely unrelated to whatever existed before it. It would compel God not only to create a universe but also to annihilate one each second, all of which is big with absurdity. 

(2) This would also destroy all evidence of the existence of an external world. What we had regarded as evidence we should be compelled to conclude was only an impression on our senses, which we would attribute to things out of ourselves, but were really momentarily produced by the creating energy of God.

(3) This theory would set aside all second causes. "God becomes the sole agent and sole cause in the universe. The heavens and the earth with all their changes and all they contain, are but the pulsations of the universal life of God. If preservation be a continued production out of nothing, of everything that exists, then every material existence, all properties of matter so-called, every human soul, and every human thought and feeling, is as much the direct product of divine omnipotence as the original creation."1 1. Hodge, Vol. I, p. 579.

(4) On this theory, there can be no responsibility, no moral character, no sin, no holiness. If there is any sin or vice, it must be charged to God, for that as much as virtue or goodness is the result of His creative energy. An illustration will suffice. Suppose that God one instant created Cain in a fit of jealousy: the next He creates him angry: the next He creates him reaching for a club; the next He creates him fiercely swinging it through the air: and the next He creates him striking down Abel with the murderous blow! Who but God would be responsible for the murder of righteous Abel?

(5) To make conservation a continuous creation leads to conclusions opposed to the great truths of religion, and at war with our necessary beliefs. We are compelled by the constitution of our own nature to believe in the existence of the world, and in the reality of second causes. We know from consciousness that we are responsible for our own acts, and that we preserve our identity from day to day, and from year to year. Therefore it cannot be that we are created anew and unrelated each moment.

It is better therefore not to have any complex or far-fetched theory about how God preserves the universe, or the mode in which His efficiency is exerted, but to rest satisfied with the simple statement that "preservation is that omnipotent energy of God, by which all created things, animate and inanimate, are upheld in existence, with all the properties and powers with which He has endowed them" (Hodge).

8. It is a legitimate inference from the infinite power and. wisdom of God and His creation and preservation of the universe, that He has AN INFINITE PLAN that includes all events of nature, and all actions of animate and moral beings. His purpose must be all pervading, and in some sense controlling. Such a: control is supremely desirable, and accords with the teaching "of Scripture. There we are told that God feeds the ravens, clothes the grass, notes the fall of the sparrow, numbers the hairs of our head. "He meteth out the waters by measure. When He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder" (Job 28: 25, 26). "When He made firm the skies above. When the fountains of the deep became strong, when He gave to the sea its bound, that the waters should not transgress His commandment" (Prov. 8: 28-29).

The necessitated conditions and movements of the material world, the order and course of nature, and all events lying in the realm of cause and effect, beyond the reach of finite will, are embraced in God's absolute decree.

9. There is a philosophic speculation called OCCASIONALISM; which denies all secondary causality in material nature, and finds: in God the only agency operative in the physical realm. The doctrine is the utter forcelessness of physical nature, and that God is; the only operative force. The occasions which call out God's activity; are in no sense conditions of the divine agency, but are only coincident in time.

The implications of this theory are very surprising. "Matter"; says Miley, "would have no instrumental quality, is reduced to a blank. It must be denied all the qualities with which philosophy has invested it. Gravitation, cohesion, chemical affinity, magnetism, electricity, without force in themselves, are simply coincident with the divine energizing. The lightning can have no part in riving the oak, the profected ball no part in breaching the wall, for any such part is possible only with the possession of force. The massive cables of steel which seemingly uphold the Brooklyn bridge have no natural strength of support, but are the mere occasion of the divine energizing as the sustaining power, and for which so far as natural strength is concerned, threads of cotton might answer as well. Indeed, if this occasionalism be true, there is no natural weight of the bridge, which is possible only with a natural force of gravitation, and but for a mighty pressure of the divine hand, there would be no weight to sustain. The tree planted by the rivers of water has no natural advantage over one planted in the most and desert. The stomach has no more natural fitness for digestion of food, than the dish in which it is served. The eagle's structure gives no natural strength for flight, while there is no reaction of the air against the stroke of his wings."

Such are the absurdities into which the speculations of men run them; and their theories break down by the weight of their own extravagance. This one leads to idealism and pantheism.

