Which of the views respecting divine providence that have been stated has the best practical tendency, seems hardly to admit of doubt. If we believe that God has submitted the direction and government of this world to a subordinate agent, a plastic nature; or if we suppose he has impressed matter and mind with certain general laws, which have the power of executing themselves without his agency, and especially if in their operation they do sometimes actually clash with one another, or even if those laws extend to every movement of matter and mind,—still, if they do not require divine efficiency, men cannot but feel that God is removed from his works, and that the laws of nature, and not his agency, are their security. But if they believe that every movement of matter or mind requires a direct exercise of divine power or efficiency, just as much as if every event was a miracle, it cannot but bring God near to us, and make us realize his presence.
If we obtain a timepiece from London or Paris, which contains all the springs and wheels requisite to keep it in operation, by occasionally winding it up, how little do we think of the artist who constructed it, except, perhaps, occasionally to admire his ingenuity! But if it had been necessary for that artist to accompany the chronometer, and actually to put forth the strength of his own arm every moment to keep it in motion, how much more should we think of him and realize his presence! The same effect, in a greater or less degree, will attend the belief that God must be not only virtually, but substantially, present every where, and be constantly exercising his power to keep in operation the vast machine of the universe. It cannot but deeply impress the heart, and exert a most salutary influence upon the affections, to realize that every event around us is brought about by the immediate agency of the supreme Being.
But notwithstanding the salutary influence of this view of Providence upon our moral feelings, and though philosophy pronounces it decidedly the most reasonable, still it meets with strong opposition. I need not stop to notice the objections, that it makes God the author of evil as well as good, and that it represents man as a mere machine in the hands of the Deity, and therefore takes away human responsibility. I say I need not stop to answer such objections, because they lie equally strong against any system which makes God the original author of the universe. But a more plausible objection is, that it makes all events miraculous. This objection is based on the supposition that every event which takes place through the direct and immediate agency of God is a miracle. But is this the true meaning of a miracle? Is the term ever applied to any but extraordinary events? It may or it may not imply a contravention of the laws of nature. But it does always imply something which the laws of nature cannot produce, and which, of course, they cannot explain. It is always the result of some new force coming in to the aid of the laws of nature, or in the place of them, or even sometimes, perhaps, in opposition to them; as when the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. Hence an event may take place through the direct and immediate agency of God, and yet not be a miracle. If it be neither above, nor independent of, nor in opposition to the laws of nature, then it forms a part of the ordinary providence of God; it is a part of the usual, the fixed and uniform course of nature, and can be explained by known and unalterable laws. The nature of the event is not affected at all by the question whether it is produced by the direct efficiency of God, or by a power inherent in those laws. We, who believe that the direct efficiency of God is necessary to the operation, and even to the existence, of the laws of nature, are just as firm believers in the constancy of those laws as he who supposes them possessed of inherent powers. When that constancy is interrupted in any way, we call it a miracle. Hence it appears that our views of the nature of a miracle are the same as his, viz., an event which takes place out of the ordinary course of nature; and, therefore, our system is no more liable to the objection that all events are made miracles than his system.
The way is now prepared for inquiring what geology teaches respecting the ordinary and extraordinary providence of God over this world.
The evidences of ordinary providence, which are common to geology and other sources of proof, I shall pass by; both because they are familiar to all, and because I have, in a former lecture, shown the existence and operation of the present laws of nature in all past ages. But there is one feature of the past condition of the world taught by geology to which I would call your attention, as exhibiting a more impressive view of the wisdom and skill of ordinary providence than almost any other department of nature presents. When the heavenly bodies are once put under the control of the two great forces that guide them, viz., the centrifugal and centripetal, we see no reason why they may not move on forever in their accustomed paths. But the two great agents of geological change, fire and water, have an aspect of great irregularity and violence, and are apparently less under the control of mathematical laws. In the mighty intensity of their action in early times, we can hardly see how there could have been much of security or permanence in the state of the globe, without the constant restraining energy of Jehovah. We feel as if the earth’s crust must have been constantly liable to be torn in pieces by volcanic fires, or drenched by sweeping deluges. And yet the various economies of life on the globe, that have preceded the present, have all been seasons of profound repose and uniformity. The truth is, these mighty agencies have been just as much under the divine control as those which regulate the heavenly bodies; and I doubt not but the laws that regulate their action are as fixed and mathematical as those which guide the sun, moon, and planets. Still, it must have required infinite wisdom and power so to arrange the agencies of nature that the desolating action of fire and water should take place only at those epochs when every thing was in readiness for the ruin of an old economy and the introduction of a new one. Geological agencies differ from astronomical in this—that the former must be allowed an irregular action within certain limits; whereas the latter act with unvarying uniformity in all circumstances. If the former had not some room for irregular action, they would not act at all; but if allowed too much liberty, they will destroy what they were intended to preserve. And God does restrain, and always has restrained them, just at the point where desolation would be the result of their more powerful operation. I do not, indeed, contend that it requires more power or wisdom to bind those mighty agencies within proper limits than to control the heavenly bodies. But to our limited faculties it certainly seems a more difficult work; and, therefore, the geological history of the globe gives us a more impressive idea of the ordinary providence of God than we see in the calm and uniform movements of nature around us.
