065. VI. Truth Of A Supernatural Providence.

VI. Truth Of A Supernatural Providence.

1. A Truth of Theism.—In a true sense of theism the causal ground of finite existences is a personal being, with the essential attributes of personality. As a personal being, his agency must ever be under a law of freedom. Therefore it must not be fettered with the laws of either materialism or pantheism. Both systems are utterly fatalistic. Of course there can be no freedom under either. From the beginning, and through all its process, the course of nature must be absolutely determined, and by the blindest necessity. The order of nature must be natural in the lowest sense of materialism or pantheism. There can be no variation from such absolute determinism. Consistently with such principles, the supernatural is utterly denied. Agnosticism is equally exclusive of freedom, as every system must be which has no place for the divine personality. Theism is the opposite extreme to such systems. God is a personal being, with the freedom of personal agency. Such truths are central to theism, and to surrender them is to surrender all that is most vital in the doctrine. It is not for a personal God to fetter himself with a chain of absolute sequence in the processes of nature. He is free to modify these processes, and in the interest of sentient and rational existences must modify them in exceptional cases. Without a supernatural providence we sink into the bleakness of deism, and might as well sink into materialism or pantheism. Theism is supernaturalism. If there is a personal God there is a supernatural providence.

2. A Truth of Moral Government.—There is a moral government over man. The moral consciousness of the race affirms its truth. There is in this consciousness a sense of God, of duty, of responsibility. For the consciousness of the race God is a supernatural being; one who is concerned with human affairs, and in whose regards men have a profound interest. With all the crudities of polytheism, the elements of such convictions still abide. Duty, however neglected, is yet confessed to be paramount. Responsibility, however forgotten or resisted in the interest of present appetence and pleasure still asserts itself and constrains the confession of its importance. With these convictions there is consistently the sense of a supernatural providence. If they are groundless, the deepest and most imperative consciousness of the race is a delusion. If they are grounded in truth, as we must rationally think them, there must be a moral government, and therefore a supernatural providence. Without such a providence all that is real in such a government falls away. On the ground of theism there must be a moral government. With the Christian conception of God there is, and there must be, such a government; and with the truth of a moral government there must be a supernatural providence. It is not to be thought that God, as our moral ruler, would leave us wholly to the guidance of conscience and experience. If we should except the physical realm from all supernatural interpositions, we cannot rationally close the moral against such agency. A supernatural providence is the requirement and complement of a moral government.

3. A Truth of the Divine Fatherhood.—The religious consciousness of the race longs for something more than a blind force, even though it were omnipotent, back of finite and dependent existences. The profoundest reason imperatively requires something more. Both require personality in the causal ground of such existences. The common religious consciousness, with the deep and abiding sense of dependence and need, requires sympathy and love in the Creator and Lord of all. Nothing less can satisfy it, or give assurance of needed help in the exigencies of life. The assurance of sympathy and love is reached in the idea of the divine Fatherhood. The light of reason leads up to this idea. The doctrine of Paul, as delivered to the men of Athens, cannot mean less. Revelation, opening with the more special view of the power of God, advances to the idea of his sympathy and love, and on to that of his Fatherhood. The divine Son sets this truth in the clearest, divinest light. He came to show us the Father. His mission was marvelously fulfilled. He has revealed the Father in the richness of his grace and the pathos of his love. The prayer of humanity may now begin with “Our Father.”

We found it to be against all rational thinking that God as moral ruler over men should leave them, with their profound obligation and responsibility, wholly to the guidance of conscience and experience. How much less could the heavenly Father so leave his dependent and needy children! He must often interpose by an immediate agency for their good. The truth of the divine Fatherhood is the truth of a supernatural providence.

4. A Clear Truth of the Scriptures.—As we previously pointed out, the agency of God in the uniformities of nature is in itself, and in distinction from any mere natural force, as strictly supernatural as in those special interpositions which modify the course of nature and constitute what we distinctively call a supernatural providence. The Scriptures are replete with both ideas. However, we are here specially concerned with the latter.