In marked contrast with it is the true theory which supposes that the Creator has constituted the world with certain qualities, attributes, tendencies and forces, by which one part has a causal influence on another, and one state or .combination of parts or forces produces another, according to what we call the laws of nature.

These bring about a succession of events which we call the operations of nature. At the same time ALL THESE FORCES AND QUALITIES ARE PERVADED BY THE LIVING PRESENCE OF GOD, Sustaining and inhabiting the world he has made and governs. His supreme control may vary the usual operation of these natural forces whenever he wills. "Ordinarily he neither sets aside the causal qualities of nature, nor leaves them to themselves. This is the reconciliation, if any were needed, of the primary and secondary causes. GOD is IMMANENT IN NATURAL CAUSATION, as truly and necessarily as in natural being, in the operations as in the existence of matter or minds" (Randall's "First Principles of Faith," p. 233).

10. PROVIDENCE AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. God governs the lower animals by appetites, by instincts, and by some traces of intellect, not sufficient however to make them responsible beings. Impelled by these natural instincts and appetites, they propagate their species, seek their food, and perform the various functions for which they are qualified. Thus the honey bee makes, uninstructed, its marvelous cell; the "ant provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest"; "the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming." The birds of passage forget not their season.

God sometimes employs irrational animals as instruments to accomplish his will. Thus the frogs, and lice and flies, and locusts, were his instruments in punishing the Egyptians. The fiery serpents chastised Israel for murmuring against God. These and similar facts show that the dumb beasts are under the government of the God that made them.

11. BUT THERE IS A PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT OVER MORAL BEINGS This is more complex and of a different nature still. God is the author of the intellectual and moral constitution of man; but with respect to their moral actions the case is different. Of these he could not become the efficient cause without destroying their nature; for no action can be moral unless it is free. We must not therefore, expect that God's government over moral beings will be by way of force or compulsion; it must be by moral influence. If men are not free to act, they cannot be justly held accountable for their actions; for their acts would not lie within their own power. If, therefore, we would not overthrow all principles of morality and responsibility, and degrade ourselves below the level of moral beings, and if we would not falsify the moral feelings God himself has put within us, we must hold to our INNATE CONVICTION OF MORAL FREEDOM.

"When we come to the responsible voluntary action of moral beings, a new relation must subsist between God's plan and purpose and the result. The causative force in such action must be the agent himself. God's relation to that action is moral; that is, permissive or persuasive, but not properly causative. His power, however exerted, must work in harmony with, and through the voluntary powers of his creatures. The power of God in such cases, therefore, must operate in the form of MOTIVE, not force in the sense of natural omnipotence. The finite will is interposed between the will of God, and the result in the free action of the creature; and the chain of cause and effect between the will of God and that; result, in the strict sense is broken. The resulting action is not directly, and properly, the work of God, but of the moral creature to: whom the act belongs. The sinful action of such a being cannot; properly be spoken of as God's act. God has given the power to the creature for such action, and permitted its exercise. The virtuous action of the moral being is not God's in any other sense than that He gives the power, and furnishes the motive, or incentive.

Thus the creation of moral beings involves the existence of a power which is not directly in its action, controlled by omnipotence; and thus the occurrence of events is provided for, which God disapproves, and which He cannot wisely prevent. The existence of, moral beings implies the existence of the power to sin; and the re- o suit is actual sin; and this God cannot approve or desire. Of course, he could in the exercise of His omnipotence, annihilate the creature, or suppress His moral agency. Perhaps He could prevent his sin by an excess of restraining motive, but not wisely; and if God should act unwisely His great power to secure righteousness in the moral universe would be lost, and He Himself would fail in righteousness" (Fairchild's Theology, pp. 95, 96).

12. The existence of moral beings, and a moral universe, implies that there is a portion of God's kingdom which He does not control by omnipotence. He might have refused to create such beings, but, after creating them, he must leave them the subjects of moral government, under the sway of moral law and moral influence, perfectly free from coercion, or the compulsion of omnipotent power. "This may be looked upon as a limitation of omnipotence but we must remember that it is self-imposed, provided for and accepted by God in giving existence to moral beings. But the clearer thought is that omnipotence can sustain no direct relation to moral action, in the way of determining its character, to prevent sin or to produce virtue. Such results lie out of the domain of  physical power; they cannot be thought of as the result of power on God's part, but of the free will, the personality which He has given to His creatures. The physical world God controls by power; the moral world He controls by motive. With the creation of moral beings arises the obligation, on God's part, to treat them according to their nature. Their well-being becomes an end to be regarded."1 1. Fairchild's Theology, pp. 96, 97.

