Chapter IX: Section III: Providence (2)

Of his journey through the dark continent in search of David
Livingston, Henry M. Stanley wrote in Scribner’s Monthly for June,
1890: “Constrained at the darkest hour humbly to confess that
without God’s help I was helpless, I vowed a vow in the forest
solitudes that I would confess his aid before men. Silence as of
death was around me; it was midnight; I was weakened by illness,
prostrated with fatigue, and wan with anxiety for my white and
black companions, whose fate was a mystery. In this physical and
mental distress I besought God to give me back my people. Nine
hours later we were exulting with a rapturous joy. In full view of
all was the crimson flag with the crescent, and beneath its waving
folds was the long-lost rear column.... My own designs were
frustrated constantly by unhappy circumstances. I endeavored to
steer my course as direct as possible, but there was an
unaccountable influence at the helm.... I have been conscious that
the issues of every effort were in other hands.... Divinity seems
to have hedged us while we journeyed, impelling us whither it
would, effecting its own will, but constantly guiding and
protecting us.” He refuses to believe that it is all the result of
“luck”, and he closes with a doxology which we should expect from
Livingston but not from him: “Thanks be to God, forever and ever!”

(_c_) In times of personal danger, and in remarkable conjunctures of public affairs, men instinctively attribute to God a control of the events which take place around them. The prayers which such startling emergencies force from men’s lips are proof that God is present and active in human affairs. This testimony of our mental constitution must be regarded as virtually the testimony of him who framed this constitution.

No advance of science can rid us of this conviction, since it
comes from a deeper source than mere reasoning. The intuition of
design is awakened by the connection of events in our daily life,
as much as by the useful adaptations which we see in nature. _Ps.
107:23-28_—“_They that go down to the sea in ships ... mount up to
the heavens, they go down again to the depths ... And are at their
wits’ end. Then they cry unto Jehovah in their trouble._” A narrow
escape from death shows us a present God and Deliverer. Instance
the general feeling throughout the land, expressed by the press as
well as by the pulpit, at the breaking out of our rebellion and at
the President’s subsequent Proclamation of Emancipation.

“Est deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo.” For contrast
between Nansen’s ignoring of God in his polar journey and Dr.
Jacob Chamberlain’s calling upon God in his strait in India, see
Missionary Review, May, 1898. Sunday School Times, March 4,
1893—“Benjamin Franklin became a deist at the age of fifteen.
Before the Revolutionary War he was merely a shrewd and pushing
business man. He had public spirit, and he made one happy
discovery in science. But ‘Poor Richard’s’ sayings express his
mind at that time. The perils and anxieties of the great war gave
him a deeper insight. He and others entered upon it ‘with a rope
around their necks.’ As he told the Constitutional Convention of
1787, when he proposed that its daily sessions be opened with
prayer, the experiences of that war showed him that ‘God verily
rules in the affairs of men.’ And when the designs for an American
coinage were under discussion, Franklin proposed to stamp on them,
not ‘A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned,’ or any other piece of
worldly prudence, but ‘The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of
Wisdom.’ ”

(_d_) Christian experience confirms the declarations of Scripture that particular events are brought about by God with special reference to the good or ill of the individual. Such events occur at times in such direct connection with the Christian’s prayers that no doubt remains with regard to the providential arrangement of them. The possibility of such divine agency in natural events cannot be questioned by one who, like the Christian, has had experience of the greater wonders of regeneration and daily intercourse with God, and who believes in the reality of creation, incarnation, and miracles.

Providence prepares the way for men’s conversion, sometimes by
their own partial reformation, sometimes by the sudden death of
others near them. Instance Luther and Judson. The Christian learns
that the same Providence that led him before his conversion is
busy after his conversion in directing his steps and in supplying
his wants. Daniel Defoe: “I have been fed more by miracle than
Elijah when the angels were his purveyors.” In _Psalm 32_, David
celebrates not only God’s pardoning mercy but his subsequent
providential leading: “_I will counsel thee with mine eye upon
thee_” (_verse 8_). It may be objected that we often mistake the
meaning of events. We answer that, as in nature, so in providence,
we are compelled to believe, not that we _know_ the design, but
that there _is_ a design. Instance Shelley’s drowning, and Jacob
Knapp’s prayer that his opponent might be stricken dumb. Lyman
Beecher’s attributing the burning of the Unitarian church to God’s
judgment upon false doctrine was invalidated a little later by the
burning of his own church.

_Job 23:10_—“_He knoweth the way that is mine,_” or “_the way that
is with me,_” _i. e._, my inmost way, life, character; “_When he
hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold._” _1 Cor. 19:4_—“_and
the rock was Christ_”—Christ was the ever present source of their
refreshment and life, both physical and spiritual. God’s
providence is all exercised through Christ. _2 Cor. 2:14_—“_But
thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ_”;
not, as in A. V., “_causeth us to triumph_.” Paul glories, not in
conquering, but in being conquered. Let Christ triumph, not Paul.
“Great King of grace, my heart subdue; I would be led in triumph
too. A willing captive to my Lord, To own the conquests of his
word.” Therefore Paul can call himself “_the prisoner of Christ
Jesus_” (_Eph. 3:1_). It was Christ who had shut him up two years
in Cæsarea, and then two succeeding years in Rome.

