Chapter VIII: Section III: Providence (1)

I. Definition of Providence.

Providence is that continuous agency of God by which he makes all the events of the physical and moral universe fulfill the original design with which he created it.

As Creation explains the existence of the universe, and as Preservation explains its continuance, so Providence explains its evolution and progress.

In explanation notice:

(_a_) Providence is not to be taken merely in its etymological sense of _fore_seeing. It is _for_seeing also, or a positive agency in connection with all the events of history.

(_b_) Providence is to be distinguished from preservation. While preservation is a maintenance of the existence and powers of created things, providence is an actual care and control of them.

(_c_) Since the original plan of God is all-comprehending, the providence which executes the plan is all-comprehending also, embracing within its scope things small and great, and exercising care over individuals as well as over classes.

(_d_) In respect to the good acts of men, providence embraces all those natural influences of birth and surroundings which prepare men for the operation of God’s word and Spirit, and which constitute motives to obedience.

(_e_) In respect to the evil acts of men, providence is never the efficient cause of sin, but is by turns preventive, permissive, directive, and determinative.

(_f_) Since Christ is the only revealer of God, and he is the medium of every divine activity, providence is to be regarded as the work of Christ; see 1 Cor. 8:6—“one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; _cf._ John 5:17—“My Father worketh even until now, and I work.”

The Germans have the word _Fürsehung_, forseeing, looking out for,
as well as the word _Vorsehung_, foreseeing, seeing beforehand.
Our word “providence” embraces the meanings of both these words.
On the general subject of providence, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre,
2:272-284; Calvin, Institutes, 1:182-219; Dick, Theology,
1:416-446; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:581-616; Bib. Sac., 12:179;
21:584; 26:315; 30:593; N. W. Taylor, Moral Government, 2:294-326.

Providence is God’s attention concentrated everywhere. His care is
microscopic as well as telescopic. Robert Browning, Pippa Passes,
_ad finem_: “All service is the same with God—With God, whose
puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first.”
Canon Farrar: “In one chapter of the Koran is the story how
Gabriel, as he waited by the gates of gold, was sent by God to
earth to do two things. One was to prevent king Solomon from the
sin of forgetting the hour of prayer in exultation over his royal
steeds; the other to help a little yellow ant on the slope of
Ararat, which had grown weary in getting food for its nest, and
which would otherwise perish in the rain. To Gabriel the one
behest seemed just as kingly as the other, since God had ordered
it. ‘Silently he left The Presence, and prevented the king’s sin,
And holp the little ant at entering in.’ ‘Nothing is too high or
low, Too mean or mighty, if God wills it so.’ ” Yet a preacher
began his sermon on Mat. 10:30—“The very hairs of your head are
are all numbered”—by saying: “Why, some of you, my hearers, do not
believe that even your heads are all numbered!”

A modern prophet of unbelief in God’s providence is William
Watson. In his poem entitled The Unknown God, we read: “When
overarched by gorgeous night, I wave my trivial self away; When
all I was to all men’s sight Shares the erasure of the day: Then
do I cast my cumbering load, Then do I gain a sense of God.” Then
he likens the God of the Old Testament to Odin and Zeus, and
continues: “O streaming worlds, O crowded sky, O life, and mine
own soul’s abyss, Myself am scarce so small that I Should bow to
Deity like this! This my Begetter? This was what Man in his
violent youth begot. The God I know of I shall ne’er Know, though
he dwells exceeding nigh. Raise thou the stone and find me there.
Cleave thou the wood and there am I. Yea, in my flesh his Spirit
doth flow, Too near, too far, for me to know. Whate’er my deeds, I
am not sure That I can pleasure him or vex: I, that must use a
speech so poor It narrows the Supreme with sex. Notes he the good
or ill in man? To hope he cares is all I can. I hope with fear.
For did I trust This vision granted me at birth, The sire of
heaven would seem less just Than many a faulty son of earth. And
so he seems indeed! But then, I trust it not, this bounded ken.
And dreaming much, I never dare To dream that in my prisoned soul
The flutter of a trembling prayer Can move the Mind that is the
Whole. Though kneeling nations watch and yearn, Does the primeval
Purpose turn? Best by remembering God, say some. We keep our high
imperial lot. Fortune, I fear, hath oftenest come When we
forgot—when we forgot! A lovelier faith their happier crown, But
history laughs and weeps it down: Know they not well how seven
times seven, Wronging our mighty arms with rust, We dared not do
the work of heaven, Lest heaven should hurl us in the dust? The
work of heaven! ’Tis waiting still The sanction of the heavenly
will. Unmeet to be profaned by praise Is he whose coils the world
enfold; The God on whom I ever gaze, The God I never once behold:
Above the cloud, above the clod, The unknown God, the unknown
God.”

In pleasing contrast to William Watson’s Unknown God, is the God
of Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional: “God of our fathers, known of
old—Lord of our far-flung battle-line—Beneath whose awful hand we
hold Dominion over palm and pine—Lord God of hosts, be with us
yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget! The tumult and the shouting
dies—The captains and the kings depart—Still stands thine ancient
Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of hosts, be
with us yet. Lest we forget—lest we forget! Far-called our navies
melt away—On dune and headland sinks the fire—So, all our pomp of
yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the nations,
spare us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget! If, drunk with sight
of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not thee in awe—Such
boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the
Law—Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we
forget! For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and
iron shard—All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding
calls not thee to guard—For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy
mercy on thy people, Lord!”

