No species of enthusiasm, perhaps, is more extensively prevalent, and certainly none clings more tenaciously to the mind that has once entertained it, and none produces more practical mischief, than that which is founded on an abuse of the doctrine of a particular Providence. It is by the fortuities of life that the religious enthusiast is deluded. Chance, under a guise stolen from piety, is his divinity. He believes, and he believes justly, that every seeming fortuity is under the absolute control of the divine hand; but in virtue of the peculiar interest he supposes himself to have on high, he is tempted to think that these contingencies are very much at his command. This belief naturally inclines him to pay more regard to the unusual, than to the common course of events. In contemplating God as the disposer of chances, he becomes forgetful of him who is the governor of the world by known and permanent laws. All the honor which he does to one of the divine attributes, is in fact stolen from the reverence due to another; but he should remember A propensity to look more to chance than to probability is known invariably to debilitate the reasoning faculty, as well as to vitiate the moral sentiments; and these constant effects are more often aggravated than mitigated by the accession of religious sentiments. The illusions of hope then assume a tone of authority which effectually silences the whispers of common sense; and the imagination, more highly stimulated than when it fed only on things of earth, boldly makes a prey of the divine power and goodness, to the utter subversion of humble piety. A sanguine temper, quickened by perverted notions of religion, easily impels a man to believe that he is privileged or skilled to penetrate the intentions of Providence towards himself; and the anticipations he forms on this ground acquire so much consistency by being perpetually handled, that he deems them to form a much more certain rule of conduct than he could derive from the forecastings of prudence, or even from the dictates of morality. Delusions of this kind are the real sources of many of those sad delinquencies which so often bring reproach upon a profession of religion. The world loves to call the offender a villain; but in fact he was not worse than an enthusiast. He who, in conducting the daily affairs of life, has acquired the settled habit of calculating rather upon what is possible than upon what is probable, naturally slides into the mischievous error of paying court to Fortune, rather than to Virtue; nor will his integrity Or if consequences so serious do not follow from the notion that the fortuities of life are an available fund at the disposal of the favorite of heaven, yet this belief can hardly fail to spread an infection of sloth and presumption through the character. The enthusiast will certainly be remiss and dilatory in arduous and laborious duties. Hope, which is the incentive to exertion in well-ordered and energetic minds, slackens every effort if the understanding be crazed. The wheel of toil stands still while the devotee implores assistance from above. Or if he possesses more of activity, the same false principle prompts him to engage in enterprises from which, if the expected contingent to be furnished by "Providence," be deducted, scarcely a shred of fair probability remains to recommend the scheme. If the course of events in human life were as constant and uniform as the phenomena of the material world, none but madmen would build their hopes upon the irregularities by which it is diversified. Nor would the enthusiast do so if he gave heed to the principles that impose order upon the apparent chaos of fortuities from which the many-colored Any one who recalls to his recollection the incidents, great and small, that have filled up the days of a year past, will find it easy to divide them into two classes, of which the first, and the larger, comprises those events which common sense and experience might have enabled him to anticipate, and which, if he were wise, he did actually anticipate, so far as was necessary for the regulation of his conduct. The ground of such calculations of futurity is nothing else than the uniform course of events in the material world, and the permanent principles of human nature, and the established order of the social system: for all these, though confessedly liable to many interruptions, are yet so far constant as to afford, on the whole, a safe rule of calculation. If there were no such uniformity in the course of events, the active and reasoning faculties of man would be of no avail to him; for the exercise of them might as probably be ruinous as serviceable. In the whirl of such a supposed anarchy of nature, an intelligent agent must refrain from every movement, and resign himself to be borne along by the eddies of confusion. But this is not the character of the world we inhabit: the connection of physical And notwithstanding its many real, and many apparent irregularities, there is also a settled order of causes and effects in the human system, as well as in the material world. The foundation of this settled order is, the sameness of human nature in its animal intellectual and moral constitution, of which the anomalies are never so great as to break up all resemblance to the common pattern. Then those conventional modes of thinking and acting which sway the conduct of the mass of mankind, strengthen the tendency to uniformity, and greatly counteract all disturbing causes. Then again the sanctioned institutions of society give stability and permanence to the order of events, and altogether afford so much security in calculating upon the future, that, whoever by observation and reflection has become well skilled Skill and sagacity in managing the affairs of common life, or wisdom in council and command, is nothing else