There are many facts of Scripture which can neither be reduced to the uniformity of nature nor accounted for by any known or unknown law of nature. Any such interpretation is false to the truth and life of the facts. In the history of creation, in the life of Enoch, in the call of Abraham, in the segregation and history of the Hebrews, in the ministry of Moses, in the inspiration of prophets, there were interpositions of the divine agency apart from the order of nature, and results above any mere law of nature. There is like truth respecting many facts of the New Testament. In the birth and life of our Lord, in his lessons of truth and miracles of power and grace, in the ministry of his apostles, in the new spiritual life through the grace of the Gospel and the power of the Spirit, there are again the interpositions of a distinctively supernatural agency of God. Theology finds in the power of God the sufficient cause of such facts, and in his wisdom and grace their sufficient reason. There is no law of thought which requires more; certainly none which demands either their subjection to natural law or the denial of their reality. Theology has no issue with science respecting the reign of law in the realm of nature; but regards the demands of science, that the spiritual realm, if there be such, shall be subject to the same law, as the height of arrogance. Any attempted elimination of the supernatural from the Scriptures in the interest of theology is at once a perversion of the truth and a cowardly surrender to the adversary. Theism is supernaturalism. Revelation is supernaturalism. Christ himself is supernatural. Every true spiritual life is supernatural. We shall hold fast the supernatural in the interest of theology and religion.

It is the clear sense of Scripture that the divine agency in its supernatural interpositions reaches beyond the distinctively spiritual realm into the natural. These instances, however, are neither so frequent nor so radical as to hinder the interests of science or unsettle the laws of our secular life. Still there are real instances of a supernatural agency within the lower sphere in the interest of the higher; within the lifeless in the interest of the living; within the natural in the interest of the spiritual. It is a rational law, and one ever observable in the process of nature, that the lower may be used in the service of the higher. Thus the divine agency is supernaturally operative within the lower forms of existence in the service of the higher. There is no true interpretation of the Scriptures without the truth of the supernatural.

5. Providence the Privilege of Prayer.—Were there no providence with a supernatural agency there could be no place for prayer. With the reality of such a providence, prayer is a common privilege, and the means of blessings not otherwise attainable. Hence objections to the efficacy of prayer are mostly the same as those urged against a supernatural providence, and so far require no separate review. They will be considered in the proper place. However, this may be said now, that all the proofs of a supernatural providence go to the refutation of these objections. The refutation is already quite sufficient.

Prayer is the supplication of the soul, offered up to God for his blessing. The forms of need may be many, and the answers may vary accordingly, but still with a blessing. The presuppositions of prayer are the personality and providence of God, his power over nature and mind, his interested watch-care over us, his kindly regard for our good, his gracious readiness to help us. The impulse to prayer arises from a sense of dependence and need. Beyond this, as the soul enters into the truer religious life prayer is imbued with the spirit of worship, is full of praise and love. There is the grateful sense of blessings received in answer to prayer. Hence the deeper ideas of prayer are the same in the thanksgiving as in the supplication. The instinct for prayer is a part of our religious nature. We have a religious nature, and one as real and ineradicable as any other intrinsic quality. This is rarely questioned. Thinkers who deny all supernaturalism in religion openly confess this reality.^[342] The logic of religious facts constrains this confession. The time when unbelief would banish all religion is forever past. Conscience and moral reason, the sense of God and duty, of dependence and need, are confessedly characteristic facts of our nature. With these facts, there is the instinctive impulse to prayer. This impulse must be active in the deeper exigencies of experience. The fact has often been exemplified, even with such as usually deny all religious faith. In the hour of painful suspense, in the presence of calamity, no unbelief can repress this impulse.

