any, of His hearers had any idea of the Kingdom of God as being such an order. On the other hand, however, they were familiar with many of the phenomena of constancy and regularity in the physical order of things. Therefore His object in calling the attention of His hearers to these piienomena was to lead their minds up from the things of sense to the things of faith, and thereby to convey to them the conception, and to awaken in them the conviction, that the things of the moral order of the world, like the order of things revealed to their sense-perception, were things that had real existence, things that were indeed founded in moral principles of absolute constancy and regu- larity, and things therefore to be relied upon with the utmost confidence. (5) These considerations, then, all imply that the physical order of things from which our Lord drew His comparisons must have been regarded by Him as a system of order, a system in which constancy, regularity, law reigns. The whole principle of comparison as thus ex- plained is applied, e.g., in Mt Ji-^-^*'.
3. But the physical order of the world was re- garded by our Lord as also a sphere of Providential administration [e.g. Mt 5«-*8 Q"^-^, Lk 12''-'^). It is important to note the fact that all His allusions to tliis branch of the subject here considered, imply that He conceived of the Divine providence as exercised within the boundaries of the j^hysical system of things. This system is, so to speak, the machinery employed by God in all the various manifestations of His providential care. But if this system is an order of physical constancy or law, all the exercises of the Divine provi- dence must be regulated by this fact. So Christ's teaching reiu-esents it as being. He never spoke of providence as in effect a system of Divine ac- tivities in which God, interposing in the interests of the objects of His care, either ignored the established order of physical existence or made breaches in its established arrangements. All the ways in wiiich He saw the providential activities of God manifested in care for His creatures were ways in which the established orderliness of the physical world came into effect, as in the case of the rising of the sun and the falling of rain. That is to say, in Christ's view the physical order of tiie world is constituted on a providential plan, in which a perfectly arranged and regulated system of means is adjusted to serve the beneficent ends contemplated by God.
What Christ's ideas were of the leading features of the administration of this system is suggested by those passages of His teaching to which atten- tion has been called. He believed the providential activities of God to be at once universal and par- ticular, and this belief is in accordance with the nature of things. He believed also that God's providential activities are not only immanent and immediate, but persistent. They are as unslumber- ing and restless as the physical energies or forces in the activities and effects of wliich they are manifested. He believed, moreover, that God's providential interest and care extended even to birds and flowers as well as to human beings ; and this belief, also, is justified by the necessities and arrangements of the physical order of things to which they as living beings in common with men belong. For they, as living beings, have each physical needs according to their own respective natures and jjlaces and destinies in nature ; and therefore it was not unworthy of Christ to form and take delight in tlie conviction that their Creator was providentially faithful to them.
But withal, it remains to be added here, that Christ believed that human beings have a higher value for God as the God of providence than the birds of the air. And this is why. The birds of
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the air have no place, or ta.sk, or destiny in the moral order of the Universe. But it is otherwise with men. They are endowed with a moral nature ; their life is a moral vocation ; they have a moral destinj- to sliape in co-operation with God. And this explains and manifests the perfect wisdom of Christ as a teacher, in including all men within, and in excluding all other living creatures pn the earth from, the moral goccrnmcnt of God and its sj-stem of administration. He constantly paid truthful and perfectly wise respect to these two great facts in His teaching: — (1) The fact that God is ever and always providentially and actively related to men as physical beings, having physical necessities and requirements in their life ; and (2) the fact that He is ever and always governmen tally and actively related to them as moral beings, having moral necessities and requirements and resixtnsibilities in their life (e.g. Mt 11^). This dis- tinction between the providential and the govern- mental activities of God, in His relation to men and in His ways with them, has a determinative place in the truth taught in the Gospels.
4. Finally, all Christ's allusions to the physical order of the world present a deep rcligwiis com- plexion. He saw in this order, and in tiie relations between God and men as therein revealed, con- ditions and opportunities provided for the mani- festation of pure and high forms of religious life. Men are dependent on the beneficent ministrations of the Divine providence. As moral beings it is their duty to recognize this fact, to pay due respect to it, and to cherish and manifest gratitude to God for all the various forms of His providential loving- kindness and faithfulness. Within the domain of Providence, moreover, reasons constantly exist and occasions are ever arising for men to exercise trust in God. Here also as well as in their own hearts men may find the presence of God in their life. And here they are summoned to imitate the ways of God's providential beneficence. In all these various ways Christ related His religion to the physical order of the world and its providential administration. His Sermon on the Mount shows that He wished and intended them all to have an essential place in the life of every one of His disciples. And in His own life they were all fully observed and manifested. See, further. Nature, Providexce.