lowed to offer an instance or two, in which whose pure worship it has restored-the rehuman wisdom would probably have taken a formation. This occurrence is a peculiarcourse, in the appointment of instruments ly striking instance of our ignorance of the and events, directly opposite to that pursued operations of supreme wisdom, and of the by infinite wisdom? What earthly judge, if means which, to our short sight, seem fit or he had been questioned as to means likely to unfit for the accomplishment of his purposes. produce one of the strongest evidences of If ever the hand of Providence was conthe truth of Christianity to unbelievers, but spicuous as the meridian sun, it was so in would have named an agreement between this mighty work-it was so in the selection Jews and Christians, as its fullest corrobora- of apparently discordant instruments-it was tion? If we ourselves had an important so, in over-ruling the designs of some, to a cause depending-for instance, the ascertain- purpose opposite to their intention, in making our right to a litigated estate;-If the ing the errors of others contribute to the gensuccess of the trial depended on the testimo-eral end. If this grand scheme had been ny of the witnesses, and on the authenticity of exposed to our review for advice, if we had our titled deeds, whose testimony should we been consulted in its formation and its proendeavour to obtain; into whose hands gress, how should we have criticised both should we wish ourselves to be committed? the plan and its conductors? How should According to all human prudence should we we have censured some of the agents as innot desire witnesses who had no known hos- adequate, condemned others as ill chosen, tility to us; should we not object to a jury of rejected one as unsuited, another as injuriavowed enemies; and should we not refuse ous! One critic would have insisted that to lodge our records in the hands of our oppo- the vehemence of Luther would mar any nents ? enterprise it might mean to advance; that But His wisdom, in whose sight ours is so impetuous a projector would inevitably folly, has seen fit to make one of the most obstruct the establishment of a religion of striking proofs of the truth of Christianity meekness. Another would have pronoundepend on the living miracle of the enmity ced, that among the human faculties, wit of the Jews; to them also were committed was, of all others, the least likely to assist the oracles of God,' so that to both their ancient testimony and their present opposition we are to look for the most striking proofs of a religion they hold with perpetual hatred. And now that Christianity is actually made to stand upon such evidence, what test can be more satisfactory? Reason itself owns its validity; for what collusion can now be charged upon the concurrent witnesses of Christianity, when each party in court is decidedly at variance with the other? Who can rationally question the strength of that title which is contained in their genuine archives-that evidence resulting from their hereditary denial of facts, of which they persist to reverence the predictions? Where can we more confidently look for the truth of a religion they detest, than to the verification conferred on it by their original history, their irreversible antipathy, their actual condition, and existing character? To venture another specimen. If we had presumed to point out instruments for the destruction of Jerusalem, we should probably have thought none so appropriate as Constantine; we might have supposed the first christian emperor would have been the fit test avenger of the Redeemer's blood. Omniscience selected for the awful retribution a pagan prince, a virtuous one it is true, but one who seems to have no personal interest in the business, one to whom Jews and Christians, as such, were alike indifferent. While this utter desolation was the obvious accomplishment of a prophecy, which was to be a lasting evidence of the truth of our religion, the choice of the destroyer was one of those secret things which belong to God,' and is only to be alleged as a proof that his ways are not our ways.' We will advert to another event, the most important since the incarnation of him the cause of piety; yet did Erasmus, by his exquisite satires on the ignorance and superstition of the priests, as completely contradict this opinion, as Luther, by his magnanimity and heroic perseverance, triumphantly overturned the other. This inconsiderate, blustering Henry, the human counsellor would have said, will ruin the cause, by uniting his hostility to the reformers, with his inconsistent resistance to the papal power; and yet this cause, his very perverseness contributed to promote. Another censor would have been quite certain that the timid policy and cautious feeling of Charles the Wise would infallibly obstruct those measures which they were actually tending to advance. Who among us, if his opinion had been asked, would not have fixed on the pontiff of Rome and the emperor of the Turks, as the two last human beings to be selected for promoting the reformed religion? Who would have ventured to assert that the money raised by indulgences, through the profligate venality of Leo, for building St. Peter's in his own metropolis, was actually laying the foundation of every protestant church, in Britain-in Europe-in the world? Who could have predicted, that the Imperial Mussulman, in banishing learning from his dominions, was preparing, as if by concert, an overwhelming antagonist to the sottish ignorance of the monks? All these things, separately considered, we, in our captions wisdom, should have pronounced calculated to produce effects directly contrary to the actual result; yet these ingredients, which had no natural affinity, amalgamated by the Almighty hand, were made to accomplish