A most important application of these principles may be made to the subject of prayer. For in answering prayer, God is, in fact, merely executing some of the purposes of his special providence; and it is gratifying to the pious heart to see how he can give an answer to the humblest petitioner. No matter though all the laws of nature seem in the way of an answer,—God can so modify their action as to conform them to the case of every petitioner. War, famine, and pestilence may all be upon us, yet humble prayer may turn them all aside, and every other physical evil; and that without a miracle, if best for us and for the universe. Tell a man that the only effect of prayer is its reflex influence upon himself, in leading him to conform more strictly to nature’s laws, and you send a paralysis and a death chill into all his moral sensibilities. Indeed, he cannot pray; but tell him that God will be influenced, as is any earthly friend, by his supplications, and his heart beats full and strong, the current of life goes bounding through his whole system, the glow of health mantles his cheek, and all his senses are roused into intense and delightful action.
The sad influence of a perversion and misunderstanding of the doctrine of nature’s constancy upon the youthful mind is well exhibited by a late able writer. “Early trained to it under the domestic roof,” says M’Cosh, “the person regularly engaged in prayer during childhood and opening manhood. But as he became introduced to general society, and began to feel his independence of the guardians of his youth, he was tempted to look upon the father’s commands, in this respect, as proceeding from sourness and sternness, and the mother’s advice as originating in an amiable weakness and timidity. He is now careless in the performance of acts which in time past had been punctually attended to. How short, how hurried, how cold are the prayers which he now utters! Then there come to be mornings on which he is snatched away to some very important or enticing work without engaging in his customary devotions. There are evenings, too, following days of mad excitement or sinful pleasure, in which he feels utterly indisposed to go into the presence of God, and to be left alone with him. He feels that there is an utter incongruity between the ball-room, or the theatre, which he has just left, and the throne of grace, to which he should now go. What can he say to God, when he would pray to him? Confess his sins? No; he does not at present feel the act to be sinful. Thank God for giving him access to such follies? He has his doubts whether God approves of all that has been done. But he may ask God’s blessing? No; he is scarcely disposed to acknowledge that he needs a blessing, or he doubts whether the blessing would be given. The practical conclusion to which he comes is, that it may be as consistent in him to betake himself to sleep without offering to God what he feels would only be a mockery. What is he to do the following morning? It is a critical time. Confess his error? No; cherishing as he does the recollection of the gay scene in which he mingled, and with the taste and relish of it yet upon his palate, he is not prepared to acknowledge his folly. Morning and evening now go and return, and bring new gifts from God, and new manifestations of his goodness; but no acknowledgment of the divine bounty on the part of him who is yet ever receiving it. No doubt there are times when he is prompted to prayer by powerful feelings, called up by outward trials or inward convictions; but ever when the storms of human life would drive him to the shore, there is a tide beating him back. His course continues to be a very vacillating one—now seeming to approach to God, and anon driven farther from him, till he obtains from books, or from lectures, a smattering of half-understood science. He now learns that all things are governed by laws, regular and fixed, over which the breath of prayer can exert as little influence, as they move on in their allotted course, as the passing breeze of the earth over the sun in his circuit. False philosophy has now come to the aid of guilty feelings, and hardens their cold waters into an icicle lying at his very heart, cooling all his ardor, and damping all his enthusiasm. He looks back, at times, no doubt, to the simple faith of his childhood with a sigh; but it is as to a pleasing dream, or illusion, from which he has been awakened, and into which, the spell being broken, he can never again fall.”—Method of the Divine Government, p. 224.
O, what a change would this world exhibit, were the whole Christian church to exercise full faith in God’s ability to answer prayer without a miracle, only to the extent pointed out by philosophy, to say nothing of the Bible; for, in fact, a large proportion of that church, confounded by the specious argument derived from nature’s constancy, have virtually yielded this most important principle to the demands of scepticism. When natural evils, such as war, famine, drought, and pestilence, came upon our forefathers, they, taking the Bible for their guide, observed days of fasting and prayer for their removal. But how seldom do their descendants follow their example! And yet even physical science testifies that the fathers acted in conformity to the true principles of philosophy. Would that the Christian church would consent to be led back to the Bible doctrine on this subject by philosophy.
That same philosophy, also, should lead the good man, when struggling through difficulties, to exercise unshaken confidence in the divine protection, even though all nature’s laws seem arrayed against him; for at the unseen touch of God’s efficiency, the iron bars of law shall melt away like wax, and deliverance be given in the midst of appalling dangers, if best for the man and for the universe; and if not best, he will not desire it.
Science, too, bids the wicked man not to fancy that the constancy of nature will shield him from the infliction of merited and special punishment, should God choose to make bare the rod of his justice; for the blow may come as certainly in the course of nature as against it.
Let modern Christian theology, then, receive meekly the rebuke administered on this important point by physical science. For how lame and halting a defence of the Scripture doctrine of special providence and prayer has that theology been able to make! How few of our systems of theology contain a manful vindication of truths so important! Let not the Christian divine, therefore, refuse the aid thus offered by physical science. Let him no longer indulge groundless jealousies against true philosophy, as if adverse to religion. Especially let him not spurn the aid of geology, which alone, of all the sciences, discloses stupendous miracles of creation in early times, and thus removes all presumption against the miracles of Christianity and special providence at any time.
It is, indeed, an instructive fact, that a science which has been thought so full of danger to Christianity should thus early be found vindicating some of the most peculiar and long-contested doctrines of revelation. And yet it ought not to surprise us, for geology is as really the work of God as revelation. And though, when ill understood and perverted, she may have seemed recreant to her celestial origin, yet the more fully her proportions are developed, and her features brought into daylight, the more clearly do we recognize her alliance to every thing pure and noble in the universe. “And surely,” says a late writer, “it must be gratifying thus to see a science, formerly classed, and not perhaps unjustly, amongst the most pernicious to faith, once more become her handmaid; to see her now, after so many years of wandering from theory to theory, or rather from vision to vision, return once more to the home where she was born, and to the altar at which she made her first simple offerings; no longer, as she first went forth, a wilful, dreamy, empty-handed child, but with a matronly dignity, and a priest-like step, and a bosom full of well-earned gifts, to pile upon its sacred hearth. For it was religion which gave geology birth, and to the sanctuary she hath once more returned.”—Wiseman’s Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion, p. 192, Am. ed.