IV. Relations of the Doctrine of Providence.

1. To miracles and works of grace.

Particular providence is the agency of God in what seem to us the minor affairs of nature and human life. Special providence is only an instance of God’s particular providence which has special relation to us or makes peculiar impression upon us. It is special, not as respects the means which God makes use of, but as respects the effect produced upon us. In special providence we have only a more impressive manifestation of God’s universal control.

Miracles and works of grace like regeneration are not to be regarded as belonging to a different order of things from God’s special providences. They too, like special providences, may have their natural connections and antecedents, although they more readily suggest their divine authorship. Nature and God are not mutually exclusive,—nature is rather God’s method of working. Since nature is only the manifestation of God, special providence, miracle, and regeneration are simply different degrees of extraordinary nature. Certain of the wonders of Scripture, such as the destruction of Sennacherib’s army and the dividing of the Red Sea, the plagues of Egypt, the flight of quails, and the draught of fishes, can be counted as exaggerations of natural forces, while at the same time they are operations of the wonder-working God.

The falling of snow from a roof is an example of ordinary (or
particular) providence. But if a man is killed by it, it becomes a
special providence to him and to others who are thereby taught the
insecurity of life. So the providing of coal for fuel in the
geologic ages may be regarded by different persons in the light
either of a general or of a special providence. In all the
operations of nature and all the events of life God’s providence
is exhibited. That providence becomes special, when it manifestly
suggests some care of God for us or some duty of ours to God.
Savage, Life beyond Death, 285—“Mary A. Livermore’s life was saved
during her travels in the West by her hearing and instantly
obeying what seemed to her a voice. She did not know where it came
from; but she leaped, as the voice ordered, from one side of a car
to the other, and instantly the side where she had been sitting
was crushed in and utterly demolished.” In a similar way, the life
of Dr. Oncken was saved in the railroad disaster at Norwalk.

Trench gives the name of “providential miracles” to those
Scripture wonders which may be explained as wrought through the
agency of natural laws (see Trench, Miracles, 19). Mozley also
(Miracles, 117-120) calls these wonders miracles, because of the
predictive word of God which accompanied them. He says that the
difference in effect between miracles and special providences is
that the latter give _some_ warrant, while the former give _full_
warrant, for believing that they are wrought by God. He calls
special providences “invisible miracles.” Bp. of Southampton,
Place of Miracles, 12, 13—“The art of Bezaleel in constructing the
tabernacle, and the plans of generals like Moses and Joshua,
Gideon, Barak, and David, are in the Old Testament ascribed to the
direct inspiration of God. A less religious writer would have
ascribed them to the instinct of military skill. No miracle is
necessarily involved, when, in devising the system of ceremonial
law it is said: _‘__Jehovah spake unto Moses__’__ (Num. 5:1)_. God
is everywhere present in the history of Israel, but miracles are
strikingly rare.” We prefer to say that the line between the
natural and the supernatural, between special providence and
miracle, is an arbitrary one, and that the same event may often be
regarded either as special providence or as miracle, according as
we look at it from the point of view of its relation to other
events or from the point of view of its relation to God.

E. G. Robinson: “If Vesuvius should send up ashes and lava, and a
strong wind should scatter them, it could be said to rain fire and
brimstone, as at Sodom and Gomorrha.” There is abundant evident of
volcanic action at the Dead Sea. See article on the Physical
Preparation for Israel in Palestine, by G. Frederick Wright, in
Bib. Sac., April, 1901:364. The three great miracles—the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, the parting of the waters of
the Jordan, the falling down of the walls of Jericho—are described
as effect of volcanic eruption, elevation of the bed of the river
by a landslide, and earthquake-shock overthrowing the walls. Salt
slime thrown up may have enveloped Lot’s wife and turned her into
“_a mound of salt_” (_Gen. 19:26_). In like manner, some of Jesus’
works of healing, as for instance those wrought upon paralytics
and epileptics, may be susceptible of natural explanation, while
yet they show that Christ is absolute Lord of nature. For the
naturalistic view, see Tyndall on Miracles and Special
Providences, in Fragments of Science, 45, 418. _Per contra_, see
Farrar, on Divine Providence and General Laws, in Science and
Theology, 54-80; Row, Bampton Lect. on Christian Evidences,
109-115; Godet, Defence of Christian Faith, Chap. 2; Bowne, The
Immanence of God, 56-65.

2. To prayer and its answer.

What has been said with regard to God’s connection with nature suggests the question, how God can answer prayer consistently with the fixity of natural law.

Tyndall (see reference above), while repelling the charge of
denying that God can answer prayer at all, yet does deny that he
can answer it without a miracle. He says expressly “that without a
disturbance of natural law quite as serious as the stoppage of an
eclipse, or the rolling of the St. Lawrence up the falls of
Niagara, no act of humiliation, individual or national, could call
one shower from heaven or deflect toward us a single beam of the
sun.” In reply we would remark:

A. Negatively, that the true solution is not to be reached:

(_a_) By making the sole effect of prayer to be its reflex influence upon the petitioner.—Prayer presupposes a God who hears and answers. It will not be offered, unless it is believed to accomplish objective as well as subjective results.

According to the first view mentioned above, prayer is a mere
spiritual gymnastics—an effort to lift ourselves from the ground
by tugging at our own boot-straps. David Hume said well, after
hearing a sermon by Dr. Leechman: “We can make use of no
expression or even thought in prayers and entreaties which does
not imply that these prayers have an influence.” See Tyndall on
Prayer and Natural Law, in Fragments of Science, 35. Will men pray
to a God who is both deaf and dumb? Will the sailor on the
bowsprit whistle to the wind for the sake of improving his voice?
Horace Bushnell called this perversion of prayer a “mere dumb-bell
exercise.” Baron Munchausen pulled himself out of the bog in China
by tugging away at his own pigtail.