than an extensive and ready knowledge of the intricate movements of the great machine of the social system; and the high price which this skill and wisdom always bears among men, may be held to represent two abstractions; first, the perplexing Irregularities of the system to which human agency is to be conformed; and then, the real and substantial Uniformity of the movements of that system. For it is plain that if there were no perplexing irregularities, superior sagacity would be in no request; or, on the other hand, if there were not a real constancy in the course of affairs, even the greatest sagacity would be found to be of no avail, and therefore would be in no esteem. There is then a substantial, if not an immovable substratum of causes and effects, upon which, for the practical and important purposes of life, calculations of futurity may be formed. And this is the basis, and this alone, on which a wise man rests his hopes, and constructs his plans; he well knows that his fairest hopes may be dissipated, and his best plans overthrown; and yet, though the hurricanes of misfortune were a thousand times to scatter his labors, he would still go on to renew them in conformity with the same principles of calculation; for no The second, and the less numerous class of events that make up the course of human life, are those which no sagacity could have anticipated; for though in themselves they were only the natural consequences of common causes, yet those causes were either concealed, or remote, and were, therefore, to us and our agency the same as if they had been absolutely fortuitous. By far the larger proportion of these accidents arises from the intricate connections of the social system. The thread of every life is entangled with other threads beyond all reach of calculation, the weal and woe of each depends, by innumerable correspondences, upon the will, and caprices, and fortune, not merely of the individuals of his immediate circle, but upon those of myriads of whom he knows nothing. Or, strictly speaking, the tie of mutual influence passes, without a break, from hand to hand, throughout the human family: there is no independence, no insulation, in the lot of man; and therefore there can be no absolute calculation of future fortunes; for he whose will or caprice is to govern that lot stands, perhaps, at the distance of a thousand removes from the subject of it, and the attenuated influence winds its way in a thousand meanders before it reaches the point of its destined operation. Both these classes of events are manifestly necessary If the special intentions of Providence towards individuals were effected by the aid of supernatural interpositions, the power and presence of the Supreme Disposer might indeed be more strikingly displayed than it is; but his skill much less. And herein especially is manifested the perfection of the divine wisdom, that the most surprising conjunctions of events are brought about by the simplest means, and in a manner so perfectly in harmony Having then these two distinguishable classes of events before us, namely, those which may be foreknown by human sagacity, and those which may not; it is manifest that the former exclusively is given to man as the sphere of his labors, and for the exercise of his skill; while the latter is reserved as the royal domain of sovereign bounty and infinite wisdom. The enthusiast, therefore, who neglects and contemns those dictates of common sense which are derived from the calculable course of human affairs, and founds his plans and expectations upon the unknown procedures of Providence, is chargeable not merely with folly, but with an impious intrusion upon the peculiar sphere of the divine agency. This impiety is shown in a strong light when viewed in connection with those great principles which may be not obscurely discerned to In the divine management of the fortuitous events of life, there is, in the first place, visible, some occasional flashes of that retributive justice, which, in the future world, is to obtain its long postponed and perfect triumph. There are instances which, though not very common, are frequent enough to keep alive the salutary fears of mankind, wherein vindictive visitations speak articulately in attestation of the righteous indignation of God against those who do evil. Outrageous villanies, or appalling profaneness, sometimes draw upon the criminal the instant bolt of divine wrath, and in so remarkable a manner that the most irreligious minds are quelled with a sudden awe, and confess the hand of God. And again there is just perceptible, as it were, a gleam of divine approbation, displayed in a signal rewarding of the righteous, even in the present life: a blessing "which maketh rich" rests sometimes conspicuously upon the habitation of disinterested and active virtue: "the righteous is as a tree planted by the rivers of water: whatsoever he doeth, prospers." In these anomalous cases of anticipated retribution, the punishment or the reward does not arrive in the ordinary course of common causes; but starts forth suddenly from that storehouse of fortuities whence the divine providence draws its means of government. If the oppressor, by rousing the resentment of mankind, is dragged from the seat of power, and trodden in the dust; or In like manner there are remarkable recompenses of integrity, of liberality, of kindness to strangers, and, most especially, of duty to parents, which arrive by means so remote from common probability, and yet so simple, that the approbation of him who "taketh pleasure in the path of the just," is written upon the unexpected boon. There are few family histories that would not afford examples of such conspicuous retributions. Nevertheless, as they are confessedly rare, and administered by rules absolutely inscrutable to human penetration, there can hardly