one of the most important works that infinite wisdom, working by buman means, has ever effected. CHAP. III. If we took God into the account, we should feel that, as rational subjects of his moral government, we are bound to submit to it: we should not indulge discontent and resentment at events which we should then allow were either by his appointment or permission, as we now acknowledge in the more extraordinary cases. But how few are there who thinks themselves obliged to endure without repining, the effects of accident, or the provocations of men? and this is because they see only the proximate cause, and do not perceive that God is the grand efficient. In our difficulties, if the sense of his presence were as strongly impressed upon us as the trial is powerfully felt, it would make the heart strong, and render the temptation feeble. Nor would it only strengthen us under temptation, but sustain us under affliction; we should become both humble by correction, and patient under it; we should be grateful in prosperity, without being elated by it. A deep conviction of God's authority over us and his property in us, would also make us kind to others as an acknowledgment that all is his. The very heathen entertained some sense of his sovereignty; they acknowledged at least their victories to proceed from him, when they dedicated their spoils to the deliverer. Practical uses of the doctrine of Providence. We do not sufficiently make the doctrine of Providence a practical doctrine. That the present dark dispensations which afflict the earth are indications of Almighty displeasure few dispute; but having admitted the general fact, who almost does not ascribe the cause of offence to others? How few consider themselves as awfully contributing to draw down the visitation! We look with an exclusive eye to the abandoned and the avowedly profligate, and ascribe the whole weight of the divine indignation to their misdeeds. But we forget that, when a sudden tempest threatened destruction to the ship going to Tarshish, in which there was only Jonah who feared God, those who inquired into the cause of the storm, found him to be the very man. The cause of the present desolating storm, as a pious divine observed of that which darkened his day, may as probably be the offences of professing christians, as the presumptuous sins of the bolder transgressor. This apprehension should set us all on searching our hearts, for we cannot repent of the evil of which we are not con SCIOUS. It should put us upon watching against negligence; it should set us upon distrusting a false security, upon examining If we maintained this constant sense of his into the ground of our confidence. No de providential government, we should be more pendence on the goodness of our spiritual instant in prayer, we should more fervently condition, no trust in our exactness in some supplicate him in our distresses, and more peculiar duties, no fancied superiority of our- devoutly adore him for his mercies. The reselves, to others, no exemption from gross cognition of his sovereignty infers the duty and palpable disorders, should soothe us into of prayer to him, of implicit trust in him, of a belief that we have no concern in the visit- unqualified submission to him; for the same ation. Throwing off their own guilt upon argument which proves that he should govothers was the second sin of the first offendern, makes it right that we should obey; and the avowal of that obedience is alike consisAnother practical use of the doctrine of tent with the character of the subject, and Providence is, to enable us to maintain a the claims of the sovereign. Thus used, composed frame of spirit under his ordinary dispensations. If we kept up a sense of God's agency in common as well as in extra ordinary occurrences-if we were practically persuaded that nothing happens but by divine appointment, it might still those fluctuations of mind, quiet those uncertainties of temper, conquer that unreasonable exaltation or depression, which arise from our WISDOM. not habitually reflecting that all things are But, as we seem virtually to divide the afdetermined in number, or weight, or meas-fairs of the world into two portions, we talk ure, by infinite love. If we acted under the as if we did not think certain ordinary trials full conviction that He who first set the considerable enough to come from God, nor world in motion governs every creature in it of course to require that we should meet -that we do not take our place upon that them with temper. Under these, therefore, stage in space, or that period in time, which we make ourselves what amends we can for we chuse, but where and when He pleases; the vexation of trials more severe, by indulthat it is be who ordereth the bounds of our ging fretfulness, secure of impunity. But labitation, and fixeth our lot in life,' we let us be assured of these two things, if it be should not only contemplate with sober awe a trial at all it comes from God, if it disturb the strange events of the age in which we may be living, but cheerfully submit to our individual difficulties, as arising from the same predisposition of causes. Our neglecting to cultivate this train of thought may account for those murmurs which arise in our hearts, both for the public calamities of the world, and the private vexations of life. ers. there is no consolation to an afflicted world like that which is derived from the position contained in the proclamation of the imperial penitent of Babylon, that the most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men;' that he ruleth not by an arbitrary will, but, to borrow the emphatic language of the Apocalypse, by the perfections of THE MIND THAT HATH our peace, however trivial in itself, it is not small to us, and therefore claims submission. It is worth our