13. PROVIDENCE AND SIN. This subject is complex, and, in some of its aspects, is mysterious and, in some respects, beyond our understanding. There is a theory of God's relation to his universe which practically rules out all divine providence; there is an opposite extreme which makes God the responsible cause of everything.

The latter view is much in evidence in Calvinistic theology, where occur such statements as the following: "God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass." "In relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly." "God's determinate counsel extendeth itself even to the first Fall and all other sins of angels and men, (and that not by a bare permission) which also he most wisely and powerfully boundeth, and otherwise ordereth and governeth in a manifold dispensation, to His own most holy ends" (Saybrook Confession, A. D. 1708). "The decrees of God are His eternal purposes, according to the counsel of His will, whereby, for His own glory, He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass." "By decree we are to understand a purpose, a fore-ordination, a will, and an appointment." "The decree of God has for its object whatever comes to pass." "All the actions of the creature, whether good or bad, fall within the decree of God." "The everlasting state of angels and men is fixed by God." "The decrees are immutable or unchangeable as God himself." "God executes his decrees in the works of providence, in which He preserves and governs all things according to His eternal purpose and counsel" (Shorter Catechism). "This providential government is the universal sway of omnipotence which renders certain the accomplishment of his designs, which embrace in their compass everything that occurs" (Hodge, Vol. I, p. 582).

We need not quote such shocking utterances further. They are nothing short of blasphemous assertions against the character of God and his government. "Any theory of providence that must either render moral action impossible, or make God the responsible agent in all sin, can have no place in a true theology" (Miley). It is the part of wisdom to find a middle ground of truth between such irreverent and irrational extremes.

On the relation of providence to sin we make the following observations.

a. It is false to fact and a libel on God to say that he did "from all eternity freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass." And, "all the actions, of the creature, whether good or bad, fall within the decrees of God." And, "God executes, his decrees in the works of providence." For God commands every moral , being not to sin, and declares He is angry with the wicked every day. Now the commands of an infinitely wise God cannot be op-posed to His decrees; and if the wicked are fulfilling His decree He could not be angry with them. The divine Being hates sin with a perfect hatred, and has announced the penalty of it to be eternal punishment. Now to say that God unchangeably ordains by decree all the crimes and vices of men, and brings them about by His providence, and then eternally punishes them by His judgments, is to charge him with malignant hypocrisy! And after that, to call Him "HOLY" is an abuse of language. Nobody indulges in such absurdities but theologians who are mentally bewildered by a false theology. Truth is sane, and is not self-contradictory.!

b. It is only in a limited sense of the word, that God is said to "permit" sin. He neither wished it, nor wills it, nor commits it. He brings all the moral influences he can wisely use into action to prevent its commission by others. He forbids sin and threatens it with punishment, and inflicts the penalty. The only sense, there-, fore, in which he may be said to permit it is that he does not prevent it by physical coercion. This is not a moral permission, as if he approved of sin, but physical, by which he suffers it to be committed. The meaning is that he does not interfere in the exercise of His power, as he doubtless might do, to prevent sinful actions. If God should thus prevent His moral creatures from sinning he would force their will and destroy their agency and accountability. Therefore, for wise and holy ends he permits (that is, does not forcibly prevent) sin. This view is in harmony with Scripture, "My people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me, so I gave them up to their heart's lust; and they walked in their own counsels. Oh, that my people would hearken unto me. That Israel would walk in my ways" (Ps. 81: 11-13). It shows that God wishes there were no sin and no sinners. "And Jehovah, the God of their Fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling place; but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of Jehovah arose against His people, till there was no remedy" (2 Chron. 36: IS, 16). "Oh do not this abominable thing that I hate."