These problems of God’s providential dealings are intelligible
only when we consider that Christ is the revealer of God, and that
his suffering for sin opens to us the heart of God. All history is
the progressive manifestation of Christ’s holiness and love, and
in the cross we have the key that unlocks the secret of the
universe. With the cross in view, we can believe that Love rules
over all, and that “_all things work together for good to them
that love God._” (_Rom. 8:28_).

II. Proof of the Doctrine of Providence.

1. Scriptural Proof.

The Scripture witnesses to

A. A general providential government and control (_a_) over the universe at large; (_b_) over the physical world; (_c_) over the brute creation; (_d_) over the affairs of nations; (_e_) over man’s birth and lot in life; (_f_) over the outward successes and failures of men’s lives; (_g_) over things seemingly accidental or insignificant; (_h_) in the protection of the righteous; (_i_) in the supply of the wants of God’s people; (_j_) in the arrangement of answers to prayer; (_k_) in the exposure and punishment of the wicked.

(_a_) _Ps. 103:19_—“_his kingdom ruleth over all_”; _Dan.
4:35_—“_doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and
among the inhabitants of the earth_”; _Eph. 1:11_—“_worketh all
things after the counsel of his will._”

(_b_) _Job 37:5, 10_—“_God thundereth ... By the breath of God ice
is given_”; _Ps. 104:14_—“_causeth the grass to grow for the
cattle_”; _135:6, 7_—“_Whatsoever Jehovah pleased, that hath he
done, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps ...
vapors ... lightnings ... wind_”; _Mat. 5:45_—“_maketh his sun to
rise ... sendeth rain_”; _Ps. 104:16_—“_The trees of Jehovah are
filled_”—are planted and tended by God as carefully as those which
come under human cultivation; _cf._ _Mat. 6:30_—“_if God so clothe
the grass of the field._”

(_c_) _Ps. 104:21, 28_—“_young lions roar ... seek their food from
God ... that thou givest them they gather_”; _Mat. 6:26_—“_birds
of the heaven ... your heavenly Father feedeth them_”;
_10:29_—“_two sparrows ... not one of them shall fall on the
ground without your Father._”

(_d_) _Job 12:23_—“_He increaseth the nations, and he destroyeth
them: He enlargeth the nations, and he leadeth them captive_”;
_Ps. 22:28_—“_the kingdom is Jehovah’s; And he is the ruler over
the nations_”; _66:7_—“_He ruleth by his might for ever; His eyes
observe the nations_”; _Acts 17:26_—“_made of one every nation of
men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their
appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation_” (instance
Palestine, Greece, England).

(_e_) _1 Sam. 16:1_—“_fill thy horn with oil, and go: I will send
thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided me a king
among his sons_”; _Ps. 139:16_—“_Thine eyes did see mine unformed
substance, And in thy book were all my members written_”; _Is.
45:5_—“_I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me_”; _Jer.
1:5_—“_Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee ...
sanctified thee ... appointed thee_”; _Gal. 1:15, 16_—“_God, who
separated me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through
his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among
the Gentiles._”

(_f_) _Ps. 75:6, 7_—“_neither from the east, nor from the west,
Nor yet from the south cometh lifting up. But God is the judge, He
putteth down one, and lifteth up another_”; _Luke 1:52_—“_He hath
put down princes from their thrones, And hath exalted them of low
degree._”

(_g_) _Prov. 16:33_—“_The lot is cast into the lap; But the whole
disposing thereof is of Jehovah_”; _Mat. 10:30_—“_the very hairs
of your head are all numbered._”

(_h_) _Ps. 4:8_—“_In peace will I both lay me down and sleep; For
thou, Jehovah, alone makest me dwell in safety_”; _5:12_—“_thou
wilt compass him with favor as with a shield_”; _63:8_—“_Thy right
hand upholdeth me_”; _121:3_—“_He that keepeth thee will not
slumber_”; _Rom. 8:28_—“_to them that love God all things work
together for good._”

(_i_) _Gen. 22:8, 14_—“_God will provide himself the lamb ...
Jehovah-jireh_” (marg.: that is, “Jehovah will see,” or
“provide”); _Deut. 8:3_—“_man doth not live by bread only, but by
every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man
live_”; _Phil. 4:19_—“_my God shall supply every need of yours._”

(_j_) _Ps. 68:10_—“_Thou, O God, didst prepare of thy goodness for
the poor_”; _Is. 64:4_—“_neither hath the eye seen a God besides
thee, who worketh for him that waiteth for him_”; _Mat.
6:8_—“_your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye
ask him_”; _32, 33_—“_all these things shall be added unto you._”

(_k_) _Ps. 7:12, 13_—“_If a man turn not, he will whet his sword;
He hath bent his bow and made it ready; He hath also prepared for
him the instruments of death; He maketh his arrows fiery shafts_”;
_11:6_—“_Upon the wicked he will rain snares; Fire and brimstone
and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup._”

The statements of Scripture with regard to God’s providence are strikingly confirmed by recent studies in physiography. In the early stages of human development man was almost wholly subject to nature, and environment was a determining factor in his progress. This is the element of truth in Buckle’s view. But Buckle ignored the fact that, as civilization advanced, ideas, at least at times, played a greater part than environment. Thermopylæ cannot be explained by climate. In the later stages of human development, nature is largely subject to man, and environment counts for comparatively little. “There shall be no Alps!” says Napoleon. Charles Kingsley: “The spirit of ancient tragedy was man conquered by circumstance; the spirit of modern tragedy is man conquering circumstance.” Yet many national characteristics can be attributed to physical surroundings, and so far as this is the case they are due to the ordering of God’s providence. Man’s need of fresh water leads him to rivers,—hence the original location of London. Commerce requires seaports,—hence New York. The need of defense leads man to bluffs and hills,—hence Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, Edinburgh. These places of defense became also places of worship and of appeal to God.

