IX.

THE FUTURE IN GOD'S HANDS.

"The way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." — JEREMIAH x. 23.

No one can have passed many years on earth without having witnessed numerous illustrations of the truth declared in the text, both in the course of his own life, and in that of those with whom he is most familiar. If we restrict our view to the passing day or hour, we seem to be directing our own steps, according to our own will and judgment. We form and execute plans. We make one and another arrangement, as if our ways were wholly at our own disposal. But when we take into review the course of several years, or the lapse of a generation, we realize, at once, that there has been a power which has entirely overruled our own purposes, and directed our steps in a wholly different manner from that which would have seemed probable to our own foresight. Our ends have been shaped by an influence quite beyond our individual control. Great providential changes have occurred which have given a new direction to our whole lives, and brought us, and all belonging to us under influences of a far differ

ent nature from all which had preceded. By this experience we learn gradually to realize that we depend for the disposal of our lot in life, upon the sovereign wisdom and power of One who sees the end from the beginning, and whose omnipresent care is directed alike to sustaining the revolutions of the heavenly orbs, and to guiding the steps of feeble infancy, when deprived of earthly care. The general truth of the superintending providence of God, in the affairs of the world, is one which few, if any, would be disposed to doubt. A belief in the existence of God, having the perfections attributed to Him among Christians, involves in it the belief in His providence over the world. But, in regard to the nature of that providential control, a great difference of impression prevails. Some there are who admit what is termed a general Providence, while they deny that God exerts any immediate and direct influence upon individual persons or events. They seem to regard the world as a whole, and perhaps those events and changes which are called great, as under some kind of Divine control, while they are reluctant to admit that this applies to each individual and to minute concerns. They imagine that the world, having been created with certain inherent tendencies, and all its inhabitants with certain powers, rolls on, as it were, by a law once given, "without the continued agency and direction" of the Divine Author, like some vast machine, once formed and set in motion, and then

left to move on according to a certain principle, without its maker's constant superintendence. I propose to consider the subject, especially in those relations in which its practical importance consists. It is plain that it is closely connected with those great mysteries of Divine pre-ordination and influence, which present difficulties passing the bounds of human knowledge—and in regard to which it is very easy for the wisest of men to "darken counsel by words without knowledge."

1. It is at once apparent that the words general and particular, great and small, as applied to the subject of Divine Providence, are very liable to mislead the mind. To an Infinite Being, upon whom all worlds depend, who created and sustains myriads of orbs, as of creatures, that may be only a particular part of a vast whole, which seems to the wisest man the comprehensive generalization of all the parts of a sublime scheme. Our knowledge is limited to so narrow a sphere that we are entirely incompetent to judge of the range of an infinite design. We know not that this earth itself the creation of man, and his whole existence, may not be a particular part of some still more vast movement of infinite power, wisdom, and love. Indeed it is quite evident that the character and destiny of the human race has been closely connected with spiritual beings of another world, and they may have relations to still other beings of whom we have no knowledge. As discoveries in science advance, we constantly find

what were deemed ultimate facts and powers, resolved into particular results of still higher and more general facts and powers, and the impression constantly deepens that as inquiry advances, those so-termed general laws which control the system of this world, may be found to be particular laws, subordinate to others more comprehensive and sublime. In view of such an infinite scheme, that which might seem most comprehensive may be a particular part of the whole. And if in the formation of man — if in certain events, such as the flood, and many other miracles, the providence of God was direct, that is, if such events did not flow from certain general laws, originally established, but from the immediate action of Divine power, then the whole course of events may be subject to the same direct supervision. And when we speak of the general providence of God controlling the great events and movements of the world, but not extended to minute particulars, which seem of comparatively small moment, it may be observed that the distinction is also one which is merely verbal. It is impossible for us to decide which are the small events in the course of history. Circumstances the most trivial in human estimation are the essential condition of results which closely affect the happiness of the world. We cannot

attentively read the records of the past without being often reminded of the truth that upon the most insignificant occurrences, as we are accustomed to consider them, are made to depend the

mightiest changes in the condition of mankind. The Word of God, in which the dealings of Divine Providence are clearly laid open to our view, in the history of the Church abounds in such instances. Take one such in the narrative of Joseph. In a patriarchal family of shepherds one brother has incurred the envy of the rest, and, designing at first to destroy him, they are induced through the pity of one of their number to spare his life, and to sell him to a company of travelling merchants on their journey into the land of Egypt. This would seem to be an event of little general importance,— and the coincidence of the appearance of the merchants at the point of time, might be pronounced fortuitous and of slight consequence in connection with the history of nations and the condition of mankind. But, as the narrative advances, it unfolds the direct and inseparable bearing of these apparently unimportant circumstances upon the origin and preservation of a great nation, with that condition of servitude in which they remained for three centuries. The occurrence and coincidence which seemed trivial become of inconceivable importance through the consequences essentially dependent upon them. And in what true sense can God be said to have directed and controlled, by His general providence, the origin and character of the Jewish nation and church, without bringing to pass by His direct and especial providence, the seemingly unimportant occurrences which were essential to those sublime results? If