be a more daring impiety than, in particular instances, to entertain the expectation of their occurrence. Yet the enthusiast finds it hard to abstain, in his own case, from such expectations; and is tempted perpetually to indulge hopes of special boons in reward of his services, and is forward and ingenious in giving an interpretation that flatters In the divine management of the fortuities of life, there may also be very plainly perceived a dispensation of moral exercise, specifically adapted to the temper and powers of the individual. No one can look back upon his own history without meeting unquestionable instances of this sort of educational adjustment of his lot, effected by means that were wholly independent of his own choice or agency. The casual meeting with a stranger, or an unexpected interview with a friend; the accidental postponement of affairs; the loss of a letter, a shower, a trivial indisposition, the caprice of an associate; these, or similar fortuities, have been the determining causes of events, not only important in themselves, but of peculiar significance and use in that process of discipline which the character of the individual was to undergo. These new currents in the course of life proved, in the issue, specifically proper for putting in action the latent faculties of the mind, or for holding in check its dangerous propensities. Whoever is quite unconscious of this sort of overruling of his affairs by means of apparent Doubtless every man's choice and conduct determine, to a great extent, his lot and occupation; but not seldom, a course of life much better fitted to his temper and abilities than the one he would fain substitute for it, has, year after year, and in spite of his reluctances, fixed his place and employment in society; and this unchosen lot has, if we may so speak, been constructed from the floating fragments of other men's fortunes, drifted by the accidents of wind and tide across the billows of life, till they were stranded at the very spot where the individual for whom they were destined was ready to receive them. By such strong and nicely-fitted movements of the machine of Providence it is, that the tasks of life are distributed where best they may be performed, and its burdens apportioned where best they may be sustained. By accidents of birth or connection, the bold, the sanguine, the energetic, are led into the front of the field of arduous exertion; while by similar fortuities, quite as often as by choice, the pusillanimous, the fickle, the faint-hearted, are suffered to spend their days under the shelter of ease, and in the recesses of domestic tranquillity. But who shall profess so to understand his particular temper, and so to estimate his talents, as might qualify him to anticipate the special dispensations of Providence in his own case? Such knowledge, surely, every wise man will confess to be "too wonderful" for him. To the Supreme Intelligence alone it belongs to distribute to every one his lot, and to Men who look no farther than the present scene, may, with less glaring inconsistency, vent their vexation in accusing the blindness and partiality of fate, which has held their eminent talents and their peculiar merits so long under the veil of obscurity; but those who acknowledge at once a disposing providence and a future life, might surely find considerations proper for imposing silence upon such murmurings of disappointed ambition. Let it be granted to a man that his vanity does not deceive him, when he complains that adverse fortune has prevented his entering the very course upon which nature fitted him to shine, and has, with unrelenting severity, confined him, year after year, to a drudgery in which he was not qualified to win even a common measure of success: all this may be true; but if the complainant be a Christian, he cannot find it difficult to admit that this clashing of his fortune with his capacities, or his tastes, may have been the very exercise necessary to ensure his ultimate welfare. Who will deny that the reasons of the divine conduct Whether the promise "that all things shall work together for good to those who love God," is to be accomplished by perpetual sunshine or by incessant storms, no one can anticipate in his own case: or if any one were excepted, it must be the enthusiast himself, who might almost with certainty calculate upon receiving a dispensation the very reverse of that which it has been the leading error of his life to anticipate. He might thus calculate, both because his expectations are in themselves exorbitant and improbable, and because the presumptuous temper from which they spring loudly calls for the rebuke of heaven. Amid the perplexities which arise from the unexpected events of life, we are not left without sufficient guidance; for although, in particular instances, the most reasonable calculations are baffled, and the best plans subverted, yet there remains in our hands the immutable rule of moral rectitude, in an inflexible adherence to which we shall avoid what is chiefly to be dreaded in calamity—the dismal moanings of a wounded conscience. "He that walketh uprightly Prayer and calculation are duties never incompatible, never to be disjoined, and never to shackle one the other. For while those events only which are probable ought to be assumed as the basis of plans for futurity, yet, whatever is not manifestly impossible, or in a high degree improbable, may lawfully be made the object of submissive petition. Few persons, and none who have known vicissitudes, can look back upon past years without recollecting signal occasions on which they have been rescued from the impending and apparently inevitable consequences of their own misconduct, or imprudence, or want of ability, by some extraordinary intervention in the very crisis of their fate, or, perhaps, they have been