1. That ideal must be the same for the race as for the individual, the same for the nation as for the man. For, on the one hand, society exists for the sake of the individual, and it is only in society that individual existences can be preserved, developed, and perfected; on the other hand, national character is but the expression of the collective or average character of the individual citizens.
In seeking for the ideal of individual perfection, we must take account of all the capacities, powers, and relations of man. We must have in view, not simply his physical and intellectual, but also his moral and religious nature. We must think of the relation in which he stands to his fellow-beings and to his God, as well as the relation in which he stands to himself—that is, to the liberty and intelligence which are in him, and which he must develop. Now no man can be said to be complete, to be perfect, no man can be said to have reached his τέλος, or end, until he has developed in his thought and realized in his life the idea of the useful, the true, the just, the good, the pure, the Divine. Loyalty to God and the truth, justice and charity toward men, self-control and purity of mind, intellectual discipline and cultivated taste—these are the characteristics of the perfect man. Judged from the Christian stand-point, he is the perfect man who has attained to that ideal of moral and spiritual excellence which was exhibited in the human life of Christ, that grand embodiment of all that is "pure and true and just and lovely and of good report." The realization of this ideal in the collective life of humanity must be the goal of history.
2. Further light is shed upon this problem by the consideration of the Christian idea of God. The gravitating point of Christian theology is found in the Divine declaration, "God is Love" (1 John iv. 8, 16). This is the most fundamental revelation of the Divine nature, so that nothing can pertain to his perfections or his works which is not ultimately resolvable into love. "If ever the idea of Divine justice shall obtain consistency [in our systems of theology], it must be in general through the relation of infinite holy love to the spontaneous and self-determining capacity of the personal being, or the relation of Divine perfection to the existence of the economy in the universe."[362] The fact that God creates worlds and gives birth to personal existences is not grounded in his omnipotence, but in his love. Divine love is the determinative principle of Divine efficiency—the final cause or ultimate reason of all existence. Creation must therefore be conceived as the free self-communication of God, who is Himself eternally self-complete and self-sufficient, but who, from love alone, wills that other intelligences shall have existence who can "know God," and in fellowship with Him attain that fullness and fruition of being which is called "Eternal Life."[363] If, then, the Divine mind has always had this end in view—the perfection and blessedness of personal being in fellowship with Himself—it must be regarded by us as the consummation toward which his providence is leading humanity.
3. The explicit declarations of Scripture are in perfect accord with these inferences drawn from the nature of man and the idea of God. We learn from the words of St. Paul that the aim of Divine providence is to lead the race to the practical recognition of the personal dignity of man as "the offspring of God;" to the practical recognition of the universal brotherhood of man, as "of one blood," with equal rights to place, provision, and free self-development in "every part of the earth;" finally, to the practical recognition of our relation to God as his dependent creatures, in fellowship with whom we have eternal life.[364] God's great end in the whole course and discipline of providence is to unite all men in bonds of mutual affection and aid, and to unite the race to Himself in bonds of loyalty and love. Then "whatsoever things are true and pure and honest and lovely and of good report" will be revered and practiced among the nations of the earth.
These views of Divine providence can scarcely be said to have had any place or any recognition in the ancient schools of philosophy. The Stoics taught that an invincible necessity rules in the realm of history as well as in the field of nature, to which God and man are equally subject. "God is the reason of the world (τοῦ παντὸς τοῦ λόγου); the laws of the world are as necessary as the laws of eternal reason. This necessity is at once fate (εἱμαρμένη), and the providence (πρόνοια) which governs all things."[365] The Epicureans reduced all existence to the plane of mere physical nature, and represented humanity as a development from the lower forms of life by the agency of blind, unconscious force. If they recognized the existence of any god or gods, they removed them far away from all intercourse with humanity, and all supervision of or concern in human affairs. "They admitted their existence in words," says Cicero, "but denied it in act." These two forms of error are combined by the modern deniers of providence. Human society, languages, laws, institutions, arts, sciences, are all the products of matter and force. The succession of events, the progress of civilization, and the religious phenomena of the world, have not been determined by an intelligent Will, or presided over by a conscious Personality. In the last analysis, matter is resolved into a function of force, and a process of necessary evolution, which has no design and no final purpose, is substituted for Divine providence. The ultimate destination of the world and humanity is unknown, or, if conjecture is permissible, is chaos and death.
In opposition to these cold and cheerless speculations Christianity affirms the doctrine of Divine providence in human history.[366]
By Providence we understand intelligent forethought and timely provision for all contingencies. The term supposes a precognized plan, a constant supervision of its development, and the control and subordination of all finite powers and agencies in order to its completion. From nature, strictly considered as the empire of mechanical necessity, nothing can proceed but that which is posited in it by the immediate act of God; and consequently, considered apart from man, there can be no contingency, and, properly speaking, no providence in this sphere. The existence of mere nature, however, can not be regarded as an end in itself. The whole interest and significance of nature is found in the conception that it exists as a means for a higher end. As matter is simply the condition for the manifestation of force, as the physical forces are subordinated to the vital force, and the vital is subordinated to the mental, so is it a legitimate assumption, which we shall justify in the sequel, that all these are subordinated to the moral and spiritual. It is only in the sphere of spiritual being—that is, of self-conscious and self-determined being—and in the relation of nature to spiritual being, that contingency can arise and providence find place.
