3d. His infinite goodness makes it certain that he would not leave his sensitive and intelligent creatures to the toils of a me- chanical, soulless fate ; nor his religious creatures to be divorced from himself, in whose communion their highest life consists.
4th. His infinite righteousness makes it certain that he will continue to govern and reward and punish those creatures which he has made subject to moral obligations.
6. State the argument from conscience.
Conscience essentially involves a sense of our direct moral responsibility to God as a moral governor, and this, together with a profound sense of dependence, constitutes that religious senti- ment which is common to all men. But if God be a moral gov-
ARGUMENT FROM INTELLIGENCE EVINCED IN NATURE. 207
ernor, he can execute that function in relation to a being consti- tuted of body and soul, and conditioned as man is in this world, in no other conceivable way than through a comprehensive provi- dence, at once spiritual and physical, general and particular.
7. State the argument from the intelligence evinced in the operations of nature.
The great inductive argument for the being of God is based upon the evident traces of design in the universe. Now, just as the traces of design in the constitution of nature proves the exist- ence of a designing mind in the relation of creator, so the traces of design in the operations of nature prove the existence of a de- signing mind in the relation of providential ruler.
The material elements, with their active properties, are all in- capable of design, yet we find all these elements so adjusted in all their proportions and relations as to work harmoniously in the order of certain general laws, and we find these general laws so adjusted in all their intricate coincidences and interferences, as, by movements simple and complex, fortuitous and regular, to work out harmoniously everywhere the most wisely and benefi- cently contrived results. The mechanical and chemical properties of material atoms ; the laws of vegetable and animal life ; the movements of sun, moon and stars in the heavens ; the luminous, calorific, and chemical radiance of the sun ; and the instinctive and voluntary movement of every living thing upon the face of the earth, are all mutually acting and reacting without concert or possible design of their own ; yet everywhere bringing forth the most wise and beneficent results. As the designing mind can not be found in any of the elements, nor in the resultant of all com- bined, it must be found in the presiding control of the Creator.
8. How may this doctrine be established by the evidence af- forded by the general history of the world ?
If the constitution of human nature (soul and body), in its elemental relations to human society, proves a designing mind in the relation of creator, exactly so must the wisely contrived results of human association, in general and in individual in- stances, prove the exercise of a designing mind in the relation of providential ruler.
208 PROVIDENCE.
Individual men and communities, it is true, differ in their ac- tion, from the elements of the external world, inasmuch as they act, 1st, freely, self-moved ; and, 2d, from design. Yet so nar- row is the sphere both of the foresight and the design of every individual agent, so great is the multiplicity of agents, and the complications of interacting influences upon each community from within, from every other community, and from the powers of external nature, that the designs of either individuals or com- munities are never carried beyond a short distance, when they are lost in the general current, the result of which lies equally beyond the foreknowledge and the control of all. But the student of his- tory, with the key of revelation, clearly discerns the traces of a general design running through all the grand procedures of human history, and at points even visibly linking itself with the actions of individual agents. God's providence, as a whole, therefore, comprehends and controls the little providences of men.
9. State the Scriptural argument from the prophecies, prom- ises, and threatenings of God.
In innumerable instances has God in the Scriptures prophesied with great particularity the certain occurrence of an event abso- lutely, and he has promised or threatened the occurrence of other events contingently upon certain conditions. This would be a mockery, if God did not use the means to fulfill his word.