intelligence. In tlie exercise of this potentia ordinata God acts uniformly according to tlie laws which He has ordained. But the Scriptures teach that God has not limited Himself to this ordered action. He is ovei', as well as in all thiniis. He controls the operations of the laws of nature so as to produce given results. He so directs the agi-'ucies that produce rain, that it I'ains at one time and place and not at others, as seems to Him good. He so controls the winds that they sink navies in the depths of the sea, or waft the richly freighted vessel to its desired haven. This provi- dential control, everywlit're distinguished from his providential efficiency, or potentia ordinata^ is universal and constant, extend- ing even to the casting of the lot, the flight of an arrow, or the falling of a sparrow. In all this providential control, however, God acts with and through second causes. It was not by a mere volition that He scattered the Spanish Armada; He made the winds and the waves his instruments. The Bible, however, teaches that He is not confined to this use of means ; that He intervenes by his immediate efficiency producing effects by his simple volition without any intervention of second causes. In such cases the effiict is to be referred exclusively to his almighty power. These special interventions of God, for what we know, may be, and prob- ably are, innumerable. However this may be, it is certain that the Bible is full of recorded cases of this kind. All his supernat- ural revelations, all inspiration and prophecy, all supernatural gifts, and all miracles, whether in the Old Testament or in the New, be- long to this class. There were no second causes employed in reveal- ing the future to the mind of the ancient seer, or in healing the sick, or in opening the eyes of the blind, or in raising the dead by a word. In strict analogy to this relation of God to the external world, is, accorduig to the Scriptures, his relation to his rational and moral creatures. They have their essential attributes and faculties. Those faculties act according to established laws ; for there are laws of mind as well as laws of matter, and the one are as uniform and as imperative as the other. Mental action, not in accordance with the laws of mind, is insanity. God is in all his rational creat- ures, sustaining them and all their faculties. He is, moreover, over them and out of them, controlling and guiding them at his pleasure, in perfect consistency with their free agency. He re- strains the wrath of men. He puts it into the hearts of the wicked to be favourable to his people. He conducts all the progress of history, overruling the minds of men, with unerring certainty and infinite wisdom. All this is mediate government; a rule exercised
694 PART III. Ch. XIV. — vocation.
not only according to the laws of human agency, but through the rational influences by which that agency is determined in its opera- tions. In like manner in his dealings with his people by the Spirit, He argues, remonstrates, reproves, exhorts, excites, com- forts, and strengthens, through tlie trutli. But He is not confined to this mediate action. He operates when, where, and how He sees fit, without the intervention of any second cause. By a word, or a volition, raising the spiritually dead, opening the eyes of the heart, renewing the will, communicating what the Scriptures call a new nature.
There are men who deny the providential intervention of God in nature and in the government of the world. To them the world is a great mechanism, which, admitting it to have been framed by an intelligent first cause, does not need the constant supervision and intervention of its Maker to keep it in successful operation. There are others who acknowledge the necessity of such providen- tial intervention for the preservation of second causes in their activity, but deny anything beyond this potentia ordinata of God. They deny any special providence. Events in the natural world and among the nations of the earth, are not determined by his con- trol, but by natural causes and the uncontrolled free agency of men. And there are others, who admit not only tlie general eon- cursus or cooperation of the first, with all second causes, but also the special providence of God, and yet who insist that He always operates through means; He never intervenes by the immediate exercise of his power ; there can be no such thing as a miracle, in the ordinary and proper sense of that word. In like manner in reference to the rehxtion of God to moral and rational creatures, there are those who deny that He is anytliing more than their creator. Having made tliem. He leaves tliem entirely to their own control. He neither positively upholds them in being ; nor does He control them by an operation on their minds by truth and mo- tives presented and urged by his Spirit. There are others who admit the i;niversal ao;encv of God in sustainino- rational creatures, and who are willing to concede that He operates on them according to the laws of mental action, as one mind may influence other minds ; but they deny any more than this. They deny any mira- cles in the sphere of grace, any effects produced by the immediate exertion of the omnipotence of God.
It is a strong argument in favour of the Augustinian doctrine of efficacious grace, which teaches that regeneration is an act of almighty power, or, in its subjective sense, an effect produced in