God is spoken of as general. Many men are willing to admit of this general superintendence of the world on the part of God, who deny his intervention in the production of definite effects. The Bible, howevei', clearly teaches, and all men instinctively believe in a special providence. That is, that God uses his control over the laws of nature, to bring about special eifects. jMen in sickness, in danger, or in any distress, pray to God for help. This is not irrational. It supposes God's relation to the world to be precisely what it is declared to be in the Bible. It does not suppose that God sets aside or counteracts the laws of nature ; but simply that He controls them and causes them to produce whatever effects He sees fit. The Scriptures and the history of the world, and almost every man's experience, bear abundant evidence to such divine in- terpositions. We should be as helpless orphans were it not for this constant ovei'sight and protection of our heavenly Father. Some- times the circumstances attending these divine interventions are so unusual, and the evidences which they afford of divine control are so clear, that men cannot refuse to recognize the hand of God. There is, however, nothing extraordinary in the agency of God. It is only that we witness on these occasions more impressive man- ifestations of the absolute control, which He constantly exercises over the laws which He has ordained.
The Uniformity of tlie Laws of Nature consistent with the Doc- trine of Providence. It is obvious that the Scriptural doctrme of providence is not inconsistent with the " Reign of Law " in any proper sense of the words. The Scriptures recognize the fact that the laws of nature are immutable ; that they are the ordinances of God ; that they are uniform in their operation ; and that they cannot be disregarded with impunity. But as man within his sphere can use these fixed laws to accomplish the most diversified purposes, so God in his unlimited sphere has them alwavs and evervwhere under his abso- lute control, so that, without suspending or violating them, they are ' '. '; .subservient to his will. Certain philosophers do not admit To them the control of mind and the reign of law are incom-
, .e ; one or the other must be denied. " The fundamental
ine character of all theological philosophy," says Lewes, " is the con- ceiving of phenomena as subjected to supernatural volition, and consequently as eminently and irregularly variable. Now, these theological conceptions can only be subverted finally by means of these two general processes, whose popular success is infallible in
610 PART L — THEOLOGY. [Ch. XI. — Pkovidk^xce.
the long run. (1.) The exact and rational prevision of phenomena; and (2.) The possibility of modifying them, so as to promote our own ends and advantages. The former immediately dispels all idea of any ' directing volition ; ' and the latter leads to the same result, under another point of view, by making us regard this power as subordinated to our own." ^ If the fact that men can use the laws of nature to their "own ends and advantages " is compatible with the uniformity of those laws, the control .of God over them for the accomplishment of his purposes cannot be inconsistent with their stability as laws. God rules the creation in accordance with the laws which He himself has ordained.
Crod's Providence in Relation to Vital Processes.
Life has ever been regarded as one of the most inscrutable of mysteries. However hard it may be to answer the question. What is life ? or however diverse and unsatisfactory may be the answers given to that question, or the explanations proposed of its phenom- ena, there is little difference as to the facts of the case. (1.) It is admitted that there is a great diflFerence between life and death — between the living and the dead. No one who has ever looked upon a dead body has failed to be impressed with the fearful change involved in passing from life to death. (2.) It is very evident that the difference does not consist in anything which can be weighed or measured, or detected by the microscope or by chemical analy- sis. . (3.) Certain processes go on where life is present, and are never seen' when it is absent. These processes are organization, growth, and reproduction. (4.) These processes imply the per- ception of an end ; a purpose or will to secure that end ; and the intelligent choice and application of means for its attainment. This is the woi'k of mind. If blind physical force can fashion the eye or the ear, and build up the Avhole animal body, with all its wonderful interdependencies and relations of parts and organs, and its de- signed adaptations for what is external and future, then there is no evidence of mind in heaven or earth ; then all the works of art and of genius with which the world is crowded, may be the produc^d-'s of dead matter, or of physical forces. usu-
But if life be mind, or, rather, if vital force be mental fo';j.aor'*s indicated by the mode in which it acts, where does that mind reside ? In the infinitesimally small germ of the plant or animal ? or in something exterior to that germ? These are questions which have ever been demanding an answer, and to which different replies
1 Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences, by Lewes, Loiidou, 1853, pp. 102, 103.