Goldwin Smith, in his Lectures and Essays, maintains that national characteristics are not congenital, but are the result of environment. The greatness of Rome and the greatness of England have been due to position. The Romans owed their successes to being at first less warlike than their neighbors. They were traders in the centre of the Italian seacoast, and had to depend on discipline to make headway against marauders on the surrounding hills. Only when drawn into foreign conquest did the ascendency of the military spirit become complete, and then the military spirit brought despotism as its natural penalty. Brought into contact with varied races, Rome was led to the founding of colonies. She adopted and assimilated the nations which she conquered, and in governing them learned organization and law. _Parcere subjectis_ was her rule, as well as _debellare superbos_. In a similiar manner Goldwin Smith maintains that the greatness of England is due to position. Britain being an island, only a bold and enterprising race could settle it. Maritime migration strengthened freedom. Insular position gave freedom from invasion. Isolation however gave rise to arrogance and self-assertion. The island became a natural centre of commerce. There is a steadiness of political progress which would have been impossible upon the continent. Yet consolidation was tardy, owing to the fact that Great Britain consists of _several_ islands. Scotland was always liberal, and Ireland foredoomed to subjection.

Isaac Taylor, Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, has a valuable chapter on Palestine as the providential theatre of divine revelation. A little land, yet a sample-land of all lands, and a thoroughfare between the greatest lands of antiquity, it was fitted by God to receive and to communicate his truth. George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land is a repertory of information on this subject. Stanley, Life and Letters, 1:269-271, treats of Greek landscape and history. Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, sees such difference between Greek curiosity and search for causes on the one hand, and Roman indifference to scientific explanation of facts on the other, that he cannot think of the Greeks and the Romans as cognate peoples. He believes that Italy was first peopled by Etrurians, a Semitic race from Africa, and that from them the Romans descended. The Romans had as little of the spirit of the naturalist as had the Hebrews. The Jews and the Romans originated and propagated Christianity, but they had no interest in science.

On God’s pre-arrangement of the physical conditions of national life, striking suggestions may be found in Shaler, Nature and Man in America. Instance the settlement of Massachusetts Bay between 1629 and 1639, the only decade in which such men as John Winthrop could be found and the only one in which they actually emigrated from England. After 1639 there was too much to do at home, and with Charles II the spirit which animated the Pilgrims no longer existed in England. The colonists builded better than they knew, for though they sought a place to worship God themselves, they had no idea of giving this same religious liberty to others. R. E. Thompson, The Hand of God in American History, holds that the American Republic would long since have broken in pieces by its own weight and bulk, if the invention of steam-boat in 1807, railroad locomotive in 1829, telegraph in 1837, and telephone in 1877, had not bound the remote parts of the country together. A woman invented the reaper by combining the action of a row of scissors in cutting. This was as early as 1835. Only in 1855 the competition on the Emperor’s farm at Compiègne gave supremacy to the reaper. Without it farming would have been impossible during our civil war, when our men were in the field and women and boys had to gather in the crops.

B. A government and control extending to the free actions of men—(_a_) to men’s free acts in general; (_b_) to the sinful acts of men also.

(a) _Ex. 12:36_—“_Jehovah gave the people favor in the sight of
the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And
they despoiled the Egyptians_”; _1 Sam. 24:18_—“_Jehovah had
delivered me up into thy hand_” (Saul to David); _Ps. 33:14,
15_—“_He looketh forth Upon all the inhabitants of the earth, He
that fashioneth the hearts of them all_” (_i. e._, equally, one as
well as another); _Prov. 16:1_—“_The plans of the heart belong to
man; But the answer of the tongue is from Jehovah_”;
_19:21_—“_There are many devices in a man’s heart; But the counsel
of Jehovah, __ that shall stand_”; _20:24_—“_A man’s goings are of
Jehovah; How then can man understand his way?_” _21:1_—“_The
king’s heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the watercourses: He
turneth it whithersoever he will_” (_i. e._, as easily as the
rivulets of the eastern fields are turned by the slightest motion
of the hand or the foot of the husbandman); _Jer. 10:23_—“_O
Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not
in man that walketh to direct his steps_”; _Phil. 2:13_—“_it is
God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good
pleasure_”; _Eph. 2:10_—“_we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we
should walk in them_”; _James 4:13-15_—“_If the Lord will, we
shall both live, and do this or that._”

(_b_) _2 Sam. 16:10_—“_because Jehovah hath said unto him_
[Shimei]: _Curse David_”; _24:1_—“_the anger of Jehovah was
kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying,
Go, number Israel and Judah_”; _Rom. 11:32_—“_God hath shut up all
unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all_”; _2 Thess.
2:11, 12_—“_God sendeth them a working of error, that they should
believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the
truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness._”

Henry Ward Beecher: “There seems to be no order in the movements
of the bees of a hive, but the honey-comb shows that there was a
plan in them all.” John Hunter compared his own brain to a hive in
which there was a great deal of buzzing and apparent disorder,
while yet a real order underlay it all. “As bees gather their
stores of sweets against a time of need, but are colonized by
man’s superior intelligence for his own purposes, so men plan and
work yet are overruled by infinite Wisdom for his own glory.” Dr.
Deems: “The world is wide In Time and Tide, And God is guide: Then
do not hurry. That man is blest Who does his best And leaves the
rest: Then do not worry.” See Bruce, Providential Order, 183
_sq._; Providence in the Individual Life, 231 _sq._

God’s providence with respect to men’s evil acts is described in Scripture as of four sorts:

(_a_) Preventive,—God by his providence prevents sin which would otherwise be committed. That he thus prevents sin is to be regarded as matter, not of obligation, but of grace.