Hyde, God’s Education of Man, 154, 155—“Prayer is not the reflex
action of my will upon itself, but rather the communion of two
wills, in which the finite comes into connection with the
Infinite, and, like the trolley, appropriates its purpose and
power.” Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 42, apparently follows
Schleiermacher in unduly limiting prayer to general petitions
which receive only a subjective answer. He tells us that “Jesus
taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer in response to a request
for directions how to pray. Yet we look in vain therein for
requests for special gifts of grace, or for particular good
things, even though they are spiritual. The name, the will, the
kingdom of God—these are the things which are the objects of
petition.” Harnack forgets that the same Christ said also: “_All
things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive
them, and ye shall have them_” (_Mark 11:24_).

(_b_) Nor by holding that God answers prayer simply by spiritual means, such as the action of the Holy Spirit upon the spirit of man.—The realm of spirit is no less subject to law than the realm of matter. Scripture and experience, moreover, alike testify that in answer to prayer events take place in the outward world which would not have taken place if prayer had not gone before.

According to this second theory, God feeds the starving Elijah,
not by a distinct message from heaven but by giving a
compassionate disposition to the widow of Zarephath so that she is
moved to help the prophet. _1 K. 17:9_—“_behold, I have commanded
a widow there to sustain thee._” But God could also feed Elijah by
the ravens and the angel (_1 K. 17:4; 19:15_), and the pouring
rain that followed Elijah’s prayer (_1 K. 18:42-45_) cannot be
explained as a subjective spiritual phenomenon. Diman, Theistic
Argument, 268—“Our charts map out not only the solid shore but the
windings of the ocean currents, and we look into the morning
papers to ascertain the gathering of storms on the slopes of the
Rocky Mountains.” But law rules in the realm of spirit as well as
in the realm of nature. See Baden Powell, in Essays and Reviews,
106-162; Knight, Studies in Philosophy and Literature, 340-404;
George I. Chace, discourse before the Porter Rhet. Soc. of
Andover, August, 1854. Governor Rice in Washington is moved to
send money to a starving family in New York, and to secure
employment for them. Though he has had no information with regard
to their need, they have knelt in prayer for help just before the
coming of the aid.

(_c_) Nor by maintaining that God suspends or breaks in upon the order of nature, in answering every prayer that is offered.—This view does not take account of natural laws as having objective existence, and as revealing the order of God’s being. Omnipotence might thus suspend natural law, but wisdom, so far as we can see, would not.

This third theory might well be held by those who see in nature no
force but the all-working will of God. But the properties and
powers of matter are revelations of the divine will, and the human
will has only a relative independence in the universe. To desire
that God would answer all our prayers is to desire omnipotence
without omniscience. All true prayer is therefore an expression of
the one petition: “_Thy will be done_” (_Mat. 6:10_). E. G.
Robinson: “It takes much common sense to pray, and many prayers
are destitute of this quality. Man needs to pray audibly even in
his private prayers, to get the full benefit of them. One of the
chief benefits of the English liturgy is that the individual
minister is lost sight of. Protestantism makes you work; in
Romanism the church will do it all for you.”

(_d_) Nor by considering prayer as a physical force, linked in each case to its answer, as physical cause is linked to physical effect.—Prayer is not a force acting directly upon nature; else there would be no discretion as to its answer. It can accomplish results in nature, only as it influences God.

We educate our children in two ways: first, by training them to do
for themselves what they can do; and, secondly, by encouraging
them to seek our help in matters beyond their power. So God
educates us, first, by impersonal law, and, secondly, by personal
dependence. He teaches us both to work and to ask. Notice the
“perfect unwisdom of modern scientists who place themselves under
the training of impersonal law, to the exclusion of that higher
and better training which is under personality” (Hopkins, Sermon
on Prayer-gauge, 16).

It seems more in accordance with both Scripture and reason to say that:

B. God may answer prayer, even when that answer involves changes in the sequences of nature,—

(_a_) By new combinations of natural forces, in regions withdrawn from our observation, so that effects are produced which these same forces left to themselves would never have accomplished. As man combines the laws of chemical attraction and of combustion, to fire the gunpowder and split the rock asunder, so God may combine the laws of nature to bring about answers to prayer. In all this there may be no suspension or violation of law, but a use of law unknown to us.

Hopkins, Sermon on the Prayer-gauge: “Nature is uniform in her
processes but not in her results. Do you say that water cannot run
uphill? Yes, it can and does. Whenever man constructs a milldam
the water runs up the environing hills till it reaches the top of
the milldam. Man can make a spark of electricity do his bidding;
why cannot God use a bolt of electricity? Laws are not our
masters, but our servants. They do our bidding all the better
because they are uniform. And our servants are not God’s masters.”
Kendall Brooks: “The master of a musical instrument can vary
without limit the combination of sounds and the melodies which
these combinations can produce. The laws of the instrument are not
changed, but in their unchanging steadfastness produce an infinite
variety of tunes. It is necessary that they should be unchanging
in order to secure a desired result. So nature, which exercises
the infinite skill of the divine Master, is governed by unvarying
laws; but he, by these laws, produces an infinite variety of
results.”