observation that they who are ready to quarrel with Omnipotence for the infliction of pain and suffering, poverty and distress, seldom arraign him for their intellectual or moral deficiences. Most men are better satisfied with their allotment at capacity than of health; of virtue than of labyrinth, we seem to lose sight of him: if, after having lost our clue, we are tempted to suspect that this operation is suspended, or that his agency has ceased, he is working all the time out of sight--he is proceeding, if the comparison may be allowed, like the fabled Arethusia, whose stream having disappeared in the place to which it had been followed up, is still making its way under ground; though we are not cured of our incredulity, till we again discover him, bursting forth like the same river, which, having pursued its hidden passage through every obstruction, rises once more in all its beauty in another and an unexpected place. Most of the calamities of human life originate with ourselves. Even sickness, shame, pain, and death were not originally the infliction of God. But out of many evils, whether But even while we are rebelling against sent us by his immediate hand, or brought his dispensations, we are taking our hints in on us by our own faults, much eventual good the economy of public and private life, from is educed by Him, who by turning our suf- the economy of Providence in the adminisfering to our benefit, repairs by grace the tration of the world. We govern our counevils produced by sin. Without being the try by laws emulative of those by which he author of evil, the bare suggestion of which governs his creatures: we train our chilis blasphemy, he converts it to his own glory, dren by probationary discipline, as he trains by causing the effects of it to promote our his servants. Penal laws in state, like those good. If the virtuous suffer from the crimes of the divine Legislator, indicate no hatred of the wicked, it is because their imperfect to those to whom they are proclaimed, for goodness stood in need of chastisement. Even the wicked, who are suffering by their own sins, or the sins of each other, are sometimes brought back to God by mutual injuries, the sense of which awakens them to compunction for their own offences. God makes use of the faults even of good men to show them their own insufficiency, to abase them in their own eyes, to cure them of vanity and self-dependence. He makes use of their smaller failings, to set them on the watch against great ones; of their imperfections, to put them on their guard against sins; of their faults of inadvertency, to increase their dread of such as are wilful. This superinduced vigilance teaches them to fear all the resemblances, and to shun all the approaches to sin. It is a salutary fear, which keeps them from using all the liberty they have; it leads them to avoid not only what is decidedly wrong, but to stop short of what is doubtful, to keep clear of what is suspicious; well knowing the thin partitions which separate danger from destruction. It teaches them to watch the buddings and germinations of evil, to anticipate the pernicious fruit in the opening blossom. every man is at liberty not to break them; they are enacted in the first instance for admonition rather than chastisement, and serve as much for prevention as punishment. The discipline maintained in all well ordered families is intended not only to promote their virtue. but their happiness. The intelligent child perceives his father's motive for restraining him, till the act of obedience having induced the habit, and both having broken in his rebellious will, he loves the parent the more for the restraint; on the other hand, the mismanaged and ruined son learns to despise the father, who has given him a license to which he has discernment enough to perceive he owes the miseries consequent upon his uncurbed appetites. It is however to be lamented, that this great doctrine of God's universal superintendance is not only madly denied, or inconsistently overlooked by one class of men, but is foolishly perverted, or fanatically abused by another. Without entering upon the wide field of instances, we shall confine our remarks to two that are the most_common. First, the fanciful, frivolous and bold familiariarity with which this supreme dictaThe weakness and inactivity of our faith tion and government are cited on the most expose us to continual distrust When we trivial occasions, and adduced in a manner ourselves are idle, we are disposed to sus- dishonourable to infinite wisdom. and derogpect that the Omnipotent is not at work.atory to supreme goodness. The persons That process which we do not see, we are too much inclined to suspect is not going on. From this unhallowed egotism, where we are not the prime movers, we fancy that all stands still. The various parts of the scheme of Providence are sometimes connected by a thread so fine as to elude our dim sight;but, though it may be so attenuated as to be invisible, it is never broken off. The plan is carrying on, and the work, perhaps, about to be accomplished, while we are accusing the Great Artificer, as if he were capable of neglect, or liable to error. But if, after tracing Providence through many a' who are guilty of this fault seem not to perceive, that it is not more foolish and presumptuous to deny it altogether than to expect that God's particular Providence will interpose, in order to save their exertions, or excuse their industry. For though Providence directs and assists virtuous endeavours, be never, by superseding them, encourages idleness, or justifies presumption. The highly censurable use to which some others convert this divine agency, is, when not only the pretence of trusting Providence is made the plea for the indolent desertion of their own duty; but an unwarrantable