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I. When we speak of God's providence, we mean that God, by his invisible and almighty agency, guides and governs all his creatures and all their actions; or, in other words, that he takes care of every individual person, object, and event in the world.

Many people have vague and erroneous ideas of God's great wonder-working processes, which we call providence. This is indicated by common modes of speech.

Some speak of "luck" and "chance" as if events were absolutely casual and fortuitous, and came to pass independently of any purpose of God and without his control. But there is no such thing as chance, unless we employ the word, and others of similar import, as simply expressive of our ignorance. An accidental event is one of which we are not able to discover the cause or the purpose; but we may rest assured that, in the eye of God, it is in no way contingent and casual. Its cause has been foreseen and appointed to produce that particular effect, and this effect to serve a specific purpose. Many events are said to happen, because man can not discover the precise cause of them; but instead of being independent of God, it is specially by these that God manifests his wisdom, fulfills his purposes, and becomes truly the governor of the world. "A man drew a bow at a venture and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness;" but God foresaw the track of the arrow, and foretold the fall of the unrobed Ahab. The Scriptures teach us that not a hair falls from the head, and not a sparrow falls to the ground, contrary to his design, and without his agency. His wise and powerful direction controls all the good and all the evil that befalls mankind. Our life is full of changes. The wheel which God showed Ezekiel is a beautiful figure of divine providence. Sometimes one part of the wheel is at the top; and then, by its revolution, that part is brought down again to the dust. So it is with our life under God's providence.

"Here he exalts neglected worms

To scepters and a crown;

And then the following page he turns
And treads the monarch down."

One is brought low by reverses which upset all his plans; a little while, and another page is turned, and he is lifted up. One is strong and hale to-day; to-morrow he is brought down. Life is a checkered scene, sometimes exalted, and sometimes depressed. But God's love to his people is unchanging. And he controls all things for their good.

If you look back through the ages, by the aid of history, you see God working out his everlasting purposes. To his eye there are no chance events-nothing out of place-nothing out of time -nothing really adverse to his great end. To us it often seems

otherwise. We look at the troubles of to-day, and say with Jacob: "All these things are against me." We ought to wait till we can put the whole together, and see how one trouble counteracted another. Wait till the pattern is finished-now the thread is black or white-sorrow or joy, as the pattern needs. By and by the web of life will be held up a beautiful tapestry. Each color of the changing hues was needful to the beauty. We shall, in the end, look at God's dealings on the right side. Then we shall see that there was no chance work about it, but everlasting wisdom in every event; and if children of God, we shall be obliged, instead of lamenting and repining, to bless him for his mercies towards us.

Again, some people speak of the laws of nature in a way to exclude the wisdom of God from his providence. Old heathen philosophers held the doctrine of fate, with some differences of opinion among themselves. They supposed that "this universe is moving as it were," in a groove of adamant; and that the events of time are fixed by an inevitable, uncontrollable necessity, irrespective of the exertions and desires, the hopes and fears of men, and independent of any wise adjustment and control of the Deity. This was a denial of God's providence. Nearly the same thing is meant by those who talk flippantly now about "natural laws" as governing the course of events. This is one of the latest fashions of infidelity, in its warfare against Christianity. It says, that all things come of general laws; that there has been no creation, no miracle, and no interference with the operation of fixed laws; that all is a development. Monstrous absurdity! Its refutation is graven as "with an iron pen and lead in the rock," and fossil remains. Common sense is shocked at the impious dogma, that no creating hand was the maker of man! What law developed the muscles, with their power of contraction, for the purposes of motion, and pulling against each other, to keep the body even? By what innate tendency of matter was the heart developed-that mighty forcing pump, beating a hundred thousand times a day, and never growing weary. Every tendency of matter would operate to prevent the formation of such organs as the heart, the lungs, or the eye. Whence came the exact adjustment which you observe between the eye and the light, or between the lungs and the air? The machinery of the eye had no tendency to give birth to the light, nor the light to form the eye. In both is seen the wisdom of God. The mechanism of the lungs can have no tendency to originate the peculiar chemical combination of life-supporting and life-destroying gases, which form air, nor the air to construct the lungs. Had the lungs or the air been, in any respect, different from what they are, all would have been pain, perhaps death, to every living creature. "I am fearfully and wonderfully made," and as fearfully and wonderfully cared for

every moment.

It requires the same hand to govern the world which first. brought it into existence. The Creator has never given and never could give it an independent existence. He upholds and governs it by a constant exertion of his power. Take away his support ing agency, and it would instantly cease to exist. Should he cease to move it, all motion would immediately stop. Let his efficiency vacate the natural laws, and all things would forthwith revert to a state of chaos. From this it follows that he governs the sun, moon, and stars, and all the objects of his creation. He makes the sun to rise with punctual uniformity, the clouds to gather and drop down in dews, and in showers and in storms; and the seasons to follow each other in regular order. "He reserv. eth unto us the appointed weeks of harvest." The varied processes in the great laboratory of nature are set before us, to regale our senses and teach us lessons of gratitude, trust, and piety towards our wonder-working God. Look at them! Winter comes: its cold and frosts and snows are necessary to bring many things to maturity. Winter! the seeming death-knell of nature, it tells us that man must die. It seems as if there would be no more harvest. But there are hidden processes going on which are to ap pear in rich green fields and fruit-orchards. The seeds and roots of trees, buried beneath the dust, are undergoing changes important to their perfection.