^[342]Spencer:First Principles, pp. 13-15; Tyndall:Preface to Belfast Address, seventh edition. The sense of Scripture on the question of prayer is very full and clear.^[343] Prayer is a common duty and privilege (Matthew 7:7; Matthew 7:11; Luke 21:36; Romans 12:12; Php 4:6 ; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; 1 Timothy 2:8). Prayer should be offered for national blessings (Psalms 122:6; 1 Timothy 2:1-3. Intercessory prayer, prayer of one for another, is a requirement of the Scriptures (Exodus 32:11; Acts 12:5; Romans 1:9; Romans 15:30; James 5:16). Our prayer should be with persistence (Matthew 26:44; Luke 181-8 ; 2 Corinthians 12:8). The help of the Spirit in our prayers is graciously promised (Romans 8:26-27). There are many instances of timely and gracious answer to prayer. The blessings for which we may pray, and which are in the promised answer, are specially of a spiritual nature, but are far from being exclusively such. Secular blessings are included with the spiritual. God, who commands our prayer and promises the answer, is sovereign in the natural as in the spiritual realm. Our interests lie in both, though chiefly in the latter. Yet profound exigencies arise in the former. Both alike are known to our heavenly Father, who careth for us in all our wants. Prayer for temporal blessings has a divine warrant in the prayer of our Lord: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

^[343]Paley:Moral Philosophy, book v, chap. iii. A few words may properly be added for the sake of the truth, and as a caution against fanaticism. Two facts are worthy of special notice. One is that the Jewish theocracy specially abounded in secular blessings. So far the truth holds, however false the view which denies to that economy all outlook beyond the present life. There were rich promises of such blessings, and these promises were often fulfilled in answer to prayer. We, however, are not warranted in the common expectation of answers so full and so openly supernatural under an economy so distinctly spiritual as the Christian in its blessings. The other fact is that the initial period of Christianity was specially supernatural, miraculous even, and that within the natural realm. “What thus belonged distinctively to that period can have only a qualified application in subsequent ages. For instance, we are not warranted to expect the healing of the sick in a manner so openly supernatural as in that initial period. Nor have we reason to expect instant or even speedy release from bodily ills or other forms of trouble simply in answer to prayer. Certainly there should be limit to such expectation. Submission to the will of God must always qualify our faith in praying for such blessings. There is in the Scriptures the lesson of patience in suffering. There are promises whose special grace is for such as endure suffering. These facts lesson of do not bar the privilege of prayer for temporal blessings, patience, but should moderate the expectation of supernatural interpositions in a manner specially open and manifest. They should teach us the lesson of humble submission to the divine will. “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me : nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 12:42). How profound is this lesson! With this spirit, there is still a wide place for prayer in the seasons of temporal affliction. God may answer in our deliverance, or in the mitigation of our affliction. Or he may answer us as he answered Paul respecting the thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Our prayer shall not be in vain.

6. Review of Leading Objections.—A supernatural providence and the efficacy of prayer are so linked in principle that the same objections are common to both. Any distinction is so slight that it may be omitted in the present review. Certain things are alleged as the disproof of such a providence. The divine perfections are assumed to be the ground of such an objection. We require some detail in order to a proper review of this objection. There are indeed several objections on the ground of these perfections, as severally viewed. One objection is based on the divine immutability. The idea of a supernatural providence, with answers to prayer, is the idea of a temporal agency of God above the order of nature. The objection is that such an agency is contradictory to the divine immutability. There is no issue respecting the truth of immutability. Is such an agency contradictory to this truth? An affirmative answer must reduce our Christian theism to the baldest deism. Whatever the agency of God in the realms of nature and mind, it must be exercised through the personal energizing of his will. If such a personal providence is consistent with immutability, so are the definite acts of a supernatural providence. Only a false sense of immutability can require the same divine action toward nations and individuals, whatever the changes of moral conduct in them; the same toward Christian believers, whatever the changes of estate with them. A true sense of immutability requires changes of divine action in adjustment to such changes in men. It seems strange that any one who accepts the Scriptures can for a moment give place to this objection.

