As to the first objection, that the minutiae of the creation are so multifarious as to confuse the mind of God, we are content to let it refute itself in every mind which has any just sense of divine knowledge and wisdom. The second objection, that some things are beneath God's notice, if it be not a captious cavil, must result from pushing too far the analogy between earthly kings and the King of kings. It is an imperfection in human potentates that they need vicegerents; let us not then attribute such a weakness to God, fancying him altogether such a one as ourselves. Again, it is to this day doubtful whether the microscope does not display the divine perfections as illustriously as the telescope; there is therefore no reason to deny a providence over animalcula which we admit over the constellated heavens. What is it that we dare call insignificant? The least of all things may be as a seed cast in to the seed-field of time, to grow there and bear fruit, which shall be multiplying when time shall be no more. We cannot always trace the connections of things. We do not ponder those we can trace: or we should tremble to call anything beneath the notice of God. It has been eloquently said that where we see a trifle hovering unconnected in space, higher spirit can discern its fibres stretching through the whole expanse of the system of the world, and hanging on the remotest limits of the future and the past. In reference to the third and fourth objections before mentioned, namely, that an all-embracing providence is incompatible with divine justice and human freedom, it should be considered that, in contemplating God's Providence, the question will often arise, why was mortal evil allowed to exist? But as these questions meet us at every turn, and, under different forms, may be termed the one and the only difficulty in theology, it is already considered in the previous chapter of this work, and may therefore require the less notice in the present article. We should in all humility preface whatever we say on the permission of evil (such as, mysticism, in religious bodies) with a confession that it is an inscrutable mystery, which our faith receives, but which our reason could not prove either to be or not to be demanded by the perfection of God. But, in addition to the vindication of God's ways which may be found in the over-ruling of evil for good, the following theories deserve notice:—
1. Occasionalism, or the doctrine that God is the immediate cause of all men's actions. It is so called, because it maintains that men only furnish God an occasion for what he does. It degrades all second causes to mere occasions, and turns men into passive instruments.
2. Mechanism. Many, alarmed at the consequences which occasionalism would seem to involve, have embraced an opposite scheme. They criticise the definition of the laws of nature, and contend that occasionalism derives all its plausibility from adroitly availing itself of the ambiguities of language. They would have us view the creation as a species of clock, or other machinery, which, being once made and wound up, will for a time perform its movements without the assistance or even presence of its maker. But reasons press too far the analogy between the Creator and an artisan. So excellent a man as Baxter was misled by this hypothesis, which evidently is as derogatory to God as occasionalism is fatal to the moral agency of man.
3. The authors of the third scheme respecting the mode in which Providence permits sin sought to be "Eclectics" or to find a path intermediate between Mechanism and Occasionalism. In their judgment, man is actuated by God, and yet is at the same time active himself. God gives man the power of action, and preserves these powers every moment, but he is not the efficient cause of free actions themselves. This they say, is involved in the very idea of a moral being, which would cease to be moral if it were subjected to the control of necessity, and not suffered to choose and to do what it saw to be the best according to the laws of freedom. But it is asked, why did God create men free, and therefore fallible? It were presumption to think of answering this question adequately. It belongs to the deep things of God. But, among the possible reasons, we may mention, that if no fallible beings had been created, there could have been no virtue in the universe; for virtue implies probation, and probation a liability to temptation and sin. Again, if some beings had not become sinful, the most glorious attributes of God would never have been so fully exerted and displayed. How could His wisdom and mercy and grace have been adequately manifested, except by suffering a portion of His creatures to become such as to demand the exercise of those attributes? How else could He have wrought the miracle of educing good from evil? In this connection we may allude to the third chapter of Romans, where as in other passages, it is declared, that the good which evil may be over-ruled to produce, cannot palliate, much less excuse, the guilt of sinners, or of those who say, "Let us do evil that good may come."
Among the proofs of Divine Providence may be reckoned the following:—1. One argument in proof of Providence is analogous to one mode of proving a creation. If we cannot account for the existence of the world without supposing its coming into existence, or beginning to be; no more can we account for the world continuing to exist, without supposing it to be preserved; for it is as evidently absurd to suppose any creature prolonging as producing its own being. A second proof of Providence results from the admitted fact of creation. Whoever has made any piece of mechanism, therefore takes pains to preserve it.
Parental affection moves those who have given birth to children to provide for their sustenation and education. It is both reasonable and scriptural to contemplate God as sustaining the universe because He made it. Thus David, having promised that the world was made by God, immediately descends to the course of his Providence. (Ps. xxiii. 6.) The creation also evinces a Providence by proving God's right to rule, on the admitted principle that every one may do what he will with his own.
A third proof of Providence is found in the divine perfections. Since, among the divine perfections, are all power and all knowledge, the non-existence of Providence, if there be none, must result from a want of will in God. But no want of will to exercise a Providence can exist, for God wills whatever is for the good of the universe, and for His own glory; to either of which a Providence is clearly indispensable. God therefore has resolved to exercise His power and knowledge so as to subserve the best ends with His creation. "He that denies Providence," says Charnock, "denies most of God's attributes; he denies at least the exercise of them; he denies his omniscience, which is the eye of Providence; mercy and justice, which are the arms of it; power, which is its life and motion; wisdom, which is the rudder whereby Providence is steered; and holiness, which is the compass and rule of each motion." This argument for a Providence might be made much more impressive, did our limits allow us to expand it, so as to show, step by step how almost every attribute, if not directly, yet by implication, demands that God put forth an unceasing sovereignty over all His works.
A fourth proof of God's Providence appears in the order which prevails in the universe. We say the order which prevails, aware of the occasional apparent disorder that exists, which we have already noticed, and shall soon treat of again. That summer and winter, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, day and night, are fixed by law, was obvious even to man who never heard of God's covenant with Noah. Accordingly the ancient Greeks designated the creation by a word which means order (cosmos). But our sense of order is keenest where we discern it in apparent confusion. The motions of the heavenly bodies are eccentric and intervolved, yet are most regular when they seem most lawless. They were therefore compared by the earliest astronomers to the discords which blend in a harmony, and to the wild starts which often heighten the graces of a dance. Modern astronomy has revealed to us so much miraculous symmetry in celestial phenomena, that it shows us far more decisive proofs of a Ruler seated on the circles of the heavens, than were vouchsafed to the ancients. Moreover, many discover proofs of a Providence in such facts as the proportion between the two sexes, the diversities of the continents, as well as human nature and the nature of all things continuing always the same; since such facts show that all things are controlled by an unchanging power.
An objection to proofs of Providence, derived from the order of the universe, is thought to spring from the seeming disorders to which we cannot shut our eyes. Much is said of plagues and earthquakes, of drought, flood, frost and famine, with a thousand more natural evils. But it deserves consideration whether, if there were no Providence, these anomalies would not be the rule instead of the exception; whether they do not feelingly persuade us that that curse of nature is upheld by a power above nature, and without which it would fall to nothing; whether they may not be otherwise necessary for more important ends than fall within the scope of our knowledge.