Hodge, Popular Lectures, 45, 99—“The system of natural laws is far
more flexible in God’s hands than it is in ours. We act on second
causes externally; God acts on them internally. We act upon them
at only a few isolated points; God acts upon every point of the
system at the same time. The whole of nature may be as plastic to
his will as the air in the organs of the great singer who
articulates it into a fit expression of every thought and passion
of his soaring soul.” Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 155—“If all the
chemical elements of our solar system preëxisted in the fiery
cosmic mist, there must have been a time when quite suddenly the
attractions between these elements overcame the degree of caloric
force which held them apart, and the rush of elements into
chemical union must have been consummated with inconceivable
rapidity. Uniformitarianism is not universal.”

Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, chap. 2—“By a little increase of
centrifugal force the elliptical orbit is changed into a parabola,
and the planet becomes a comet. By a little reduction in
temperature water becomes solid and loses many of its powers. So
unexpected results are brought about and surprises as
revolutionary as if a Supreme Power immediately intervened.”
William James, Address before Soc. for Psych. Research:
“Thought-transference may involve a critical point, as the
physicists call it, which is passed only when certain psychic
conditions are realized, and otherwise not reached at all—just as
a big conflagration will break out at a certain temperature, below
which no conflagration whatever, whether big or little, can
occur.” Tennyson, Life, 1:324—“Prayer is like opening a sluice
between the great ocean and our little channels, when the great
sea gathers itself together and flows in at full tide.”

Since prayer is nothing more nor less than appeal to a personal and present God, whose granting or withholding of the requested blessing is believed to be determined by the prayer itself, we must conclude that prayer moves God, or, in other words, induces the putting forth on his part of an imperative volition.

The view that in answering prayer God combines natural forces is
elaborated by Chalmers, Works, 2:314, and 7:234. See Diman,
Theistic Argument, 111—“When laws are conceived of, not as single,
but as combined, instead of being immutable in their operation,
they are the agencies of ceaseless change. Phenomena are governed,
not by invariable forces, but by _endlessly varying combinations
of invariable forces_.” Diman seems to have followed Argyll, Reign
of Law, 100.

Janet, Final Causes, 219—“I kindle a fire in my grate. I only
intervene to produce and combine together the different agents
whose natural action behooves to produce the effect I have need
of; but the first step once taken, all the phenomena constituting
combustion engender each other, conformably to their laws, without
a new intervention of the agent; so that an observer who should
study the series of these phenomena, without perceiving the first
hand that had prepared all, could not seize that hand in any
especial act, and yet there is a preconceived plan and
combination.”

Hopkins, Sermon on Prayer-gauge: Man, by sprinkling plaster on his
field, may cause the corn to grow more luxuriantly; by kindling
great fires and by firing cannon, he may cause rain; and God can
surely, in answer to prayer, do as much as man can. Lewes says
that the fundamental character of all theological philosophy is
conceiving of phenomena as subject to supernatural volition, and
consequently as eminently and irregularly variable. This notion,
he says, is refuted, first, by exact and rational prevision of
phenomena, and, secondly, by the possibility of our modifying
these phenomena so as to promote our own advantage. But we ask in
reply: If we can modify them, cannot God? But, lest this should
seem to imply mutability in God or inconsistency in nature, we
remark, in addition, that:

(_b_) God may have so preärranged the laws of the material universe and the events of history that, while the answer to prayer is an expression of his will, it is granted through the working of natural agencies, and in perfect accordance with the general principle that results, both temporal and spiritual, are to be attained by intelligent creatures through the use of the appropriate and appointed means.

J. P. Cooke, Credentials of Science, 194—“The Jacquard loom of
itself would weave a perfectly uniform plain fabric; the
perforated cards determine a selection of the threads, and through
a combination of these variable conditions, so complex that the
observer cannot follow their intricate workings, the predesigned
pattern appears.” E. G. Robinson: “The most formidable objection
to this theory is the apparent countenance it lends to the
doctrine of necessitarianism. But if it presupposes that free
actions have been taken into account, it cannot easily be shown to
be false.” The bishop who was asked by his curate to sanction
prayers for rain was unduly sceptical when he replied: “First
consult the barometer.” Phillips Brooks: “Prayer is not the
conquering of God’s reluctance, but the taking hold of God’s
willingness.”

The Pilgrims at Plymouth, somewhere about 1628, prayed for rain.
They met at 9 A. M., and continued in prayer for eight or nine
hours. While they were assembled clouds gathered, and the next
morning began rains which, with some intervals, lasted fourteen
days. John Easter was many years ago an evangelist in Virginia. A
large out-door meeting was being held. Many thousands had
assembled, when heavy storm clouds began to gather. There was no
shelter to which the multitudes could retreat. The rain had
already reached the adjoining fields when John Easter cried:
“Brethren, be still, while I call upon God to stay the storm till
the gospel is preached to this multitude!” Then he knelt and
prayed that the audience might be spared the rain, and that after
they had gone to their homes there might be refreshing showers.
Behold, the clouds parted as they came near, and passed to either
side of the crowd and then closed again, leaving the place dry
where the audience had assembled, and the next day the postponed
showers came down upon the ground that had been the day before
omitted.

Since God is immanent in nature, an answer to prayer, coming about through the intervention of natural law, may be as real a revelation of God’s personal care as if the laws of nature were suspended, and God interposed by an exercise of his creative power. Prayer and its answer, though having God’s immediate volition as their connecting bond, may yet be provided for in the original plan of the universe.