_Gen. 20:6_—Of Abimelech: “_I also withheld thee from sinning
against me_”; _31:24_—“_And God came to Laban the Syrian in a
dream of the night, and said unto him, Take heed to thyself that
thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad_”; _Psalm 19:13_—“_Keep
back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have
dominion over me_”; _Hosea 2:6_—“_Behold, I will hedge up thy way
with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she shall
not find her paths_”—here the “_thorns_” and the “_wall_” may
represent the restraints and sufferings by which God mercifully
checks the fatal pursuit of sin (see Annotated Par. Bible _in
loco_). Parents, government, church, traditions, customs, laws,
age, disease, death, are all of them preventive influences. Man
sometimes finds himself on the brink of a precipice of sin, and
strong temptation hurries him on to make the fatal leap. Suddenly
every nerve relaxes, all desire for the evil thing is gone, and he
recoils from the fearful brink over which he was just now going to
plunge. God has interfered by the voice of conscience and the
Spirit. This too is a part of his preventive providence. Men at
sixty years of age are eight times less likely to commit crime
than at the age of twenty-five. Passion has subsided; fear of
punishment has increased. The manager of a great department store,
when asked what could prevent its absorbing all the trade of the
city, replied: “Death!” Death certainly limits aggregations of
property, and so constitutes a means of God’s preventive
providence. In the life of John G. Paton, the rain sent by God
prevented the natives from murdering him and taking his goods.

(_b_) Permissive,—God permits men to cherish and to manifest the evil dispositions of their hearts. God’s permissive providence is simply the negative act of withholding impediments from the path of the sinner, instead of preventing his sin by the exercise of divine power. It implies no ignorance, passivity, or indulgence, but consists with hatred of the sin and determination to punish it.

_2 Chron. 32:31_—“_God left him_ [Hezekiah], _to try him, that he
might know all that was in his heart_”; _cf._ _Deut. 8:2_—“_that
he might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine
heart._” _Ps. 17:13, 14_—“_Deliver my soul from the wicked, who is
thy sword, from men who are thy hand, O Jehovah_”; _Ps. 81:12,
13_—“_So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart, That
they might walk in their own counsels. Oh that my people would
hearken unto me!_” _Is. 53:4, 10_—“_Surely he hath borne our
griefs.... Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him._” _Hosea
4:17_—“_Ephraim __ Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone_”;
_Acts 14:16_—“_who in the generations gone by suffered all the
nations to walk in their own ways_”; _Rom. 1:24, 28_—“_God gave
them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness... God gave
them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
fitting_”; _3:25_—“_to show his righteousness, because of the
passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of
God._” To this head of permissive providence is possibly to be
referred _1 Sam. 18:10_—“_an evil spirit from God came mightily
upon Saul._” As the Hebrew writers saw in second causes the
operation of the great first Cause, and said: “_The God of glory
thundereth_” (_Ps. 29:3_), so, because even the acts of the wicked
entered into God’s plan, the Hebrew writers sometimes represented
God as doing what he merely permitted finite spirits to do. In _2
Sam. 24:1_, God moves David to number Israel, but in _1 Chron.
21:1_ the same thing is referred to Satan. God’s providence in
these cases, however, may be directive as well as permissive.

Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism: “God is law, say the wise; O Soul,
and let us rejoice, For if he thunder by law the thunder is yet
his voice.” Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 56—“The clear
separation of God’s efficiency from God’s permissive act was
reserved to a later day. All emphasis was in the Old Testament
laid upon the sovereign power of God.” Coleridge, in his
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, letter II, speaks of “the
habit, universal with the Hebrew doctors, of referring all
excellent or extraordinary things to the great first Cause,
without mention of the proximate and instrumental causes—a
striking illustration of which may be found by comparing the
narratives of the same events in the Psalms and in the historical
books.... The distinction between the providential and the
miraculous did not enter into their forms of thinking—at any rate,
not into their mode of conveying their thoughts.” The woman who
had been slandered rebelled when told that God had permitted it
for her good; she maintained that Satan had inspired her accuser;
she needed to learn that God had permitted the work of Satan.

(_c_) Directive,—God directs the evil acts of men to ends unforeseen and unintended by the agents. When evil is in the heart and will certainly come out, God orders its flow in one direction rather than in another, so that its course can be best controlled and least harm may result. This is sometimes called overruling providence.

_Gen. 50:20_—“_as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant
it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much
people alive_”; _Ps. 76:10_—“_the wrath of man shall praise thee:
The residue of wrath shalt thou gird upon thee_”—put on as an
ornament—clothe thyself with it for thine own glory; _Is.
10:5_—“_Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in whose
hand is mine indignation_”; _John 13:27_—“_What thou doest, do
quickly_”—do in a particular way what is actually being done
(Westcott, Bib. Com., _in loco_); _Acts 4:27, 28_—“_against thy
holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius
Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered
together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel fore-ordained
to come to pass._”

To this head of directive providence should probably be referred
the passages with regard to Pharaoh in _Ex. 4:21_—“_I will harden
his heart, and he will not let the people go_”; _7:13_—“_and
Pharaoh’s heart was hardened_”; _8:15_—“_he hardened his
heart_”—_i. e._, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Here the
controlling agency of God did not interfere with the liberty of
Pharaoh or oblige him to sin; but in judgment for his previous
cruelty and impiety God withdrew the external restraints which had
hitherto kept his sin within bounds, and placed him in
circumstances which would have influenced to right action a
well-disposed mind, but which God foresaw would lead a disposition
like Pharaoh’s to the peculiar course of wickedness which he
actually pursued.

