partial or our ephemeral view of it.

To the eye

of Him who contains it in the hollow of His hand, and sees its end from its beginning, there may be no disorder. He views it in all its completeness;

and He alone is the competent witness of all its harmony. It is surely an important experience on this question that every completed thing which we are permitted to observe possesses within itself a complete harmony. Each part is in most perfect keeping with the whole and nothing can be changed, for the purpose of being mended, without injury and disturbance to a mechanism otherwise perfect and admirable. Is it not therefore our wisdom to suspend a problem, which we so obviously are not in a condition to resolve to wait with humble contentment and confidence for the final issue and development of all things, for that day of manifestation, when we shall see God as He is, and know even as we are known ?

23. And, without waiting for the consummation of all things, we find, even in our brief experience, that evil is frequently the parent and the precursor of good that like as fatigue gives to repose its sweetness, so adversity gives to virtue its elevation -that prosperity yields a greater satisfaction because of the precedent ills and vicissitudes which often usher it into being-above all, that by painful conflict with the physical, the moral may be cradled into maturity, and both with nations and individuals obtain a lustre and a strength which no other discipline gives rise to. We have only to imagine the same law to have place and fulfilment in the general history of the universe, which we

ourselves witness exemplified in so many of its details; and then should we look on the sufferings of the present state as but the throes and the portents of some great coming enlargement going before, and even working out a far more exceeding happiness and glory to those who are exercised thereby. We do not say, that upon any observation of ours, we can found such an hypothesis, as shall give to Nature the full and positive assurance of a surpassing compensation for evil in the present system of things: But it is, at least, such an hypothesis, as should suspend, if it do not solve, the objections of the infidel—and leave to the proper evidences of Religion, whether Natural or Revealed all that inherent and native strength, which originally belongs to them.

24. We cannot take leave of this subject without adverting, for one moment, to the writings of Leibnitz; and to a certain peculiar interest and charm which they possess in relation to Theology. There is, in some of his philosophic speculations, an extravagance which we very much regret, because of the general discredit which it has laid on him, and which extends even to his sounder and better views. It has been said of Thomson, that he looked at every thing with the eye of a poet. We would say of Leibnitz that he looked at every thing with the eye of a lofty academic-and in virtue of which he presents us, not with a substantially different orthodoxy from the Fathers of the Reformation -but he recommends it to minds of a certain cast, presented as it is by him in the complexion, and couched in the phraseology of general science. We

VOL. II.

know nothing more delightful than the respectful notices, made by this distinguished Savant, of the Augsburgh confession, of Luther and Calvin and even our own Samuel Rutherford. There is a refreshing contrast here, with the whole tone and spirit of our more recent Philosophy; and in this age of little men, who look to our Theology as altogether an ignoble speculation, we feel an abundant recompense for their contempt, when we behold the homage that was rendered to it by the colossal intellects of other days.

CHAPTER III.

Use of Hypothesis in Theology.

ON THE DOCTRINE OF A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND THE
EFFICACY OF PRAYER.

1. THE use of an Hypothesis in Theology is not to establish any proposition, but, which is a very different service, to vindicate it. The proposition in question may be altogether sustained on appropriate evidences of its own; and the hypothesis which has been conjured up in its defence may add nothing affirmative to these evidences. But though it makes no accession either to their number or their strength, it does much if it but throw a shield of protection over them; and this it does when it displaces or neutralizes the hostile argument which has been devised for their overthrow.

2. This important function in the business of intellectual warfare can be discharged by an hypothesis, though in itself of no higher character than an unsupported imagination; and that, to a much greater extent in theology than is commonly imagined. We have already offered one specimen of its efficacy in repelling an objection that has been made against the theological system in general. We now proceed to another in which we hold it to be alike effectual for the vindication of a specific doctrine in theology—even the doctrine or rather doctrines of a special providence and the efficacy of prayer.

3. We select these doctrines all the more willingly, that, if we succeed in our proposed vindication of them, it will serve to counteract a tendency which is very prevalent, though incident chiefly to minds of a speculative and philosophical habitude, and to rectify, in fact, the whole character of their theism. The tendency of which we speak is to regard the Deity as a principle, rather than as a person. They look to Him more in the light of a physical energy than of a living agent of one whose pervading force moves and upholds and regulates the whole economy of nature throughout its countless diversities of operation; but not of one who thinks, and wills, and purposes, and is affected as our minds are by the impulse of emotions that vary with the objects which we contemplate. When we look upward to the Supreme and Eternal spirit, we lose, in the thought of a great and comprehensive agency, those features which serve either to individualize the character or to liken the

And certainly, long

Divinity at all to ourselves. after we have been familiarized to the conception of the Divinity as a power, and even long after this conception has been fortified within us by the doctrines and the demonstrations of theism—still we may be utter strangers to the habit of viewing Him as a person. And so with the full homage of our theoretical recognitions to the Godhead, may we be really and practically in a state of atheism.

4. There is one obvious effect of thus ranking Him, even though we should assign to Him the supreme rank among the great physical powers and principles of our universe. That which we hold to be the right and the rational proceeding in regard to any of these inferior powers, we shall hold to be the right and the rational proceeding in regard to the Deity. Take the power of gravitation for an example. We give the homage of our admiration to its universality. We look abroad with delight, and at the same time with a certain sense of loftiness in our spirit, on the wide and beneficent range of its influences in nature. It is with ecstasy, but an ecstasy altogether philosophic, that, emanating as it were from the fountain-head of this simple but sublime principle, we behold the goodly train of phenomena that result from it. We have given to it the name of a law; and feel somewhat of the deference that is rendered to a mighty jurisdiction, when we observe how it sends forth its mandates to the very outskirts of the universe so that distant and innumerable worlds lie within the sweep of its ample operation. But we thus behold it as if seated on a throne of