Another objection is based on the divine omniscience. This objection is made specially against the efficacy of prayer. God foreknows all things, knows from eternity the state and need of every soul. Hence prayer is not necessary, nor can it have any influence upon the divine mind. These inferences are not warranted. If it were the office of prayer to give information of our wants, it is surely needless, and must be useless. Prayer has no such office. It is required as the proper religious movement of a soul in its dependence and need, and thus becomes the means of God’s blessing. The soul is doubly blest through such a condition of the divine blessing. This will further appear.

Again, objection to the need and efficacy of prayer is urged on the ground of the wisdom and goodness of God. He is wise and good, and, therefore, will give what is good without our asking. We appropriate an answer: “This objection admits but of one answer, namely, that it may be agreeable to perfect wisdom to grant that to our prayers which it would not have been agreeable to the same wisdom to have given us without praying for. . . . A favor granted to prayer may be more apt, on that very account, to produce good effects upon the person obliged. It may hold in the divine bounty, what experience has raised into a proverb in the collation of human benefits, that what is obtained without asking is oftentimes received without gratitude. It may be consistent with the wisdom of the Deity to withhold his favors till they be asked for, as an expedient to encourage devotion in his rational creation, in order thereby to keep up and circulate a knowledge and sense of their dependency upon him. Prayer has a natural tendency to amend the petitioner himself; and thus to bring him within the rules which the wisdom of the Deity has prescribed to the dispensation of his favors.”^{[344] [344]} Paley:Moral Philosophy, book v, chap. ii.

Some attempt an adjustment of providential events to the order of nature through the mediation of some higher, unknown law. Such events would thus stand in harmony with nature, though above it as known to us. There are weighty objections to this view. Such a higher law is the merest assumption, and therefore useless for the proposed adjustment. The weight of the objection to a supernatural providence is tacitly conceded, while this hypothetic law brings no answer. No difficulty is obviated or in the least relieved. Further, how could such a law of nature be on hand just in the time of need, or wisely minister to us in the exigencies of our experience, or make timely answer to our prayers? There is no answer to such questions. Nor can the theory admit any divine application of the law, for this would be the very supernaturalism which it assumes to displace.

There is another mode in which it is attempted to place the facts of providence in accord with the order of nature. It is that in the original constitution of nature God provided for the foreseen wants and prayers of men. Thus the plan of providence is supernatural, but the mode of its ministries is purely natural. The theory must hold the reality of natural forces. Otherwise God is the only force in nature, and the original provisions of his providence must mean simply a determination of the modes of his own future agency on the contingency of human exigencies and prayers. This, however, is the extremest form of supernaturalism, and therefore out of all consistency with the theory. With the reality of natural forces, the difficulties of the theory become insuperable. It is assumed that such forces act with absolute uniformity. This is the principle on which a supernatural providence is denied. How, then, can original provision be made for answers to future prayers through the agency of such forces ? If human actions were a part of the processes of nature and subject to the same necessity, such provision might be made. With the freedom of human action, it is impossible. The forces of nature, which in themselves ever act in accord with their own laws, can never turn aside to meet the exigencies of our experience or to answer our prayers. This is the work of a supernatural providence.^{[345] [345]} Buchanan:Modern Atheism, pp. 283-301; Mozley: On Miracles, lect. vi. The uniformity of nature is often asserted in objection to a supernatural providence. So far as this objection is concerned, such uniformity is simply a question of fact, and therefore must be proved before the objection can be valid. The actual uniformity of nature is no a priory truth. The contrary is clearly thinkable and possible. The Author of nature can vary the working of its laws, and may often have reason for such interposition. Hence the question of an unvaried uniformity requires proof, just as any other question of fact. It never has been proved; nor can it ever be.^[346] It might appear that nature, so far as open to our observation, is uniform; but such observation reaches only to a small segment of the whole. Further, the causal force is never open to sense-perception, and an event which might seem to arise from natural forces might in fact arise from the supernatural agency of God. He could so alter the meteorological conditions in a given place that a storm should quickly replace the calm. In such a case there would appear only the signs of natural force, but the affirmation of unvaried uniformity would be false to the deepest truth. It might be assumed that the forces of nature are always uniform in their own working, but an unvaried uniformity would not follow. For such a consequence it would still be necessary to prove that they are the only forces operative in nature. Of this there is no proof. The agency of mind is conclusive of the contrary. Mind is an agency above that order of forces of which uniformity is alleged, and often so modifies their working as to vary their results. So, there may be, and there is, a divine mind operative within the realm of nature, and in a manner to modify the results of mere natural force.