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then, first, by permitting him to
harden his own heart, God being the author of his sin only in the
sense that he is the author of a free being who is himself the
direct author of his sin; secondly, by giving to him the means of
enlightenment, Pharaoh’s very opportunities being perverted by him
into occasions of more virulent wickedness, and good resisted
being thus made to result in greater evil; thirdly, by judicially
forsaking Pharaoh, when it became manifest that he would not do
God’s will, and thus making it morally certain, though not
necessary, that he would do evil; and fourthly, by so directing
Pharaoh’s surroundings that his sin would manifest itself in one
way rather than in another. Sin is like the lava of the volcano,
which will certainly come out, but which God directs in its course
down the mountain-side so that it will do least harm. The
gravitation downward is due to man’s evil will; the direction to
this side or to that is due to God’s providence. See _Rom. 9:17,
18_—“_For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show
in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in
all the earth. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he
will he hardeneth._” Thus the very passions which excite men to
rebel against God are made completely subservient to his purposes:
see Annotated Paragraph Bible, on _Ps. 76:10_.

God hardens Pharaoh’s heart only after all the earlier plagues
have been sent. Pharaoh had hardened his own heart before. God
hardens no man’s heart who has not first hardened it himself.
Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 140—“Jehovah is never said to harden
the heart of a good man, or of one who is set to do righteousness.
It is always those who are bent on evil whom God hardens. Pharaoh
hardens his own heart before the Lord is said to harden it. Nature
is God, and it is the nature of human beings to harden when they
resist softening influences.” The Watchman, Dec. 5, 1901:11—“God
decreed to Pharaoh what Pharaoh had chosen for himself.
Persistence in certain inclinations and volitions awakens within
the body and soul forces which are not under the control of the
will, and which drive the man on in the way he has chosen. After a
time nature hardens the hearts of men to do evil.”

(_d_) Determinative,—God determines the bounds reached by the evil passions of his creatures, and the measure of their effects. Since moral evil is a germ capable of indefinite expansion, God’s determining the measure of its growth does not alter its character or involve God’s complicity with the perverse wills which cherish it.

_Job 1:12_—“_And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand_”; _2:6_—“_Behold, he is in thy hand; only spare his life_”; _Ps. 124:2_—“_If it had not been Jehovah who was on our side, when men rose up against us; Then had they swallowed us up alive_”; _1 Cor. 10:13_—“_will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it_”; _2 Thess. 2:7_—“_For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work; only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way_”; _Rev. 20:2, 3_—“_And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years._”

Pepper, Outlines of Syst. Theol., 76—The union of God’s will and man’s will is “such that, while in one view all can be ascribed to God, in another all can be ascribed to the creature. But how God and the creature are united in operation is doubtless known and knowable only to God. A very dim analogy is furnished in the union of the soul and body in men. The hand retains its own physical laws, yet is obedient to the human will. This theory recognizes the veracity of consciousness in its witness to personal freedom, and yet the completeness of God’s control of both the bad and the good. Free beings are ruled, but are ruled as free and in their freedom. The freedom is not sacrificed to the control. The two coëxist, each in its integrity. Any doctrine which does not allow this is false to Scripture and destructive of religion.”

2. Rational proof.

A. Arguments _a priori_ from the divine attributes. (_a_) From the immutability of God. This makes it certain that he will execute his eternal plan of the universe and its history. But the execution of this plan involves not only creation and preservation, but also providence. (_b_) From the benevolence of God. This renders it certain that he will care for the intelligent universe he has created. What it was worth his while to create, it is worth his while to care for. But this care is providence. (_c_) From the justice of God. As the source of moral law, God must assure the vindication of law by administering justice in the universe and punishing the rebellious. But this administration of justice is providence.

For heathen ideas of providence, see Cicero, De Natura Deorum,
11:30, where Balbus speaks of the existence of the gods as that,
“quo concesso, confitendum est eorum consilio mundum
administrari.” Epictetus, sec. 41—“The principal and most
important duty in religion is to possess your mind with just and
becoming notions of the gods—to believe that there are such
supreme beings, and that they govern and dispose of all the
affairs of the world with a just and good providence.” Marcus
Antoninus: “If there are no gods, or if they have no regard for
human affairs, why should I desire to live in a world without gods
and without a providence? But gods undoubtedly there are, and they
regard human affairs.” See also Bib. Sac., 16:374. As we shall
see, however, many of the heathen writers believed in a general,
rather than in a particular, providence.

On the argument for providence derived from God’s benevolence, see
Appleton, Works, 1:146—“Is indolence more consistent with God’s
majesty than action would be? The happiness of creatures is a
good. Does it honor God to say that he is indifferent to that
which he knows to be good and valuable? Even if the world had come
into existence without his agency, it would become God’s moral
character to pay some attention to creatures so numerous and so
susceptible to pleasure and pain, especially when he might have so
great and favorable an influence on their moral condition.” _John
5:17_—“_My Father worketh even until now, and I work_”—is as
applicable to providence as to preservation.