In the second place, geology furnishes us with some very striking examples of miraculous providence.
In disproving the eternity of the organic world, in a former lecture, I adduced and illustrated these examples so fully, that I shall do little more in this place than give a recapitulation of that argument.
If we suppose the earth originally to have been merely a diffused mass of vapor, like comets, or nebulæ, I can conceive how, by the operation of such natural laws as now exist, it might have been condensed into a solid globe; into a melted state, indeed, from the amount of heat extricated in the condensation. Those same laws might subsequently form over the molten mass a solid crust, which, at length, might be ridged and furrowed by the action of internal heat, so as to form the basis of continents and the beds of oceans. In due time, the vapors might condense, so as to fill those basins with water; and, by the mutual and alternate action of the waters above and the heat beneath, the rocks might be comminuted, so as to form the basis of soils. So far might the arrangements of the world have proceeded by natural laws; in other words, by the ordinary providence of God. But at this point we must bring in an extraordinary agency of the Deity, or the world would have remained, in the expressive language of revelation, without form and void; that is, invisible and unfurnished. You have, indeed, the framework of a world, but the most difficult and complicated part of the work, the creation of plants and animals, remains yet to be performed. Here, then, is the precise point where you must call in the miraculous agency of the Deity, or the earth would forever remain an uninhabited waste. For if it does not require miraculous agency to bring into existence animals and plants, I know not what can require it, or prove its operation. I can almost as easily conceive how matter might spring from nothing fortuitously, certainly I can as easily conceive of its eternity, as that organism and life can result from the ordinary laws of nature.
It may be, however, that I shall here be met by the statement, that some distinguished geologists maintain the probable existence of organized beings on the globe at an indefinitely earlier period than that in which their remains first appear in the rocks. They contend that the extreme heat which has melted the older rocks has obliterated all traces of organic existence below a certain line. Now, in order to meet this difficulty, it is not necessary to show this opinion to be erroneous. We have only to advance another step in our general argument, which brings us upon ground admitted to be good by the geologists above alluded to. They all of them believe that many new animals and plants have from time to time appeared on the globe; that, in fact, there have been several almost entire changes in its inhabitants. Most of them suppose these new races to have been introduced in large numbers at particular epochs, though some prefer the theory which supposes the new species to have been introduced one by one, as the old ones became extinct. But even this supposition does not essentially affect my argument; because they all allow that these successive species were really new, and could not have been the result of any metamorphosis of the old species. And it is the fact that new organic beings have, from time to time, been created, that is alone essential to my argument. Whether they were created by groups or singly, is an interesting geological question; but, in either case, miraculous power must have been put forth as really and as efficiently to call into existence a single new species of animalcula, or sea-weed, as to introduce an entirely new race. The successive economies of organic life that have existed on the earth, and passed from it, do most unequivocally demonstrate the extraordinary or miraculous providence of God.
But we might abandon even this strong ground of our argument, and still geology would afford us a most unequivocal example of the creative agency of the Deity. That science shows, beyond all question, that man, and most of his contemporary races of animals and plants, have not always occupied this globe; and, indeed, that they were not placed upon it till nearly every form buried in the rocks had passed away. And since those races which now inhabit the globe have among them a larger proportion of highly organized and more complicated species than have ever before been contemporaries,—especially since man is among them, confessedly the most perfect in organization and in intellect of all the beings that ever occupied this planet,—we can here point to the highest exercise of creative power ever exhibited in this lower world, as a certain memento of God’s extraordinary or miraculous providence. Indeed, who, that has any adequate idea of the wonders of man’s intellectual, moral, and immortal nature, and of the strange extremes that meet and harmonize in his physical and intellectual constitution, will believe that any loftier miracle has ever been exhibited on this globe than his creation?