^[346]Jevons:Principles of Science, pp. 149-152, 765. This objection advances beyond the previous ground, and denies the possibility of a supernatural providence. The position would be valid upon the ground of both materialism and pantheism; but neither of these theories is verified, and so far the position is groundless. As previously pointed out, personal mind acting under a law of freedom is an agency above the forces of nature, and, in distinction from them, strictly supernatural.^[347] This is the disproof of an absolute naturalism. The only ground of such a naturalism is atheism; but atheism is not proved. If there be a personal God, a supernatural providence is surely possible. So plain a truth must be clear to all minds with sufficient intelligence to understand the proposition. John Stuart Mill deserved no praise, though he has been praised, for saying that 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.

^[347]Bushnell: Nature and the Supernatural, chap. ii.

It is objected to a supernatural providence that it must prove itself a disorderly and disruptive agency within the order of nature. “Without a disturbance of natural law, quite as serious as the stoppage of an eclipse, or the rolling of the St. Lawrence up the Falls of Niagara, no act of humiliation, individual or national, could call one shower from heaven, or deflect toward us a single beam of the sun.” “Assuming the efficacy of free prayer to produce changes in external nature, it necessarily follows that natural laws are more or less at the mercy of man’s volition, and no conclusion founded on the assumed permanence of those laws would be worthy of confidence.”^[348] These statements are without logical warrant, and are plausible only through exaggeration and distortion. The efficacy of prayer does not subject the course of nature to the caprice of men. Nor is the agency of providence subversive of the order of nature. Representations more false to the sense of a supernatural providence are scarcely possible.

^[348]Tyndall:Fragments of Science, pp. 361, 362. A supernatural providence is the agency of God within the realm of his own works. The laws of nature are his own ordination. His supernatural agency is not the disruption of nature, not a suspension of the laws of nature, but an interposition which in particular instances produces new results. By new adjustments and combinations within the sphere of nature we often modify the results, and without any violence or disorder. The mechanist so constructs his machinery that its movement may be adjusted to changing conditions. Its higher perfection appears in this fact. There is no disorder in the varied movement. We should not think less of the wisdom of God in the constitution and government of nature. As a chemist may vary results by new combinations, or an engineer hasten or slacken the speed of his train, or a father recast the thought and impulse of his child, so may God interpose the agency of a supernatural providence within the realm of his own creation and government. The miracles of Scripture, just as they stand in the several narratives, involve no disruption of the constitution of nature. A mighty rain in answer to the prayer of Elijah is phenomenally the same as if arising in the regular course of nature, and just as free from violence or disorder. God could so change the local conditions of the atmosphere without any change of the laws of nature. Suppose it true that through his immediate agency an ax-head rose from the bottom of the Jordan to the surface of the water: the fact involved no violence or disruption of nature. The law of gravitation was not suspended. The river did not take to the hills. No mountain trembled or toppled. Iron ores remained quiet in their beds. There was no reeling of the earth nor falling of the stars. Suppose Elisha had recovered the ax-head with a grapple: even more gently and orderly did the agency of God lift it to the surface of the water. The word of Christ which calms the storm and the sea is no more a disorderly agency than the oil which quiets the beating waves. Dietetics remain the same after the miraculous feeding of thousands with a few loaves and fishes. The common laws of life and death are the same after the resurrection of Lazarus as before it, yea, the very same in the instant of his reviviscence. The violence and disruption of a supernatural providence are the picturings of a distorted imagination, and no part of the reality. Nature remains the same for science and all the practical interests of life.