Then comes Spring, genial and pleasing. God is working in it towards the fruits of the harvest. How much about God there is in it, significant and beautiful, for us to study and enjoy! Spring is hopeful. It scatters the violet and arbutus on the hill-sidetinges the field with green-awakes the song of birds, and puts all nature in bloom. By its magic touch, insects which had seemed to be dead begin to awaken, and seeds that were buried in the earth begin to lift up their radiant forms, prophets to man of a better resurrection.

Then Summer comes, clothing the grass of the field with beauty, and contributing, with its generous agencies, towards the harvest. It fills the air with fragrance and music; it robes the forest in deep rich foliage; and decks the fields with the tokens and earnests of ample stores. All this is not for the farmer alone to enjoy, but for him also who has a mind and spirit to enjoy it, and get lessons from it

"Him who with filial confidence inspired

Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, My Father made them all."

In all the richness of summer, behold the goodness of the merciful Creator.

Autumn completes the process. The fields are covered with crops, and their treasures are stored away in the barns. God has

not deserted our favored land. He has met us, and rebuked our folly; he has sent chastisement, which obstructed business, embarrassed our exchanges, palsied the arm of our strength, and crippled alike the enterprising men of business, and multitudes of the toiling and needy millions. But he has not suffered his promise of "seed-time and harvest" to fail. See how he has been operating through the successive seasons, to cover the fields with luxuriant harvests and fill our barns with plenty. In these results, the providence of God is seen, being made manifest by the things which are made.

ren.

The pantheistic philosophy before spoken of, sets the wisdom of God aside, and says: "Whatever is, must be general laws control the development of all." So this mortal scene is a huge time-piece set a-going, and nothing can stop it or alter it, and every vibration is fraught with inexorable destiny. This godless, boasting philosophy is sometimes clothed in poetic gorgeousness and the fascinations of pretended science; it is disseminating its baneful influence. Now the true doctrine of providence differs from this as much as a man with good eyes differs from a blind man. The wisdom of God moves the wheels along, and if any thing would go wrong, God puts it right. The doctrine of providence is not that "what is must be," but "that what God in his wisdom ordains, must be." This difference keeps us from being fatalists. It brings us into the presence of an infinitely wise, good, and powerful personal Deity, and brings God near to us as a Father making all things work together for good to his childFate is a blind thing, coming down upon the soul like an avalanche, to crush and destroy; or rather the horrible idea is such, for there is no such thing in reality. There are general laws, but their action is dependent on the Governor of the world. By referring such and such an event to such a law, you have not placed it out of the special dominion of God. Shall we neglect to recognize God in his works, because these works are done in a regular method? Such a neglect is really atheistic, whatever it may be called, or however those who countenance it, may affect to respect Christianity. I want to feel that God is working all. I want to feel that every thing in this world is guided and gov. erned by his wisdom, love, and power, and is working for some great, good end. I want to feel that every event, small and great, is under the eye and care of my Father in heaven. The Bible teaches me that it is so. God manifests his eternal power and universal agency, not only in the succession of the seasons, and of day and night, to which we have referred, but also in every leaf of the forest, fashioned with its delicate fibers after its own specific model, in every spire of grass that grows, in every kernal of grain, in every tree, fruit, and plant, as truly as he does in the heavens and the earth. This is the statement of Jesus in the text,

by which he means to lead our minds to a settled confidence in the providence of God.

The doctrine of providence is one of amazing sublimity; and in this respect it comports with the true idea of the immunity of God. Like himself, it is incomprehensible. It is so vast: God controlling all. It is so intricate-"a wheel within a wheel." Often it seems like Jacob crossing his hands when he blessed the sons of Joseph, putting his right over upon the head of the youngest, and his left hand upon the head of the first-born. It looks wrong to us, and we say: "Not so, my father." But he says: "It is even so." You can not see through it. He tells you not why it is so. You may know it by and by. His ways are a great deep, like the great ocean, never resting, ever rolling, and which has depths too profound for us to penetrate. And then providence is so uniform and consistent in all its parts. It never recedes, but always goes on to finish the plan it begins. Sometimes it seems to cross itself and counteract its own purposes. But it never does. Wait till the plan is finished and all is clear. God meant that Joseph should be lord of Egypt. There were many steps leading to this result; some of them seemed retrograde. There was the hate of his brethren, the being cast into the pit, the sale as a slave, the transfer to Potiphar; then there was the dungeon, the dream, the interpretation-a thousand things working together to produce the exaltation of Joseph. They seem to clash, but, in the end, you see, they conspired to bring about the beneficent end proposed. The seed of Abraham must possess the land of the Canaanites. A long series of complicated and diverse events, sometimes seemingly crossing the purpose, or even forbidding hope, operated most happily to prepare them for the inheritance, and led steadily on to the result. Be patient. With the Lord a thousand years is as one day. The minutest things help on the accomplishment of his ends. Read the book of Esther, and see what a salvation of the Jews God caused to come of "a sleepless night" of Ahasuerus. Read the Acts of the Apostles, and behold how God made the fury of persecution like the wind to waft the seed of gospel truth over the world. "Therefore, they that were scattered abroad, went every where preaching the word." There is nothing beneath his notice nor out of his control; not the atom that floats in the sunbeam, nor the spray of the cataract, any more than the sun in the heavens. The trouble that saddens you is as much under his direction as the advent of the Saviour.

It is important to remember that the providence of God extends to the sins of men and the iniquities of nations. This it does in permitting them. "Who in times suffered all nations to walk in their own ways," remaining ignorant and impenitent. "These things hast thou done, and I kept silence." Sentence is not executed

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