conûdence in providential leadings is adopt. it an affront to conceive of Him on one which ed to excuse their own imprudence Great they think contracts them. If they allow is the temerity, when Providence is virtually that he takes a sweeping view of nations, reproached for the ill success of our affairs, yet they imply that it would be too minute or pleaded as an apology for our own wilful- an exercise of his superintendence to inspect ness, or as a vindication of our own absurdi. individuals. The truth is, as we intimated ty in the failure of some foolish plan, or some before, men are too much disposed to frame irrational pursuit. We have no right to de- their conceptions of God by the limited pend on a supernatural interposition to help powers and capacities of human greatness. us out of difficulties into which we have been They observe, that a king who controls the thrown by our misconduct, or under distress-affairs of a vast empire cannot possibly ines into which we have been plunged by our spect the concerns of every private family, errors. God, though he knows the prayers much less of every single subject. This which we may offer, and accepts the peni- limited capacity they unconsciously, yet irtence which we feel, will not use his power reverently, transfer to the King of kings.--to correct our ill-judged labours, any other- But as no concern is so vast as to encumber wise than by making us smart for their con- Omnipotence, so none is too diminutive to sequences. escape the eye of Omniscience. There is The power of God, as it is not an idle, so no argument for a general, but is also an arit is not a solitary prerogative. It is indeed gument for a particular Providence, unless an attribute in constant exercise; it is not we can prove that the whole is not made up kept for state, but use; not for display, but of parts; that generals are not composed of exercise; and as it is infinite, one half of particulars; that nations are not compoundthe concerns of the universe are not, as we ed of families; that societies are not formed intimated before, suspended, because he is of individuals; that chains are not composed superintending the other half. He is perpet- of links; that sums are not made up of ally examining the chronicles of human units; that the interests of a community do kind, and inspecting the register of human not grow out of the well-being of its memactions-not like the King of the Palace of bers. The interests of a particular member, Shashao,* because he cannot rest,' for Om- indeed, may sometimes appear to suffer from niscience never slumbers or sleeps--nor that which promotes the general good, yet like him to repair the wrongs of one man he, by whose law the individual may seem to whose services had remained unrequited, be injured, has mesns of remuneration or of but that, beholding the evil and the good, comfort which may prevent the sufferer from no services may go unnoticed and unrecom- being ultimately a loser. If, as we are aspensed, from the earliest offspiring of pious sured, upon God's own authority, that our Abel, to the latest oblation of faith in the end tears are treasured up by him, will not their of time. appropriate consolations be also provided?This view of things, and it is the view Though He whose footsteps are not known, which the enlightened Christian takes, tends may act in some instances in a manner into correct his anger against second causes, comprehensible to us, yet if we allow that and affords him such an assurance that every he acts wisely and holily in cases which we occurrence will be over-ruled by everlasting do comprehend, we should give him credit love for his eventual good-inspires him with in the obscure and impenetrable cases, for such holy confidence in the promises of the he can no more act contrary to his attributes Gospel, that he acquires a repose of spirit, in the one instance than in the other. not merely from compelled submission to Every intelligent being, therefore, should authority, but from rational acquiescence in look up to divine Providence, not only as engoodness. He feels that his confirmed belief gaged in the government and disposal of in this universal agency is the only thing states, but as exercised for his individual prothat can set his heart at rest, still its pertur-tection, peace and comfort;-should look bations, moderate its impatience, soothe its habitually to Him who confers favour withterrors, confirm its faith, preserve its peace, out claim, and happiness without merit; to or, when it has suffered a momentary suspen-him whose veracity fulfils all the promises sion, restore it. which his goodness has made--to Him whose Nor does God exercise his Providence pity commiserates the afflicted, whose bounalone, either in signal instances of retribu- ty supplies the indigent, whose long suffering tion or in the hidden consolations of the be- bears with the rebellious, whose love abliever; but those secret stings of conscience solves the guilty, whose mercy in Christ Jewhich goad and lacerate every guilty indi-sus accepts the penitent. Such is the fulness vidual in any criminal pursuit-that lurking of that attribute which we sum up in a single discontent which gives the lie to flattery, and word, the goodness of God. It is this goodmingles the note of discord with the music of ness which influences his other attributes in acclamation-that unprompted misery of our favour, attributes which would else nefeeling which infuses wormwood into his sweetest pleasures, proceeds from the same providential infliction. Some men seem to admit a Providence on a scale which expands their ideas, but fancy Ahasuerus.