The universe does not exist for itself, but for moral ends and
moral beings, to reveal God and to furnish facilities of
intercourse between God and intelligent creatures. Bishop
Berkeley: “The universe is God’s ceaseless conversation with his
creatures.” The universe certainly subserves moral ends—the
discouragement of vice and the reward of virtue; why not spiritual
ends also? When we remember that there is no true prayer which God
does not inspire; that every true prayer is part of the plan of
the universe linked in with all the rest and provided for at the
beginning; that God is in nature and in mind, supervising all
their movements and making all fulfill his will and reveal his
personal care; that God can adjust the forces of nature to each
other far more skilfully than can man when man produces effects
which nature of herself could never accomplish; that God is not
confined to nature or her forces, but can work by his creative and
omnipotent will where other means are not sufficient,—we need have
no fear, either that natural law will bar God’s answers to prayer,
or that these answers will cause a shock or jar in the system of
the universe.

Matheson, Messages of the Old Religions, 321, 322—“Hebrew poetry
never deals with outward nature for its own sake. The eye never
rests on beauty for itself alone. The heavens are the work of
God’s hands, the earth is God’s footstool, the winds are God’s
ministers, the stars are God’s host, the thunder is God’s voice.
What we call Nature the Jew called God.” Miss Heloise E. Hersey:
“Plato in the Phædrus sets forth in a splendid myth the means by
which the gods refresh themselves. Once a year, in a mighty host,
they drive their chariots up the steep to the topmost vault of
heaven. Thence they may behold all the wonders and the secrets of
the universe; and, quickened by the sight of the great plain of
truth, they return home replenished and made glad by the celestial
vision.” Abp. Trench, Poems, 134—“Lord, what a change within us
one short hour Spent in thy presence will prevail to make—What
heavy burdens from our bosoms take, What parched grounds refresh
as with a shower! We kneel, and all around us seems to lower; We
rise, and all, the distant and the near, Stands forth in sunny
outline, brave and clear; We kneel how weak, we rise how full of
power! Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or
others—that we are not always strong; That we are ever overborne
with care; That we should ever weak or heartless be, Anxious or
troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage
are with thee?” See Calderwood, Science and Religion, 299-309;
McCosh, Divine Government, 215; Liddon, Elements of Religion,
178-203; Hamilton, Autology, 690-694. See also Jellett, Donnellan
Lectures on the Efficacy of Prayer; Butterworth, Story of Notable
Prayers; Patton, Prayer and its Answers; Monrad, World of Prayer;
Prime, Power of Prayer; Phelps, The Still Hour; Haven, and
Bickersteth, on Prayer; Prayer for Colleges; Cox, in Expositor,
1877: chap. 3; Faunce, Prayer as a Theory and a Fact; Trumbull,
Prayer, Its Nature and Scope.

C. If asked whether this relation between prayer and its providential answer can be scientifically tested, we reply that it may be tested just as a father’s love may be tested by a dutiful son.

(_a_) There is a general proof of it in the past experience of the Christian and in the past history of the church.

_Ps. 116:1-8_—“_I love Jehovah because he heareth my voice and my supplications._” Luther prays for the dying Melanchthon, and he recovers. George Müller trusts to prayer, and builds his great orphan-houses. For a multitude of instances, see Prime, Answers to Prayer. Charles H. Spurgeon: “If there is any fact that is proved, it is that God hears prayer. If there is any scientific statement that is capable of mathematical proof, this is.” Mr. Spurgeon’s language is rhetorical: he means simply that God’s answers to prayer remove all reasonable doubt. Adoniram Judson: “I never was deeply interested in any object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came; at some time—no matter at how distant a day—somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised—it came. And yet I have always had so little faith! May God forgive me, and while he condescends to use me as his instrument, wipe the sin of unbelief from my heart!”

(_b_) In condescension to human blindness, God may sometimes submit to a formal test of his faithfulness and power,—as in the case of Elijah and the priests of Baal.

_Is. 7:10-13_—Ahaz is rebuked for not asking a sign,—in him it
indicated unbelief. _1 K. 18:36-38_—Elijah said, “_let it be known
this day that thou art God in Israel.... Then the fire of Jehovah
fell, and consumed the burnt offering._” Romaine speaks of “a year
famous for believing.” _Mat 21:21, 22_—“_even if ye shall say unto
this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be
done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,
believing, ye shall receive._” “Impossible?” said Napoleon; “then
it shall be done!” Arthur Hallam, quoted in Tennyson’s Life,
1:44—“With respect to prayer, you ask how I am to distinguish the
operations of God in me from the motions of my own heart. Why
should you distinguish them, or how do you know that there is any
distinction? Is God less God because he acts by general laws when
he deals with the common elements of nature?” “Watch in prayer to
see what cometh. Foolish boys that knock at a door in wantonness,
will not stay till somebody open to them; but a man that hath
business will knock, and knock again, till he gets his answer.”

Martineau, Seat of Authority, 102, 103—“God is not beyond nature
simply,—he is within it. In nature and in mind we must find the
action of his power. There is no need of his being a third factor
over and above the life of nature and the life of man.” Hartley
Coleridge: “Be not afraid to pray,—to pray is right. Pray if thou
canst with hope, but ever pray, Though hope be weak, or sick with
long delay; Pray in the darkness, if there be no light. Far is the
time, remote from human sight, When war and discord on the earth
shall cease; Yet every prayer for universal peace Avails the
blessed time to expedite. Whate’er is good to wish, ask that of
heaven, Though it be what thou canst not hope to see; Pray to be
perfect, though the material leaven Forbid the spirit so on earth
to be; But if for any wish thou dar’st not pray, Then pray to God
to cast that wish away.”