The complexity of God’s providential arrangements may be
illustrated by Tyndall’s explanation of the fact that heartsease
does not grow in the neighborhood of English villages: 1. In
English villages dogs run loose. 2. Where dogs run loose, cats
must stay at home. 3. Where cats stay at home, field mice abound.
4. Where field mice abound, the nests of bumble-bees are
destroyed. 5. Where bumble-bees’ nests are destroyed, there is no
fertilization of pollen. Therefore, where dogs go loose, no
heartsease grows.

B. Arguments _a posteriori_ from the facts of nature and of history. (_a_) The outward lot of individuals and nations is not wholly in their own hands, but is in many acknowledged respects subject to the disposal of a higher power. (_b_) The observed moral order of the world, although imperfect, cannot be accounted for without recognition of a divine providence. Vice is discouraged and virtue rewarded, in ways which are beyond the power of mere nature. There must be a governing mind and will, and this mind and will must be the mind and will of God.

The birthplace of individuals and of nations, the natural powers
with which they are endowed, the opportunities and immunities they
enjoy, are beyond their own control. A man’s destiny for time and
for eternity may be practically decided for him by his birth in a
Christian home, rather than in a tenement-house at the Five
Points, or in a kraal of the Hottentots. Progress largely depends
upon “variety of environment” (H. Spencer). But this variety of
environment is in great part independent of our own efforts.

“There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we
will.” Shakespeare here expounds human consciousness. “Man
proposes and God disposes” has become a proverb. Experience
teaches that success and failure are not wholly due to us. Men
often labor and lose; they consult and nothing ensues; they
“embattle and are broken.” Providence is not always on the side of
the heaviest battalions. Not arms but ideas have decided the fate
of the world—as Xerxes found at Thermopylæ, and Napoleon at
Waterloo. Great movements are generally begun without
consciousness of their greatness. _Cf._ _Is. 42:16_—“_I will bring
the blind by a way that they know not_”; _1 Cor. 5:37, 38_—“_thou
sowest ... a bare grain ... but God giveth it a body even as it
pleased him._”

The deed returns to the doer, and character shapes destiny. This
is true in the long run. Eternity will show the truth of the
maxim. But here in time a sufficient number of apparent exceptions
are permitted to render possible a moral probation. If evil were
always immediately followed by penalty, righteousness would have a
compelling power upon the will and the highest virtue would be
impossible. Job’s friends accuse Job of acting upon this
principle. The Hebrew children deny its truth, when they say:
“_But if not_”—even if God does not deliver us—“_we will not serve
thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up_”
(_Dan. 3:18._)

Martineau, Seat of Authority, 298—“Through some misdirection or
infirmity, most of the larger agencies in history have failed to
reach their own ideal, yet have accomplished revolutions greater
and more beneficent; the conquests of Alexander, the empire of
Rome, the Crusades, the ecclesiastical persecutions, the monastic
asceticisms, the missionary zeal of Christendom, have all played a
momentous part in the drama of the world, yet a part which is a
surprise to each. All this shows the controlling presence of a
Reason and a Will transcendent and divine.” Kidd, Social
Evolution, 99, declares that the progress of the race has taken
place only under conditions which have had no sanction from the
reason of the great proportion of the individuals who submit to
them. He concludes that a rational religion is a scientific
impossibility, and that the function of religion is to provide a
super-rational sanction for social progress. We prefer to say that
Providence pushes the race forward even against its will.

James Russell Lowell, Letters, 2:51, suggests that God’s calm
control of the forces of the universe, both physical and mental,
should give us confidence when evil seems impending: “How many
times have I seen the fire-engines of church and state clanging
and lumbering along to put out—a false alarm! And when the heavens
are cloudy, what a glare can be cast by a burning shanty!” See
Sermon on Providence in Political Revolutions, in Farrar’s Science
and Theology, 228. On the moral order of the world,
notwithstanding its imperfections, see Butler, Analogy, Bohn’s
ed., 98; King, in Baptist Review, 1884:202-222.

III. Theories opposing the Doctrine of Providence.

1. Fatalism.

Fatalism maintains the certainty, but denies the freedom, of human self-determination,—thus substituting fate for providence.

To this view we object that (_a_) it contradicts consciousness, which testifies that we are free; (_b_) it exalts the divine power at the expense of God’s truth, wisdom, holiness, love; (_c_) it destroys all evidence of the personality and freedom of God; (_d_) it practically makes necessity the only God, and leaves the imperatives of our moral nature without present validity or future vindication.

The Mohammedans have frequently been called fatalists, and the
practical effect of the teachings of the Koran upon the masses is
to make them so. The ordinary Mohammedan will have no physician or
medicine, because everything happens as God has before appointed.
Smith, however, in his Mohammed and Mohammedanism, denies that
fatalism is essential to the system. _Islam_ = “submission,” and
the participle _Moslem_ = “submitted,” _i. e._, to God. Turkish
proverb: “A man cannot escape what is written on his forehead.”
The Mohammedan thinks of God’s dominant attribute as being
greatness rather than righteousness, power rather than purity. God
is the personification of arbitrary will, not the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. But there is in the system an absence of
sacerdotalism, a jealousy for the honor of God, a brotherhood of
believers, a reverence for what is considered the word of God, and
a bold and habitual devotion of its adherents to their faith.

