These Sections teach :

1st. That as the execution of an eternal and sovereign purpose, God's providential control is in the case of every being and event certainly efficacious.

2d. That the manner in which he controls his creatures and their actions, and effects his purposes through them, is in every case perfectly consistent with the nature of the creature and of his action.

3d. That God ordinarily effects his purposes through means ; that is, through the agency of second causes subject to his control.

4th. But that he possesses, and at times at his sovereign pleasure exercises, the power of effecting his purpose immediately by the direct energy of his power.

1st. That the providential control which God exercises over all his creatures and all their actions is always certainly efficacious, plainly follows: (1.) From his own infinite wisdom and power. (2.) From the fact, before proved, that his eternal purpose determines the occurrence of all that comes to pass, and is immutable and certainly efficacious, (3.) The fact is expressly declared in Scripture. Job xxiii. 13; Ps. xxxiii. 11 ; Lam. ii. 17.

2d. That the manner in which God controls his creatures and their actions, and effects his purposes through them, is in every case perfectly consistent with the

nature of the creature and of his mode of action, is certain —

(1.) From the fact that God executes the different parts of the same eternal, self-consistent purpose in his works of creation and providence. It is in the execution of the same unchangeable plan that God first created everything, endowed it with its properties, determined its mode of action and its mutual relations to all other things, and ever afterward continues to preserve it in the possession of its properties and to guide it in the exercise of them. As God must always be consistent to his own plan, so his mode of action upon the crea* tures whose existence and constitution has been determined by that plan must always be consistent with their natures and mode of action so determined.

(2.) The same fact is proved by our uniform expc rience and observation. We are conscious of acting freely according to the law of our constitution as free agents. Even in the writings of the prophets and apostles, who wrote under the control of a specific divine influence, rendering even their selection of words infallibly accurate, we can plainly see that the spontaneous exercise of the faculties of the writers was neither superseded nor coerced. Every agent in the material and brute creations, also, is observed constantly to act, under all changing conditions, according to the uniform law of its nature.

(3.) In perfect consistency with this, we see everywhere in the material world, in the lives of individual men and in all human history plain evidences of adjustments and combinations of elements and agents in the order of contrivance to effect purpose. This in principie IS analogous to, though in many ways infinitely more perfect than, the methods by which man controls natural agents to effect his purpose. If the laws of nature and the properties of things, when imperfectly understood, can be brought subject to the providence of man, there certainly can be no difficulty in believing ^ tbat they are infinitely more under the control of that God who not only understands them perfectly, but made them originally that they might subserve his purpose. It is just the perfection of God's adjustments that every event, as well as general results, are determined by his intention. Even the human soul, in the exercise of free agency, acts according to a law of its own, excluding necessity, but not excluding certainty. The springs of free action are within the soul itself. And yet, as these are modified without interfering with the liberty of the agent by the influence of other men, they certainly cannot lie beyond the control of the infinite intelligence who created the soul itself, and has determined all the conditions under which its character has been formed and its activities exercised.

3d. That God ordinarily effects his purposes through means — that is, through the agency of second causes subject to his control — is also evident —

(1.) From the fact that he originally gave them their being and properties, and adjusted their relations in the execution of these very purposes. The same design is pursued in creation and in providence. The instruments furnished and the methods of procedure inaugurated in creation must, therefore, be consistently pursued in the subsequent dispensations of providence.

(2.) Universal experience and observation teach us

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the same fact. In ordinary providence and in the administration of a supernatural economy of grace, in the sphere of material nature and in the moral government of ' intelligent and responsible agents, in the government of the finished world as we find it and in all the history of the formation of the earth and the worlds in the past, God universally accomplishes his purposes through the agency of second causes, adjusted, combined, supported and rendered efficient by his omnipresent Spirit for this very end.

(3.) A system involving an established order of nature, and proceeding in wise adaptation of means to ends, is necessary as a means of communication between the Creator and the intelligent creation, and to accomplish the intellectual and moral education of the latter. Thus only can the divine attributes of wisdom, righteousness or goodness be exercised or manifested, and thus only can angel or man understand the character, anticipate the will or intelligently and voluntarily cooperate with the plan of God.

4th. That God possesses the power of effecting his ends immediately, without the intervention of second causes, is self-evident, and that he at times at his sovereign pleasure exercises this power, is a matter of clear and satisfactory evidence.

(1.) Since God created all second causes and endowed them with their properties and continues to uphold them in being, that they might be the instruments of his will, all their efficiency is derived from him, and he must be able to do directly without them what he does with them, and limit, modify or supersede them a^ hla. pleasure.

(2.) The power f God does indeed work in all the ordinary processes of nature, and his will is expressed in what is called natural law. But it does not follow that his whole power is exhausted in those processes, nor his whole will expressed in those laws. God remains infinitely greater than his works, in the execution of his eternal immutable purposes using the system of second causes as his constant instrument after its kind, and meanwhile manifesting his transcendent prerogatives and powers by the free exercises of his energies and utterances of his will.

(3.) Occasional direct exercises of God's power in connection with a general system of means and laws appears to be necessary not only " in the beginning" to create second causes and inaugurate their agency, but also subsequently in order to make to the subjects of his moral government the revelation of his free personality, and of his immediate interest in their affairs. At any rate such occasional direct action and revelation is certainly necessary for the education of such beings as man is in his present estate. It has been objected that miracles, or direct acts of divine power, interfering with the natural action of second causes, is inconsistent with the infinite perfections of God, since it is claimed that they indicate either a vacillation of purpose upon his part, or some insufficiency in his creation to effect completely the ends he originally intended it to accomplish. It must be remembered, however, that the eternal and immutable plan of God comprehended the miracle from the beginning as well as the ordinary course of nature. A miracle, although effected by divine power without means, is itself a means to an end and part of a plan.

All natural law has its birth in the divine reason, an<l is an expression of will to effect a purpose.* In this highest, all-comprehensive sense of the word, miracles also are according to law — they are fixed in their occurrence by God's eternal plan, and they serve definite ends as his means of communicating with and educating finite spirits. They are in no proper sense a violation of the order of nature, but only the occasional and eternally pre-calculated interpolation of a new power, the immediate energy of the divine will. The order of nature is only an instrument of the divine will, and an instrument used subserviently to that higher moral government in the interests of which miracles are wrought. Thus the order of nature and miracles, instead of being in conflict, are the intimately correlated elements of one comprehensive system.

The providence of God is either ordinary or miraculous. In his ordinary providence God works by means, and according to the general laws established by his own wisdom : we are, therefore, bound to use the means which he has appointed, and if we neglect these, we cannot expect to obtain the end. But though God generally acts according to established laws, yet he may suspend or modify these laws at pleasure. And when, by his immediate agency, an effect is produced above or beside the ordinary course of nature, this we denominate a miracle. The possibility of miracles will be denied by none but Atheists. To maintain that the laws of nature are so absolutely fixed, that they can in no case be deviated from, would be to exclude God from the government of the world, — to represent the universe as a vast machine, whose movements are regulated by certain laws which even the great Architect cannot control.