c. Though God did not decree that moral beings should sin, and He is not the author of it, and hates it, yet in a way it is still included within His control and superintending providence. When God does not forcibly prevent men from sinning, neither does He suffer them to go beyond His notice and control. Wicked men are at all times under the superintendence of Divine Providence, and subject to such restraints as God in His wisdom sees proper to impose. He can say to them, as He says to the raging waves of the sea, "Hitherto shall ye come but no further." He has the means to circumscribe the wickedness of sinners. "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee; the residue of wrath shalt thou restrain" (Ps. 76: 10).

d. Moreover, though God hated sin, and did not want it in His universe, and did not by decree make it necessary that any particular sin should be committed, yet he did decide to create moral beings foreknowing that many of them would sin. Then it became necessary for Him to take such providential notice of it as would still make it redound to His glory. In this sense only do "God's decrees and providences include all the sinful actions of men and angels." He decreed to create a moral universe that would certainly but not necessarily sin: and He further decided that by His providence he would so handle sinners and even their sins as to glorify Himself. Therefore God providentially overrides sinful actions so as to bring good out of evil. The introduction of sin into the world, though not at all decreed or desired by God and absolutely forbidden, and though followed by most dreadful consequences, has nevertheless given rise to the brightest manifestations of the glory of God. It has also called out the highest exercise of His benevolence in the atonement of Christ, and the salvation of many of these same sinners through His blood.

The real plan of God was to make and govern a moral universe for His own glory. He providentially carries out His plan through the movement of His moral creatures, and His own oversight and restraint, and overruling of their conduct, so as to subserve His own end. And He does this without suppressing or interfering with free agency, or touching or affecting the character of the agent. The Scripture illustrations of this truth are numerous. We see it in the case of Joseph. His conspicuous piety, and the envy and malice of his brethren, were alike made subservient to the divine plan. They each played their part unimpeded, and God overruled it to carry out His plan concerning His chosen people. Joseph explained it thus: "Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive." The obstinacy of Pharaoh in resisting the demand of God,-"Let my people go," was employed in the furtherance of the great movement of His providence. Had Pharaoh obeyed, God might have given Him the honor of leading the Exodus, such honor as Abraham Lincoln now has, but He disobeyed, and God made Him a conspicuous example of the folly of resisting God, as a warning to men. So with Judas, His selfishness and greed and avarice, which were of his own making and choice, together with the voluntary malignity of the people and priests and rulers, in crucifying the Savior, were all used by God for the salvation of uncounted millions of mankind. So that it could be written, "he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Let a man first make himself wicked, then God's providences may help to determine just what form His wickedness will take.

Thus God's plan is the general one to glorify Himself in the government of a moral universe. His providence is His method of so handling and using and disposing and superintending all the voluntary actions of men and angels that, willingly or unwillingly, they shall work out the divine purpose and exhibit the divine glory. This sovereign plan of God to glorify Himself in the movements of all moral beings, encompassing all human life and action, and the certainty of it but not its necessity. No sin was ever necessary in the universe of a holy God.

e. The following words from President Fairchild about the relation of God's decrees to moral conduct we commend to prayerful thought: "The word 'DECREE' is not properly used to express the relation of God's plan and purpose to the voluntary, responsible, acts of his creatures. The existence of men, and the conditions under which they live, so far as not dependent upon human will, are subjects of God's decrees; as also the use of which God shall make of their acts but human character, free action, and voluntary choice, are not decreed. By God's arrangement men form their own character, cherish their own intentions, plans and purposes; but the divine plan envelops them all; and, do what they may, they subserve that plan. The divine arrangement in reference to human action, has sometimes been called God's permissive decree; which must mean simply that He has not decreed the free acts of men, but decreed to permit them. A permissive decree can mean no more than this.

This view of the relation of human character and action to the will of God, makes God the author of the moral system, and His moral creatures the authors of sin. Sin exists by permission on God's part, and by responsible action and causation on the part of His creatures.