-Esther, chap. 6. ༣༣ cessarily act against creatures at once sinful and impotent. It makes that wisdom which sees our weakness strengthen us, and that power which might overwhelm us, act for our preservation. Without this goodness, all his other perfections would be to us as the beauties of his natural creation would be. if own will. CHAP. IV. "Thy will be done." the sun were blotted from the firmamentthey might indeed exist, but without this illuminating and cherishing principle, as we should neither have seen nor felt them, so to To desire to know the Divine will is the us they could not be said to be. first duty of a being so ignorant as man; to Some Christians seem to view the Almigh-endeavour to obey it is the most indispensaty as encircled with no attribute but his sove- ble duty of a being at once so corrupt and reignty. God, in establishing his moral so dependent. The Holy Scriptures fregovernment, might indeed have acted solely quently comprise the essence of the Chrisby his sovereignty He might have pleaded tian temper in some short aphorism, apostrono other reason for our allegiance but his phe, or definition. The essential spirit of absolute dominion. He might have govern- the Christian life may be said to be included ed arbitrarily, without explaining the na- in this one brief petition of the Christian's ture of his requisitions He might have 6 prayer, THY WILL BE DONE;' just as the reigned over us as a king, without endearing distinguishing characteristic of the irrelihimself to us as a father. He might have gious may be said to consist in following his exacted fealty, without the offer of remuneration. Instead of this, while he mainThere is a haughty spirit which, though it tains his entire title to our obedience, he mit- will not complain, does not care to submit. igates the austerity of command by the invi- It arrogates to itself the dignity of enduring, tations of his kindness, and softens the rigour without any claim to the meekness of yieldof authority by the allurement of his proming. Its silence is stubbornness, its fortiises. In holding out menaces to deter us tude is pride; its calmness is apathy withfrom disobedience, he balances them with the out, and discontent within In such charoffered plenitude of our own felicity, and thus instead of terrifying, attracts us to obe-acters, it is not so much the will of God which is the rule of conduct, as the scorn of dience. If he threatens, it is that by intimi- pusillanimity. Not seldom indeed the mind dating he may be spared the necessity of puts in a claim for a merit to which the punishing; if he promises it is that we nerves could make out a better title. may perceive our happiness to be bound up the suffering which arises from acute feelwith our obedience. Thus his goodness in- ing is so far from deducting from the virtue vites us to a compliance, which his sove- of resignation, that, when it does not impede reignty might have demanded on the single the sacrifice, it enhances the value. ground that it was his due. Whereas he resignation is the hardest lesson in the whole seems almost to wave our duty as a claim, as school of Christ. It is the oftenest taught if to afford us the merit of a voluntary obe-and the latest learnt. It is not a task which, dience; though the very will to obey is his gift, he promises to accept it as if it were He first inspires the desire and then rewards it. Thus his power, if we may hazard the expression, gives place to his goodness, and he presses us by tenderness almost more than he constrains us by authority. He even condescends to make our happiness no less a motive for our duty than bis injunctions; hear his affectionate apostrophe Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, then had thy peace our own act. been as a river!' It was that his goodness might have the precedency of his Omnipotence, that he vouchsafed to give the Law in the shape of a covenant. He stooped to enter into a sort of reciprocal engagement with his creatures, he condescended to stipulate with the work of his hands! But the consummation of his goodness was reserved for his work of Redemption. Here he not only performed the office, but assumed the name of LOVE; a name with which, notwithstanding all his preceding wonders of Providence and Grace, he was never invested till after the completion of this last, greatest act:--an act towards his pardoned rebels, not only of indemnity but promotion-an act which the angels desire to scrutinize, and which man will never fully comprehend till he enters on that beatitude to which it has introduced him. Yet True when once got over in some particular instance, leaves us master of the subject. The necessity of following up the lesson we have begun, presents itself almost every day in some new shape, occurs under some fresh modification. The submission of yesterday does not exonerate us from the resignation of to-day. The principle, indeed, once thoroughly wrought into the soul, gradually reconciles us to the frequent demand for its exercise, and renders every successive call more easy. We read dissertations on this subject, not only with the most entire concurrence of the judgment, but with the most apparent acquiescence of the mind. We write essays upon it in the hour of peace and composure, and fancy that what we have discussed with so much ease and self-complacence, in favour of which we offer so many arguments to convince, and so many motives to persuade, cannot be very difficult to practise. But to convince the understanding and to correct the will is a very different underta king; and not less difficult when it comes to our own case than it was in the case of those for whom we have been so coolly and dogmatically prescribing. It is not till we practically find how slowly our own arguments produce any effect on ourselves that we cease to marvel at their inefficacy on othThe sick physician tastes with disgust the bitterness of the draught, to the swallowing of which he wondered the patient had ers. |