(_c_) When proof sufficient to convince the candid inquirer has been already given, it may not consist with the divine majesty to abide a test imposed by mere curiosity or scepticism,—as in the case of the Jews who sought a sign from heaven.

_Mat. 12:39_—“_An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a
sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah
the prophet._” Tyndall’s prayer-gauge would ensure a conflict of
prayers. Since our present life is a moral probation, delay in the
answer to our prayers, and even the denial of specific things for
which we pray, may be only signs of God’s faithfulness and love.
George Müller: “I myself have been bringing certain requests
before God now for seventeen years and six months, and never a day
has passed without my praying concerning them all this time; yet
the full answer has not come up to the present. But I look for it;
I confidently expect it.” Christ’s prayer, “_let this cup pass
away from me_” (_Mat. 26:39_), and Paul’s prayer that the “_thorn
in the flesh_” might depart from him (_2 Cor. 12:7, 8_), were not
answered in the precise way requested. No more are our prayers
always answered in the way we expect. Christ’s prayer was not
answered by the literal removing of the cup, because the drinking
of the cup was really his glory; and Paul’s prayer was not
answered by the literal removal of the thorn, because the thorn
was needful for his own perfecting. In the case of both Jesus and
Paul, there were larger interests to be consulted than their own
freedom from suffering.

(_d_) Since God’s will is the link between prayer and its answer, there can be no such thing as a physical demonstration of its efficacy in any proposed case. Physical tests have no application to things into which free will enters as a constitutive element. But there are moral tests, and moral tests are as scientific as physical tests can be.

Diman, Theistic Argument, 576, alludes to Goldwin Smith’s denial
that any scientific method can be applied to history because it
would make man a necessary link in a chain of cause and effect and
so would deny his free will. But Diman says this is no more
impossible than the development of the individual according to a
fixed law of growth, while yet free will is sedulously respected.
Froude says history is not a science, because no science could
foretell Mohammedanism or Buddhism; and Goldwin Smith says that
“prediction is the crown of all science.” But, as Diman remarks:
“geometry, geology, physiology, are sciences, yet they do not
predict.” Buckle brought history into contempt by asserting that
it could be analyzed and referred solely to intellectual laws and
forces. To all this we reply that there may be scientific tests
which are not physical, or even intellectual, but only moral. Such
a test God urges his people to use, in _Mal. 3:10_—“_Bring ye the
whole tithe into the storehouse ... and prove me now herewith, if
I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a
blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it._” All
such prayer is a reflection of Christ’s words—some fragment of his
teaching transformed into a supplication (_John 15:7_; see
Westcott, Bib. Com., _in loco_); all such prayer is moreover the
work of the Spirit of God (_Rom. 8:26, 27_). It is therefore sure
of an answer.

But the test of prayer proposed by Tyndall is not applicable to
the thing to be tested by it. Hopkins, Prayer and the
Prayer-gauge, 22 _sq._—“We cannot measure wheat by the yard, or
the weight of a discourse with a pair of scales.... God’s wisdom
might see that it was not best for the petitioners, nor for the
objects of their petition, to grant their request. Christians
therefore could not, without special divine authorization, rest
their faith upon the results of such a test.... Why may we not ask
for great changes in nature? For the same reason that a
well-informed child does not ask for the moon as a plaything....
There are two limitations upon prayer. First, except by special
direction of God, we cannot ask for a miracle, for the same reason
that a child could not ask his father to burn the house down.
Nature is the house we live in. Secondly, we cannot ask for
anything under the laws of nature which would contravene the
object of those laws. Whatever we can do for ourselves under these
laws, God expects us to do. If the child is cold, let him go near
the fire,—not beg his father to carry him.”

Herbert Spencer’s Sociology is only social physics. He denies
freedom, and declares anyone who will affix D. V. to the
announcement of the Mildmay Conference to be incapable of
understanding sociology. Prevision excludes divine or human will.
But Mr. Spencer intimates that the evils of natural selection may
be modified by artificial selection. What is this but the
interference of will? And if man can interfere, cannot God do the
same? Yet the wise child will not expect the father to give
everything he asks for. Nor will the father who loves his child
give him the razor to play with, or stuff him with unwholesome
sweets, simply because the child asks these things. If the
engineer of the ocean steamer should give me permission to press
the lever that sets all the machinery in motion, I should decline
to use my power and should prefer to leave such matters to him,
unless he first suggested it and showed me how. So the Holy Spirit
“_helpeth our infirmity; for we know not how to pray as we ought;
but the Spirit himself __ maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered_” (_Rom. 8:26_). And we ought
not to talk of “submitting” to perfect Wisdom, or of “being
resigned” to perfect Love. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra,
2:1—“What they [the gods] do delay, they do not deny.... We,
ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise
powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our
prayers.” See Thornton, Old-Fashioned Ethics, 286-297. _Per
contra_, see Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, 277-294.

3. To Christian activity.

Here the truth lies between the two extremes of quietism and naturalism.

(_a_) In opposition to the false abnegation of human reason and will which quietism demands, we hold that God guides us, not by continual miracle, but by his natural providence and the energizing of our faculties by his Spirit, so that we rationally and freely do our own work, and work out our own salvation.