In view of God's infinite attributes, his power and wisdom and goodness, we must believe that, as a matter of creation, this is the best possible world; the best that infinite wisdom could devise, and infinite power execute. God has done his best in it, and could not make it better. But the world, with all its moral conditions and facts, is not the work of God alone. Every moral being has cooperated with God in its production. The world, therefore, is not the best world that could exist; but the best that God could make. Every moral being who has sinned could have made it better. It would have been better without his sin. To the question is sin necessary to the greatest good, we must answer, no; but the possibility of sin, or the permission of sin on God's part, is necessary to the best world, because it is necessary to any moral system" (Fair-child's Theology, pp. 99, 100).

14. PROVIDENCE AS RELATED TO DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY AND HUMAN FREEDOM. This is God's universe, and He is on the throne. Neither human philosophy nor infidelity can take from Him His scepter and crown. His sovereignty is secure. A companion truth to divine sovereignty is human freedom. This we know from consciousness. We know we are free, whatever theorists may hold to the contrary. Any true doctrine of providence must be in harmony with both these truths. However much they may deny it, Calvinists so state their doctrine of divine sovereignty and providence as to deny human freedom and make God a moral monster who is logically responsible for all sin. On the other hand, many Arminians are so zealous to exalt human freedom that they deny God's fore knowledge and by so much belittle His providence. A true theology must embrace both truths, and so state them that they become harmonious.

The attributes of God make Him the natural and rightful sovereign of the universe, a universal and absolute monarch. "But it does not involve on His part the right to treat His creatures arbitrarily, or in any manner not suitable to their nature. In creating moral beings He comes under the obligations of benevolence in regard to their treatment. He must be just and good and merciful and holy. His sovereignty is only the sovereignty of infinite power and wisdom and goodness exercised in doing the best that is possible for all the beings that He has created" (Fairchild's Theology, p 101). Pages and pages might be quoted from Calvinistic literature controverting all these truths, and teaching that God, as a being of infinite power, has a perfect right to do whatever He will with all finite beings, regardless of their good. The following specimen will suffice: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, at others foreordained to everlasting death." "These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished." "The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He PLEASE? for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin (which was also ordained) to the praise of his glorious justice" (Westminster Catechism). The Bottomless Pit might be safely challenged to produce a more wicked reflection on the character of God. It makes him an unjust, unpitying, and arbitrary tyrant!, Such a being not our God.:

15. Many terms have been used by different writers to j press different phases of God's providence, the uniform agency-God in nature, as distinct from his occasional interpositions. These have been called the general providence and the special providence. 2. The immanent and the transcendent. But God is purely personal and supernatural in his immanence, as in his transcendence. 3. As natural and supernatural. Natural providence then would mean that which operates uniformly, by the so-called laws of nature, which is only a name for God's ordinary method of operating natural forces; but, just because God is a person, a change of method, or a supernatural interposition is always possible. God's ordinary method of operation is for fire to burn; but he super-naturally interposed to prevent it from burning the Hebrew children. We are often not wise enough to tell which method of operation God is using. In any event, it is all alike divine, though not equally manifest to us.

16. Aside from the plain teaching of Scriptures, there are MANY CONSIDERATIONS WHICH CORROBORATE THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. (1) It is logically implied in the personality and freedom of God. He is a personal Being, infinite in all His attributes. We cannot, therefore, suppose that He is a helpless prisoner in the machinery of nature of which He Himself is the author. A watchmaker is greater than His watch. He can take it to pieces; can remove a spring or jewel and substitute another in its place; can alter the regulator and make it go faster or slower; can turn the hands backward or forward; can stop it altogether and start it again. Is the infinite God less able to handle His machine? (2) It may be implied from the fact of a moral government. There is something sublime in the steady march of the seasons, and the marvelous precision of the movements of circling planets, and the steady action of nature's forces. But these things are nothing in themselves. They find their use and only end in the service of moral beings, and in the moral government of God. So God superintends all these material forces with that great end in view,- His own glory in the righteous administration of his moral kingdom. (3) It is a natural inference from the divine Fatherhood. Any earthly father might change his ordinary course of conduct, and push important business aside, and neglect a thousand interesting and delightful things, to watch over a sick child. What may not God be expected to do in the matter of general attention, and on special occasions, for the children of his love? His joy and honor and glory are wrapped up in their destiny. (4) It is involved in the privilege and efficacy of prayer. God has planted within us the instinct of prayer. He has also taught us to pray. Of what importance is the constancy of natural forces, and the continuance of secular interests compared with the spiritual needs and the eternal interests of beings who are to live in blessedness or misery forever? If our prayers are inspired by the Spirit of God, and are in harmony with the divine will, we may expect them to be answered, even though the answer should involve a temporary suspension of the customary operations of nature, such as the stopping of the flow of a river, or walking upon the waves, or the instantaneous healing of the sick, when all human skill and ordinary medicines had failed. God is master of all these forces and operations of nature; and Jesus of Nazareth can as readily as ever walk the waves, and hush the billows in the interest of his storm-tossed children, in answer to their inspired prayers.