placed by accident in circumstances of peril, where as it seemed, there remained not a possibility of escape. But while the ruin was yet in descent, rescue, which it would have been madness to expect, came in to preserve life, fortune, or reputation, from the imminent destruction. That such conspicuous deliverances do actually occur is matter of fact; nor will the Christian endure that they should be attributed to any other cause than the special care and kindness of his heavenly Father: and yet, as they Nevertheless, so long as these extraordinary interventions are known to consist with the rules of the divine government, they may be contemplated as possible without violating the respect that is due to its ordinary procedures; and may, therefore, without enthusiasm, be solicited in the hour of peril or perplexity. The gracious "Hearer of prayer", who, on past and well-remembered occasions has signally given deliverance, may do so again, even when, if we think of our own imprudence, we have reason to expect nothing less than destruction. What are termed by irreligious men 'the fortunate chances of life', will be regarded by the devout mind as constituting a hidden treasury of boons, held at the disposal of a gracious hand for the incitement of prayer, and for the reward of humble faith. The enthusiast who, in contempt of common sense and of rectitude, presumes upon the existence of this extraordinary fund, forfeits, by such impiety, his interest in its stores. But the prudent and the pious, while they labor and calculate in strict conformity to the known and ordinary course of events, shall not seldom find that, from this very treasury of contingencies, "God is rich to them that call upon him". It is a rare perfection of the intellectual and moral faculties which allows all objects great and small, to Thwarted enthusiasm naturally generates impious petulance. If we encumber the Providence of God with unwarranted expectations, it will be difficult not so to murmur under disappointment as those do who think themselves defrauded of their right. In truth, amidst the sharpness of sudden calamity, or the pressure of continued adversity, the most sane minds are tempted to indulge repinings which reason, not less than piety, utterly condemns. The imputation of defective wisdom, or justice, or goodness, to the Being of whom we can form no notion apart from the idea of absolute knowledge, rectitude, and benevolence, is too absurd to need a formal refutation; and yet how often does it survive all the rebukes of good sense and religion! So egregious Whoever entertains, as every Christian ought, a strong and consoling belief of the doctrine of a Particular Providence, which cares for the welfare of each, should not forget to connect with that belief some general notions, at least, of that system of Universal Providence which secures individual interests, consistently with the well-being of the whole. Such notions, though very defective, or even in part erroneous, may serve first to check presumption, and then to impose silence upon those murmurs which are its offspring. A law of subordination manifestly pervades that part of the government of God with which we are acquainted, and may fairly be supposed to prevail elsewhere. Lesser interests are the component parts of greater; and so closely are the individual fates of the human family interwoven, that each member, however insignificant he may seem, sustains a real relationship of influence to the community. This perfect fitting and finishing of the machinery of Providence to individual interests, must be premised; yet it is not less true that, in almost every event of life, the remote consequences vastly outweigh the proximate, in actual amount of importance. Every man prospers, or is overthrown, lives, or dies, not for himself; but that he may sustain those around him, or that he may give them place; and who shall attempt to measure the circle within which are comprised these extensive dependences? Immediate proof of that system of interminable connection which binds together the whole human family may be obtained by every one who will examine the several ingredients of his physical, intellectual, and social condition; for he will not find one of these circumstances of his lot that is not, in its substance or quality, directly an effect or consequence of the conduct, or character, or constitution of his progenitors, and of all with whom he has had to do; if they had been other than they were, he must also have been other than he is. And then our predecessors must, in like manner, trace the qualities of their being to theirs; thus the linking ascends to the common parents of all; and thus must it descend, still spreading as it goes, from the Nor is this direct and obvious kind of influence the only one of which some plain indications are to be discerned; and without at all following the uncertain track of adventurous speculation, it may fairly be surmised that the same law of interminable connection, a law of moral gravitation, stretches far beyond the limits of the human family, and actually holds in union the great community of intelligent beings. Instances of connection immensely remote, and yet very real, might be adduced in abundance: the influence of history upon the character and conduct of successive generations is of this kind. Whatever imparts force or intensity to human motives, and by this means actually determines the course of life, may assuredly claim for itself the title and respect due to an efficient cause, and must be deemed to exert an impulsive power over the mind. Now the records of history, how long soever may have been the line of transmission which has brought them to our times, fraught as they are with instances applicable to all the occasions of real life, do thus, in a very perceptible degree, affect the sentiments