Mind is the chief sphere of a supernatural providence; and there is here the same absence of disorder. The divine agency acts upon individual minds, and in a manner accordant with the laws of mental action. Personal agency and moral freedom remain complete. It is often the case that one man influences the thought and feeling of another, and thus indirectly influences his action. In like manner the teacher influences the pupil, the parent the child. Here indeed is a law of great potency in human life; but so far as it operates in accordance with the laws of personal agency it is free from all violence. By an immediate agency operative within the mind God can move man’s thoughts and feelings in like accordance with his mental constitution and personal agency, yet so as to induce new forms of action. So orderly is this agency of providence within the realm of mind. The facts of a supernatural providence differ from miracles in their office, and therefore in respect to manifestation. It is the special function of the latter to accredit God’s messengers of truth; therefore they must be open to sense-perception. The former, while no less supernatural, have no such special mission, and therefore require no such manifestation. In accordance with this fact the end of a supernatural providence may often be reached as readily through the laws of mind as through the forces of nature. Hence, if it could be determined that events which have answered great ends were purely natural within the physical realm, it would not follow that there was no supernatural agency connected with them. Were the timely storms which destroyed the invincible Armada the immediate work of God? Whether such or not, a true faith sees the hand of God in the great event. There was a simpler and more rational mode of the divine agency than in the origination of these storms for the hour; and the recognition of such an alternative would have been quite as creditable to Macaulay as his rather flippant criticism of the popular judgment in the case.^[349] Just when the Armada should reach the place of its disaster was not the determination of natural law. In the contingency of human agency its arrival might have been earlier or later. How easy for the divine agency, acting upon a few minds, or even upon one controlling mind, to hasten or delay the sailing, so that the fleet intended for the destruction of England should encounter the whelming storms which arose purely in the order of nature I Surely the profound interests contingent upon the result justify the faith in such a providence. In a few questions Pope embodies the objections, whether on philosophic or scientific grounds, to a supernatural providence. ^[350] Shall God reverse his laws for his favorites? Shall gravitation cease when one may be passing a mountain just ready to fall? The only apparent force of these questions is in the false assumption that physical nature is the exclusive sphere of a supernatural providence. Then this false assumption is infinitely exaggerated in the view that such an interposition of providence must be only through a universal suspension of some law of nature. We have previously shown the falsity of this view. A man stays a falling rock till his imperiled friend escapes; but surely he does not repeal the law of gravitation. It suffices that, for the time, he counterworks its force in the impending rock. What man so does God may do. But, as previously pointed out, there is still a simpler mode of the divine agency in any such case. God can accomplish his pleasure through the laws of mind.^{[351] [349]} History of England, chap. ix.

^[350]Essay on Man.

^[351]McCosh:The Divine Government, pp. 182, 183. The question of so much evil in human life must arise in connection with several points in the course of theological discussion. Only a theodicy could fully dispose of its perplexities. That there is a theodicy we have no doubt; but we are quite as sure that for us it is an impossible attainment. While righteousness and judgment are the habitation of God’s throne, clouds and darkness are round about him (Psalms 97:2). With these facts before us, a few words may here suffice.

There is no solution of the question in the principle of Optimism—that the universe, and therefore the world as a part of it, is the best that could be created. The principle must be a deduction from the absolute righteousness of God as its only possible ground. The issue is thus closed against all objections arising from the magnitude of evil, but only by the assumption of the righteousness against which they are urged. There is no light for our understanding in such dialectics. For such illumination we would require not only the primary truth of an absolute divine righteousness, but also a comprehension of the present world as the best possible. We have no such power; and any attempt to solve the perplexities of sin and suffering in such a mode is but a vain endeavor. It is far better not to attempt the impossible. For our understanding, human ills do perplex the question of a supernatural providence. The righteousness of God, clearly manifest despite these ills, is the vindication of his providence for our faith. This is the utmost attainment for the present life.