17. Infidelity makes objection to the doctrine of God's providence. (1) On the ground of the immutability of God. Yes, God is immutable in infinite power and wisdom and goodness, and just because he is wise and good, and has the power to change his conduct as the interests of his spiritual kingdom demand, he alters his methods, whenever the occasion arises, to secure the good of moral beings. He adjusts His conduct to the changing needs of his children, or to the changing moral conduct of men. (2) It is objected that God is infinitely wise and good, and will do in the regular way what needs to be done, without any asking. He knows little about the meaning of prayer, who does not know that prayer removes hindrances and difficulties from the heart of him who prays and puts him in such an attitude toward God, that God can now do things for him which before could not have been wisely done.

John Stuart Mill said: "If there be a personal God a miracle is possible. Of course it is; and the denial of so plain a truth would betoken the most willful blindness. The possibility of a miracle is the possibility of a supernatural providence through a divine variation of the working of natural forces. The truth of theism is the refutation of this objection to a supernatural providence. The efficacy of prayer does not subject the course of nature to the caprice of men, nor is the agency of providence subversion of the order of nature."1 Providence itself is the "order of nature," and the God of providence, general or special, is the inspirer and answerer of prayer. He can attend to His own affairs, and keep His machine of nature from breaking down, while He answers a prayer inspired by Himself. 1. Miley, Vol. I, pp. 344, 345.

"The providence of God, so far from being in any contrariety to the orderly course of nature, is in fact the ground of its uniformities. The contrary view arises from the false notion that a divine agency within the course of nature must be capricious and disorderly. Nothing could be more irrational. Nothing could be more utterly groundless than any inference from the orderly course of nature that there can be no providential agency therein. 'For when men find themselves necessitated to confess an Author of Nature, or that God is the natural Governor of the world, they must not deny this again, because His government is uniform; they must not deny that He does all things at all, because He does them constantly; because the effects of His acts are permanent, whether His acting be so or not; though there is no reason to think it is not' " (Miley quoting Butler's Analogy).

Cocker says: "God is not simply the transitive but the immanent cause of the universe. He is in nature, not merely as a regulative principle impressing laws upon matter, but as a constitutive principle, the ever-present source and ever-operating cause of all its phenomena. . . . Nature is more than matter; it is matter swayed by the divine power, and organized and animated by the divine life" (Theistic Conception of the World, pp. 141, 142).

And while holding firmly to this truth, we need not slip off into Pantheism. God is not only in nature, but he is above nature. He was here before the earth was made; and after the heavens have dissolved and the elements have melted with fervent heat, and the earth has gone up in smoke, God will still be here. There is room for a distinction between ordinary events and miracles. "There are established forces in nature, and laws in accordance with which they act-forces which God has instituted, and which work mechanically according to the nature which He has given them, bringing to pass the ordinary events of nature, under divine supervision and control. At the same time there is room for divine intervention in the form of miracles, which involve a suspension' of the ordinary forces, or rather of their operation, and the bringing to pass of events by direct divine agency." God may also bring to bear a direct action of His power on the forces of nature and produce a special providence, which is not a miracle. President Fairchild here observes: "It is sometimes objected that it implies imperfection in the machinery of the universe, that a miracle or special providence must from time to time be interposed; but this is a misapprehension. The perfection of the machinery of the universe consists in its adaptation to the wants of moral beings, and that it has no end in itself. The material world finds its end and purpose in the moral; that machinery is best which meets moral ends. This view still provides for a reasonable doctrine of the divine immanence-the constant presence of God in his creation, and his direct supervision of all the interests of the universe" (Theology, pp. 104, IDS).