and mould the characters of mankind; nor will any one speak slightingly of this species of causation who has compared the intellectual condition of nations rich in history with that of a people wholly destitute of the memorials of past ages. The story of the courage, or constancy, or wisdom of the men of a distant time becomes, in a greater or a less degree, a subsidiary cause of the Here, then, as a plain matter of fact, is an instance of boundless causation, connecting certain individuals with myriads of their species, from age to age, and forever. It is an instance, we say, and not more: for the voice of history is but a preluding flourish to that voluminous revelation which shall be made, in the great day of consummation, of all that has been acted and suffered upon earth's surface. In that day, when the books of universal history are opened and read, it shall doubtless be found that no particle has been lost of aught that might serve to authenticate the maxims of eternal wisdom, or to vindicate the righteous government of God. And all shall be written anew, as "with a pen of iron on the rock forever," and shall stand forth as an imperishable lesson of warning or incitement to after-comers on the theatre of existence. Whatever degree of solidity may be attributed to The common phrase—"a mysterious dispensation of Providence," when used as most often it is, contains the very substance of enthusiasm; and yet, it must be confessed, of a venial enthusiasm; for the occasions which draw it forth are of a kind that may be admitted to palliate a hasty impropriety of language. To call any event that does not break in upon the known and established order of natural causes—mysterious, is virtually to assume a previous knowledge of the intentions of the Supreme Ruler; for it is to say that his proceedings have baffled our calculations; and in fact it is only when we have formed anticipations of what ought to have been the course of events that we are tempted by sudden reverses to employ so improperly this indefinite expression. All the dispensations of Divine Providence, taken together, may, with perfect propriety, be termed mysterious; since all alike are governed by reasons that are hidden and inscrutable: but it is the height of presumption so to designate some of them in distinction from others. For example; a man eminently A popular misunderstanding of the language of Scripture relative to the future state, has, perhaps, had great influence in enhancing the gloom and perplexity with which Christians are wont to think and speak of sudden and afflictive visitations of Providence. Heaven—the ultimate and perfected condition of human nature, is thought of amidst the toils of life, as an elysium of quiescent bliss, exempt, if not from action, at least from the necessity of action. Meanwhile every one feels that the ruling tendency and the uniform intention of all the arrangements of Here, then, is visible a great and serious incongruity between matter of fact, and the common anticipations of the future state: it deserves inquiry, therefore, whether these anticipations are really founded on the evidence of Scripture; or whether they are not rather the mere suggestions of a sickly spiritual luxuriousness. This is not the place for pursuing such an inquiry; but it may be observed, in passing, that those glimpses of the supernal world which we catch from the Scriptures have in them, certainly, quite as much of the character of history as of poetry, and impart the idea—not that there is less of business in heaven than on earth, but more. Unquestionably, the felicity of those beings of a higher order, to whose agency frequent allusions are made by the inspired writers, is not incompatible with the assiduities of a strenuous ministry, to But if there be a real and necessary, not merely a shadowy agency in heaven as well as on earth; and if human nature is destined to act its part in such an economy, then its constitution, and the severe training it undergoes, are at once explained; and then, also, the removal of individuals in the very prime of their fitness for useful labor ceases to be impenetrably mysterious. This excellent mechanism of matter and mind, which, beyond any other of his works, declares the wisdom of the Creator, and which, under his guidance, is now passing the season of its first preparation, shall stand up anew from A pious, but needless jealousy, lest the honor due to him "who worketh all in all" should be in any degree compromised, has perhaps had influence in concealing from the eyes of Christians the importance attributed in the Scriptures to subordinate agency; and thus, by a natural consequence, has impoverished The Scriptures do indeed most explicitly declare, not only that virtue will be inamissible in heaven, but that its happiness will be unalloyed by fear, or pain, or want. But the mental associations formed in the present state make it so difficult to disjoin the idea of suffering and of sorrow from that of labor, and of arduous and difficult achievement, that we are prone to exclude action, as well as pain, from our idea of the future blessedness. Yet assuredly these notions may be separated; and if it be possible to imagine a perfect freedom from selfish solicitudes, a perfect acquiescence in the will, and a perfect confidence in the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, then also may we conceive of toils without sadness, Considerations such as these, if at all borne out by evidence of Scripture, may properly have place in connection with the topic of this section; for it is evident that the harassing perplexities which arise from the present dispensations of Providence might be greatly relieved by habitually entertaining anticipations of the future state somewhat less imbecile and luxurious than those commonly admitted by Christians. |