Life is a moral probation. This is the paramount fact of our present existence, the fact in which our deepest interests center. The ministries of a supernatural providence must be in adjustment to such a probation. It does not follow that freedom from all present evil is a requirement of its offices. Sin is a possibility of such probation, and has become actual. This is the source of human ills. With the fact of sin and its attendant ills, our moral probation still remains, with its profound contingencies. Providence must deal with us in view of all these facts. Our highest good must be its aim. What shall be its method? We dare not say that its wisest method is in the prevention of all present suffering, or in its reduction to the smallest possible measure. Our moral interests are paramount; and it may be the case, and no doubt is, that the wiser method of providence in their favor is in the permission and use of present suffering. What seems to us an evil may be a good. We rashly assume a knowledge of what would be the wisest ministries of providence, and thus involve ourselves in perplexity and doubt. A little child knows not its own interests, and therefore knows not the wisest parental treatment. No more can we know what measures and ministries of providence shall best accord with its wisdom. With the deepest mystery of suffering, what would be gained by the denial of a supernatural providence? The denial would not lessen the ills of life, but would deprive us of the divinest inspiration of trust and patience and hope. God would no longer be for the soul an assured “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1). From the persuasion of a supernatural providence springs the heroism of faith. With this truth, Paul could say, even in the deepest trouble, and with the profoundest sense of security, “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12); and Job could say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15). If we read with the Revised Version, “Yet will I wait for him,” the sense appears little changed, especially in view of the context. Such a faith is the strength of the soul, and the formative power of the noblest life. The ills of life, however, are not all in utter darkness. When punitive they have an explanation in the demerit of sin, and no ground of complaint remains. Often afflictions have a disciplinary office, and are ministries of love. We need their correcting and restraining force, and are the better for their patient endurance. Thus the chastenings of the heavenly Father proceed from his love, with the aim of our highest good. Though for the present grievous, and not Joyous, they are fruitful of righteousness (Hebrews 12:5-11). This whole lesson on the ministry of suffering is replete with the deepest truth. If such afflictions fail of their proper results, the fault is our own. We may pervert them just as we may pervert the most direct blessings of life. It suffices for the vindication of providence, that they are wisely and graciously intended as the means of our greatest good. When rightly endured their fruitage is in blessedness. “Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11). In the instances of Abraham, and Joseph, and Moses, and Daniel, and Paul, life is tested in the furnace of affliction, and the gold is only the purer for the trial. In addition to their own personal good, how valuable the lesson of their patience and piety! That lesson has been the inspiration of many a true soul. Nor have all the passing centuries exhausted its helpful influence. It is still working for good, and will continue so to work through all the coming centuries. For Christian thought the truth of a supernatural providence stands in the clear light of the cross. This is the great fact of such a providence in behalf of the world and the interests of moral government. It is the crowning fact of blessing through suffering; of blessing for the many through the suffering of the One. It is replete and radiant with the divine wisdom and love. In it center the divinest moral truths. There is no murmur upon the lips of Christ, as against a dark and afflictive providence, that he should so suffer for the good of others. In the presence of the cross there should be with us no murmurings against the ills of life, no doubt of a good providence over us, but patience and faith, and the inspiration of the truest, best life.

General reference.—Sherlock: On Providence; Young: The Providence of God Displayed; Flavel: Divine Conduct, or the Mystery of Providence; Croly: Divine Providence; Pilkington: Doctrine of Providence; Proclus: Essay on Providence; Wood: Works, lects. xlii-xlv; Hodge: Systematic Theology, vol. i, part i, chap, xi; Knapp: Christian Theology, secs. 67-73; McCosh: The Divine Government, book ii; Dorner:System of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii, pp. 44-62; Shedd: Dogmatic Theology, Theology, chap, viii; Van Oosterzee: Christian Dogmatics, secs, lix-lxiv; Smith: System of Christian Theology, pp. 103-114; Strong: Systematic Theology, pp. 202-220.