Stanley, Life and Letters, 1:489, refers to the Mussulman
tradition existing in Egypt that the fate of Islam requires that
it should at last be superseded by Christianity. F. W. Sanders
denies that the Koran is peculiarly _sensual_. “The Christian and
Jewish religions,” he says, “have their paradise also. The Koran
makes this the reward, but not the ideal, of conduct; ‘Grace from
thy Lord—that is the grand bliss.’ The emphasis of the Koran is
upon right living. The Koran does not teach the propagation of
religion by _force_. It declares that there shall be no compulsion
in religion. The practice of converting by the sword is to be
distinguished from the teaching of Mohammed, just as the
Inquisition and the slave-trade in Christendom do not prove that
Jesus taught them. The Koran did not institute _polygamy_. It
found unlimited polygamy, divorce, and infanticide. The last it
prohibited; the two former it restricted and ameliorated, just as
Moses found polygamy, but brought it within bounds. The Koran is
not hostile to _secular learning_. Learning flourished under the
Bagdad and Spanish Caliphates. When Moslems oppose learning, they
do so without authority from the Koran. The Roman Catholic church
has opposed schools, but we do not attribute this to the gospel.”
See Zwemer, Moslem Doctrine of God.

Calvinists can assert freedom, since man’s will finds its highest
freedom only in submission to God. Islam also cultivates
submission, but it is the submission not of love but of fear. The
essential difference between Mohammedanism and Christianity is
found in the revelation which the latter gives of the love of God
in Christ—a revelation which secures from free moral agents the
submission of love; see page 186. On fatalism, see McCosh,
Intuitions, 266; Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 52-74, 98-108; Mill,
Autobiography, 168-170, and System of Logic, 521-526; Hamilton,
Metaphysics, 692; Stewart, Active and Moral Powers of Man, ed.
Walker, 268-324.

2. Casualism.

Casualism transfers the freedom of mind to nature, as fatalism transfers the fixity of nature to mind. It thus exchanges providence for chance. Upon this view we remark:

(_a_) If chance be only another name for human ignorance, a name for the fact that there are trivial occurrences in life which have no meaning or relation to us,—we may acknowledge this, and still hold that providence arranges every so-called chance, for purposes beyond our knowledge. Chance, in this sense, is providential coincidence which we cannot understand, and do not need to trouble ourselves about.

Not all chances are of equal importance. The casual meeting of a
stranger in the street need not bring God’s providence before me,
although I know that God arranges it. Yet I can conceive of that
meeting as leading to religious conversation and to the stranger’s
conversion. When we are prepared for them, we shall see many
opportunities which are now as unmeaning to us as the gold in the
river-beds was to the early Indians in California. I should be an
ingrate, if I escaped a lightning-stroke, and did not thank God;
yet Dr. Arnold’s saying that every school boy should put on his
hat for God’s glory, and with a high moral purpose, seems morbid.
There is a certain room for the play of arbitrariness. We must not
afflict ourselves or the church of God by requiring a Pharisaic
punctiliousness in minutiæ. Life is too short to debate the
question which shoe we shall put on first. “Love God and do what
you will,” said Augustine; that is, Love God, and act out that
love in a simple and natural way. Be free in your service, yet be
always on the watch for indications of God’s will.

(_b_) If chance be taken in the sense of utter absence of all causal connections in the phenomena of matter and mind,—we oppose to this notion the fact that the causal judgment is formed in accordance with a fundamental and necessary law of human thought, and that no science or knowledge is possible without the assumption of its validity.

In _Luke 10:31_, our Savior says: “_By chance a certain priest was
going down that way_.” Janet: “Chance is not a cause, but a
coincidence of causes.” Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge,
197—“By chance is not meant lack of causation, but the coincidence
in an event of mutually independent series of causation. Thus the
unpurposed meeting of two persons is spoken of as a chance one,
when the movement of neither implies that of the other. Here the
antithesis of chance is purpose.”

(_c_) If chance be used in the sense of undesigning cause,—it is evidently insufficient to explain the regular and uniform sequences of nature, or the moral progress of the human race. These things argue a superintending and designing mind—in other words, a providence. Since reason demands not only a cause, but a sufficient cause, for the order of the physical and moral world, casualism must be ruled out.

The observer at the signal station was asked what was the climate
of Rochester. “Climate?” he replied; “Rochester has no
climate,—only weather!” So Chauncey Wright spoke of the ups and
downs of human affairs as simply “cosmical weather.” But our
intuition of design compels us to see mind and purpose in
individual and national history, as well as in the physical
universe. The same argument which proves the existence of God
proves also the existence of a providence. See Farrar, Life of
Christ, 1:155, note.

3. Theory of a merely general providence.

Many who acknowledge God’s control over the movements of planets and the destinies of nations deny any divine arrangement of particular events. Most of the arguments against deism are equally valid against the theory of a merely general providence. This view is indeed only a form of deism, which holds that God has not wholly withdrawn himself from the universe, but that his activity within it is limited to the maintenance of general laws.

This appears to have been the view of most of the heathen
philosophers. Cicero: “Magna dii curant; parva negligunt.” “Even
in kingdoms among men,” he says, “kings do not trouble themselves
with insignificant affairs.” Fullerton, Conceptions of the
Infinite, 9—“Plutarch thought there could not be an infinity of
worlds,—Providence could not possibly take charge of so many.
‘Troublesome and boundless infinity’ could be grasped by no
consciousness.” The ancient Cretans made an image of Jove without
ears, for they said: “It is a shame to believe that God would hear
the talk of men.” So Jerome, the church Father, thought it absurd
that God should know just how many gnats and cockroaches there
were in the world. David Harum is wiser when he expresses the
belief that there is nothing wholly bad or useless in the world:
“A reasonable amount of fleas is good for a dog,—they keep him
from broodin’ on bein’ a dog.” This has been paraphrased: “A
reasonable number of beaux are good for a girl,—they keep her from
brooding over her being a girl.”