Upham, Interior Life, 356, defines quietism as “cessation of
wandering thoughts and discursive imaginations, rest from
irregular desires and affections, and perfect submission of the
will.” Its advocates, however, have often spoken of it as a giving
up of our will and reason, and a swallowing up of these in the
wisdom and will of God. This phraseology is misleading, and savors
of a pantheistic merging of man in God. Dorner: “Quietism makes
God a monarch without living subjects.” Certain English quietists,
like the Mohammedans, will not employ physicians in sickness. They
quote _2 Chron. 16:12, 13_—Asa “_sought not to Jehovah, but to the
physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers_.” They forget that the
“_physicians_” alluded to in Chronicles were probably heathen
necromancers. Cromwell to his Ironsides: “Trust God, and keep your
powder dry!”

Providence does not exclude, but rather implies the operation of
natural law, by which we mean God’s regular way of working. It
leaves no excuse for the sarcasm of Robert Browning’s Mr. Sludge
the Medium, 223—“Saved your precious self from what befell The
thirty-three whom Providence forgot.” Schurman, Belief in God,
213—“The temples were hung with the votive offerings of those only
who had _escaped_ drowning.” “So like Provvy!” Bentham used to
say, when anything particularly unseemly occurred in the way of
natural catastrophe, God reveals himself in natural law.
Physicians and medicine are his methods, as well as the
impartation of faith and courage to the patient. The advocates of
faith-cure should provide by faith that no believing Christian
should die. With the apostolic miracles should go inspiration, as
Edward Irving declared. “Every man is as lazy as circumstances
will admit.” We throw upon the shoulders of Providence the burdens
which belong to us to bear. “_Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will
and to work, for his good pleasure_” (_Phil. 2:12, 13_).

Prayer without the use of means is an insult to God. “If God has
decreed that you should live, what is the use of your eating or
drinking?” Can a drowning man refuse to swim, or even to lay hold
of the rope that is thrown to him, and yet ask God to save him on
account of his faith? “Tie your camel,” said Mohammed, “and commit
it to God.” Frederick Douglas used to say that when in slavery he
often prayed for freedom, but his prayer was never answered till
he prayed with his feet—and ran away. Whitney, Integrity of
Christian Science, 68—“The existence of the dynamo at the
power-house does not make unnecessary the trolley line, nor the
secondary motor, nor the conductor’s application of the power.
True quietism is a resting in the Lord after we have done our
part.” _Ps. 37:7_—“_Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently for him_”;
_Is. 57:2_—“_He entereth into peace; they rest in their beds, each
one that walketh in his uprightness_”. Ian Maclaren, Cure of
Souls, 147—“Religion has three places of abode: in the reason,
which is theology; in the conscience, which is ethics; and in the
heart, which is quietism.” On the self-guidance of Christ, see
Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 202-232.

George Müller, writing about ascertaining the will of God, says:
“I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it
has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine tenths of
the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the
Lord’s will, whatever it may be. Having done this, I do not leave
the result to feeling or simple impression. If I do so, I make
myself liable to a great delusion. I seek the will of the Spirit
of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit
and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone,
without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If
the Holy Ghost guides us at all, he will do it according to the
Scriptures, and never contrary to them. Next I take into account
providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s
will in connection with his Word and his Spirit. I ask God in
prayer to reveal to me his will aright. Thus through prayer to
God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate
judgment according to the best of my knowledge and ability, and,
if my mind is thus at peace, I proceed accordingly.”

We must not confound rational piety with false enthusiasm. See
Isaac Taylor, Natural History of Enthusiasm. “Not quiescence, but
acquiescence, is demanded of us.” As God feeds “_the birds of the
heaven_” (_Mat. 6:26_), not by dropping food from heaven into
their mouths, but by stimulating them to seek food for themselves,
so God provides for his rational creatures by giving them a
sanctified common sense and by leading them to use it. In a true
sense Christianity gives us more will than ever. The Holy Spirit
emancipates the will, sets it upon proper objects, and fills it
with new energy. We are therefore not to surrender ourselves
passively to whatever professes to be a divine suggestion: _1 John
4:1_—“_believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether
they are of God._” The test is the revealed word of God: _Is.
8:20_—“_To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not
according to this word, surely there is no morning for them._” See
remarks on false Mysticism, pages 32, 33.

(_b_) In opposition to naturalism, we hold that God is continually near the human spirit by his providential working, and that this providential working is so adjusted to the Christian’s nature and necessities as to furnish instruction with regard to duty, discipline of religious character, and needed help and comfort in trial.

In interpreting God’s providences, as in interpreting Scripture, we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit is, indeed, in great part an application of Scripture truth to present circumstances. While we never allow ourselves to act blindly and irrationally, but accustom ourselves to weigh evidence with regard to duty, we are to expect, as the gift of the Spirit, an understanding of circumstances—a fine sense of God’s providential purposes with regard to us, which will make our true course plain to ourselves, although we may not always be able to explain it to others.