The uniform teaching of Scripture is that human history is the special field of Divine providence. In fact, the historic portions of the Bible are nothing else than a record of the control and direction and subordination of human agencies, and of external physical conditions in their relation to personal beings, by the hand of God. This primitive revelation throws light upon the cradle of human civilization. It points to a period when man, at his departure from the hand of God, received those intellectual, moral, and spiritual endowments which raise him in the scale of being immeasurably above the animal creation, and fit him for a progress, a development to which no conceivable limits can be assigned.[367] The Bible is the history of Divine providence from that signal commencement to the planting of the Christian Church, where we can clearly see all the lines along which the race advanced, converging upon "the Kingdom of God." It is a history of Divine interposition in human affairs, and of supernatural guidance toward a higher development and a nobler destiny. Indeed, to the eye of the observant and conscientious student of all history, whether secular or ecclesiastical, there are undeniable evidences of the presence of Intelligence, disposing and collocating the conditions of human progress, and directing humanity toward a nobler civilization.
Considering the earth in its relation to man, we must recognize the providence of God in the physical universe. The earth was unquestionably made for man. It was created, and has been especially adapted to be the theatre of human history. This is the doctrine of Scripture (Gen. i. 28-31; Psa. cxv. 16)—I believe it is also the doctrine of science. The geological changes through which the earth has passed indicate "a process of preparation" for the inhabitation of man. This process of preparation is fully recognized by Agassiz. "There has been," he says, "a manifest progress in the succession of beings on the surface of the globe. This progress consists in an increasing similarity to the living fauna, and, among the vertebrates especially, in the increasing resemblance to man. But this connection is not the consequence of a direct lineage between the faunas of different ages. The fishes of the Palæozoic are in no respect the ancestors of the reptiles of the Secondary age, nor does man descend from the mammals of the Tertiary age. The link by which they are connected is of an immaterial nature, and their connection is to be sought in the thought of the Creator Himself, whose aim in forming the earth, in allowing it to pass through the successive changes which Geology has pointed out, and in creating successively all the different types of animals which have passed away, was to introduce man upon the surface of the globe. Man is the end toward which all the animal creation has tended."[368] The language of Prof. Owen is equally explicit: "The recognition of an ideal exemplar in the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a being as man existed before man appeared; for the Divine Mind which planned the archetype also foresaw all its modifications. The archetype idea was manifested in the flesh long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it."[369] "Of the nature of the creative acts by which the successive races of animals were called into being, we are ignorant. But this we know, that as the evidence of unity of plan testifies to the oneness of the Creator, so the modifications of the plan for different modes of existence illustrate the benevolence of the Designer. Those structures, moreover, which are at present incomprehensible as adaptations to a special end, are made comprehensible on a higher principle, and a final purpose is gained in relation to human intelligence."[370] That these views are still held by Prof. Owen is evident from his remarks in the fortieth chapter of his "Anatomy of the Vertebrates:" "Of all the quadrupedal servants of man, none have proved of more value to him, in peace or war, than the horse; none have co-operated with the advanced races more influentially in man's destined mastery over the earth and its lower denizens.... I believe the horse to have been predestinated and prepared for man. It may be a weakness; but, if so, it is a glorious one, to discern, however dimly, across our finite prison-wall, evidence of 'the Divinity that shapes our ends,' abuse the means as we may."[371]
Long before the appearance of man upon the earth, the providence of God laid up in its strata those vast treasures of granite, sandstone, lime, marble, coal, salt, petroleum, and the various metals, the product of a long succession of ages and revolutions, thus making an inexhaustible provision for the necessities of man, and furnishing ample resources for the development of his genius and skill.[372] In the vegetable life which appeared on the globe immediately prior to and contemporaneous with the advent of man, we can recognize a providential arrangement made for man. In the flora of the Palæozoic and Secondary periods we can not fail to observe the absence of all those plants which are adapted for human food. Even in the Tertiary epoch, which immediately precedes the Adamic or human period, so far as Geology reveals, there were few or no plants yielding the appropriate supplies for the sustentation of man. There are few indications of any of those vegetables from which man may derive food and valuable fibre, and, in a word, of species which support and clothe by far the larger portion of the human race. "Scarcely any grasses appear in the list of extinct vegetation, and there is reason to believe that the principal cereals which are characteristic of the human period—as barley, wheat, oats, rye, millet, Indian corn, and rice"—had no existence.[373] When the fullness of time was come, and all things were ready for the reception of man, then God called him into being, and invested him with dominion over nature.