In addition to the arguments above alluded to, we may urge against this theory that:

(_a_) General control over the course of nature and of history is impossible without control over the smallest particulars which affect the course of nature and of history. Incidents so slight as well-nigh to escape observation at the time of their occurrence are frequently found to determine the whole future of a human life, and through that life the fortunes of a whole empire and of a whole age.

“Nothing great has great beginnings.” “Take care of the pence, and
the pounds will take care of themselves.” “Care for the chain is
care for the links of the chain.” Instances in point are the
sleeplessness of King Ahasuerus (_Esther 6:1_), and the seeming
chance that led to the reading of the record of Mordecai’s service
and to the salvation of the Jews in Persia; the spider’s web spun
across the entrance to the cave in which Mohammed had taken
refuge, which so deceived his pursuers that they passed on In a
bootless chase, leaving to the world the religion and the empire
of the Moslems; the preaching of Peter the Hermit, which
occasioned the first Crusade; the chance shot of an archer, which
pierced the right eye of Harold, the last of the purely English
kings, gained the battle of Hastings for William the Conqueror,
and secured the throne of England for the Normans; the flight of
pigeons to the south-west, which changed the course of Columbus,
hitherto directed towards Virginia, to the West Indies, and so
prevented the dominion of Spain over North America; the storm that
dispersed the Spanish Armada and saved England from the Papacy,
and the storm that dispersed the French fleet gathered for the
conquest of New England—the latter on a day of fasting and prayer
appointed by the Puritans to avert the calamity; the settling of
New England by the Puritans, rather than by French Jesuits; the
order of Council restraining Cromwell and his friends from sailing
to America; Major André’s lack of self-possession in presence of
his captors, which led him to ask an improper question instead of
showing his passport, and which saved the American cause; the
unusually early commencement of cold weather, which frustrated the
plans of Napoleon and destroyed his army in Russia; the fatal shot
at Fort Sumter, which precipitated the war of secession and
resulted in the abolition of American slavery. Nature is linked to
history; the breeze warps the course of the bullet; the worm
perforates the plank of the ship. God must care for the least, or
he cannot care for the greatest.

“Large doors swing on small hinges.” The barking of a dog
determined F. W. Robertson to be a preacher rather than a soldier.
Robert Browning, Mr. Sludge the Medium: “We find great things are
made of little things, And little things go lessening till at last
Comes God behind them.” E. G. Robinson: “We cannot suppose only a
general outline to have been in the mind of God, while the
filling-up is left to be done in some other way. The general
includes the special.” Dr. Lloyd, one of the Oxford Professors,
said to Pusey, “I wish you would learn something about those
German critics.” “In the obedient spirit of those times,” writes
Pusey, “I set myself at once to learn German, and I went to
Göttingen, to study at once the language and the theology. My life
turned on that hint of Dr. Lloyd’s.”

Goldwin Smith: “Had a bullet entered the brain of Cromwell or of
William III in his first battle, or had Gustavus not fallen at
Lützen, the course of history apparently would have been changed.
The course even of science would have been changed, if there had
not been a Newton and a Darwin.” The annexation of Corsica to
France gave to France a Napoleon, and to Europe a conqueror.
Martineau, Seat of Authority, 101—“Had the monastery at Erfurt
deputed another than young Luther on its errand to paganized Rome,
or had Leo X sent a less scandalous agent than Tetzel on his
business to Germany, the seeds of the Reformation might have
fallen by the wayside where they had no deepness of earth, and the
Western revolt of the human mind might have taken another date and
another form.” See Appleton, Works, 1:149 _sq._; Lecky, England in
the Eighteenth Century, chap. I.

(_b_) The love of God which prompts a general care for the universe must also prompt a particular care for the smallest events which affect the happiness of his creatures. It belongs to love to regard nothing as trifling or beneath its notice which has to do with the interests of the object of its affection. Infinite love may therefore be expected to provide for all, even the minutest things in the creation. Without belief in this particular care, men cannot long believe in God’s general care. Faith in a particular providence is indispensable to the very existence of practical religion; for men will not worship or recognize a God who has no direct relation to them.

Man’s care for his own body involves care for the least important
members of it. A lover’s devotion is known by his interest in the
minutest concerns of his beloved. So all our affairs are matters
of interest to God. Pope’s Essay on Man: “All nature is but art
unknown to thee; All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal
good.” If harvests may be labored for and lost without any agency
of God; if rain or sun may act like fate, sweeping away the
results of years, and God have no hand in it all; if wind and
storm may wreck the ship and drown our dearest friends, and God
not care for us or for our loss, then all possibility of general
trust in God will disappear also.

God’s care is shown in the least things as well as in the
greatest. In Gethsemane Christ says: “_Let these go their way:
that the word might be fulfilled which he spake, Of those whom
thou hast given me I lost not one_” (_John 18:8, 9_). It is the
same spirit as that of his intercessory prayer: “_I guarded them,
and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition_” (_John
17:12_). Christ gives himself as a prisoner that his disciples may
go free, even as he redeems us from the curse of the law by being
made a curse for us (_Gal. 3:13_). The dewdrop is moulded by the
same law that rounds the planets into spheres. Gen. Grant said he
had never but once sought a place for himself, and in that place
he was a comparative failure; he had been an instrument in God’s
hand for the accomplishing of God’s purposes, apart from any plan
or thought or hope of his own.