The Christian may have a continual divine guidance. Unlike the
unfaithful and unbelieving, of whom it is said, in _Ps. 106:13_,
“_They waited not for his counsel,_” the true believer has wisdom
given him from above. _Ps. 32:8_—“_I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go_”; _Prov. 3:6_—“_In all thy
ways acknowledge him, And he will direct thy paths_”; _Phil.
1:9_—“_And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and
more in knowledge and all discernment_” (αἰσθήσει = spiritual
discernment); _James 1:5_—“_if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him
ask of God, who giveth_ (τοῦ διδόντος Θεοῦ) _to all liberally and
upbraideth not_”; _John 15:15_—“_No longer do I call you servants;
for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called
you friends_”; _Col. 1:9, 10_—“_that ye may be filled with the
knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing._”

God’s Spirit makes Providence as well as the Bible personal to us.
From every page of nature, as well as of the Bible, the living God
speaks to us. Tholuck: “The more we recognize in every daily
occurrence God’s secret inspiration, guiding and controlling us,
the more will all which to others wears a common and every-day
aspect prove to us a sign and a wondrous work.” Hutton, Essays:
“Animals that are blind slaves of impulse, driven about by forces
from within, have so to say fewer valves in their moral
constitution for the entrance of divine guidance. But minds alive
to every word of God give constant opportunity for his
interference with suggestions that may alter the course of their
lives. The higher the mind, the more it glides into the region of
providential control. God turns the good by the slightest breath
of thought.” So the Christian hymn, “Guide me, O thou great
Jehovah!” likens God’s leading of the believer to that of Israel
by the pillar of fire and cloud; and Paul in his dungeon calls
himself “_the prisoner of Christ Jesus_” (_Eph. 3:1_). Affliction
is the discipline of God’s providence. Greek proverb: “He who does
not get thrashed, does not get educated.” On God’s Leadings, see
A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 560-562.

Abraham “_went out, not knowing whither he went_” (_Heb. 11:8_).
Not till he reached Canaan did he know the place of his
destination. Like a child he placed his hand in the hand of his
unseen Father, to be led whither he himself knew not. We often
have guidance without discernment of that guidance. _Is.
42:16_—“_I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; in
paths that they know not will I lead them._” So we act more wisely
than we ourselves understand, and afterwards look back with
astonishment to see what we have been able to accomplish. Emerson:
“Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he
knew.” Disappointments? Ah, you make a mistake in the spelling;
the D should be an H: His appointments. Melanchthon: “Quem poetæ
fortunam, nos Deum appellamus.” Chinese proverb: “The good God
never smites with both hands.” “Tact is a sort of psychical
automatism” (Ladd). There is a Christian tact which is rarely at
fault, because its possessor is “_led by the Spirit of God_”
(_Rom. 8:14_). Yet we must always make allowance, as Oliver
Cromwell used to say, “for the possibility of being mistaken.”

When Luther’s friends wrote despairingly of the negotiations at
the Diet of Worms, he replied from Coburg that he had been looking
up at the night sky, spangled and studded with stars, and had
found no pillars to hold them up. And yet they did not fall. God
needs no props for his stars and planets. He hangs them on
nothing. So, in the working of God’s providence, the unseen is
prop enough for the seen. Henry Drummond, Life, 127—“To find out
God’s will: 1. Pray. 2. Think. 3. Talk to wise people, but do not
regard their decision as final. 4. Beware of the bias of your own
will, but do not be too much afraid of it (God never unnecessarily
thwarts a man’s nature and likings, and it is a mistake to think
that his will is always in the line of the disagreeable). 5.
Meantime, do the next thing (for doing God’s will in small things
is the best preparation for knowing it in great things). 6. When
decision and action are necessary, go ahead. 7. Never reconsider
the decision when it is finally acted on; and 8. You will probably
not find out until afterwards, perhaps long afterwards, that you
have been led at all.”

Amiel lamented that everything was left to his own responsibility
and declared: “It is this thought that disgusts me with the
government of my own life. To win true peace, a man needs to feel
himself directed, pardoned and sustained by a supreme Power, to
feel himself in the right road, at the point where God would have
him be,—in harmony with God and the universe. This faith gives
strength and calm. I have not got it. All that is seems to me
arbitrary and fortuitous.” How much better is Wordsworth’s faith,
Excursion, book 4:581—“One adequate support For the calamities of
mortal life Exists, one only: an assured belief That the
procession of our fate, howe’er Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a
Being Of infinite benevolence and power, Whose everlasting
purposes embrace All accidents, converting them to good.” Mrs.
Browning, De Profundis, stanza xxiii—“I praise thee while my days
go on; I love thee while my days go on! Through dark and dearth,
through fire and frost, With emptied arms and treasure lost, I
thank thee while my days go on!”

4. To the evil acts of free agents.

(_a_) Here we must distinguish between the natural agency and the moral agency of God, or between acts of permissive providence and acts of efficient causation. We are ever to remember that God neither works evil, nor causes his creatures to work evil. All sin is chargeable to the self-will and perversity of the creature; to declare God the author of it is the greatest of blasphemies.

Bp. Wordsworth: “God _foresees_ evil deeds, but never _forces_
them.” “God does not cause sin, any more than the rider of a
limping horse causes the limping.” Nor can it be said that Satan
is the author of man’s sin. Man’s powers are his own. Not Satan,
but the man himself, gives the wrong application to these powers.
Not the cause, but the occasion, of sin is in the tempter; the
cause is in the evil will which yields to his persuasions.

(_b_) But while man makes up his evil decision independently of God, God does, by his natural agency, order the method in which this inward evil shall express itself, by limiting it in time, place, and measure, or by guiding it to the end which his wisdom and love, and not man’s intent, has set. In all this, however, God only allows sin to develop itself after its own nature, so that it may be known, abhorred, and if possible overcome and forsaken.