that much that at one time seemed to be evil has eventually turned out for good; and not a little that once was regarded as good has been found to be fraught with evil.1 As his opportunities multiply, and his observations extend, he comes to be less rash in his judgments of things, and more and more inclined to wait for the issue,-till at eye that could take in the whole" of nature, it would perhaps "seem to consist not of an infinite series of successive causes and effects, but of one vast assemblage of arrangements, all of which pass into each other—all have equal degrees of importance, and all together constitute one unbroken and perpetually flowing order."-(Ditto.) "Human wisdom has reached its farthest point when it gets to say, 'I do not know: God knows.' (4 Discourse on Plato, quoted by Dr. JOHN BROWN, in Hora Subsecivo.) 1"In looking back on what is past of our earthly progress, we perceive that one event or portion of our lives has had a relation to what was to be evolved at a future period of our course; that what seemed to us to be the darkest or severest trials of our early years have had important issues in coming events, for which indeed our previous trials were only a preparation; and that the whole scheme of our past lives has been arranged upon a plan in which there was no line that had not its assigned direction, or that was incapable, if properly followed out, of leading to a good and important result."-(Manual of Conduct.) "No situation

of our lives is ultimate, but has something beyond it. .. The worst situation has in it some principle of good which may yet be evolved, and the best some capability of evil which may yet be brought into operation.”—(Ditto.) All events flow into each other, and the worst events often issue in good when they are judiciously used, as the most apparently prosperous become, when we do not conform our sentiments and conduct to our situation, the eventual sources of future disaster."—(Ditto.) There are many things which, to a superficial observer of Providence, may seem digressions from the main end; many things may seem to happen fortuitously, ... and hence men may infer that there is no Almighty mind that guides and controls them. But a wise man sees them all in their due place and order, acting that part which infinite wisdom has appointed them, and fulfilling their various parts of one and the same eternal design and purpose."-(Rev. J. SMITH: Discourses.) "In the course of Providence such things are done that men could not imagine could be done without injustice; yet when the whole connection of their end is unravelled, they appear highly beautiful, and discover a glorious wisdom and righteousness."-(Dr. CHARNOCK.) The greatest results are frequently observed to have had their origin in apparently small occurrences, and, on looking back on our own histories, there is no reflecting man who has not often had occasion to remark how wonderfully some of the most important events of his life have proceeded from accidents to which, at the moment of their occurrence, he felt no disposition to attach so much future influence."-(Manual of Conduct.) "The more extensive the views of men become, the more cheerful and satisfactory will be their conceptions of the plan according to which all things are conducted."-(Ditto.) "The man of cultivated mind is influenced by the recollection that many things at one time appeared to him marvellous, which he now knows to be true; and he thence concludes that there may still be in nature many phenomena and many prin

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length as he comes to lose sight of mere self, and of individuals, and to take in families and peoples, and races, and all time, the philosopher,1 arrives at the conclusion that "whatever is, is right";2 and the Christian is convinced that "all things work together for good to them that love God."3

ciples with which he is entirely unacquainted."—(Dr. ABERCROMBIE : Intellectual Powers.)

1"The philosopher is by profession the interpreter of nature, that is, of the language of God's works, as the Christian divine is the interpreter of Scripture, that is, of the language of God's spirit."-(Dr. G. CAMPBELL: Pulpit Eloquence.) "A philosopher should not see with the eyes of the poor limitary creature calling himself a man of the world, and filled with narrow and self-regarding prejudices of birth and education, but should look upon himself as a catholic creature, and as standing in equal relation to high and low, to educated and uneducated, to the guilty and the innocent."-(THOS. DE QUINCEY.)

2"The truly philosophical historian will believe that there is an eternal order in the government of the world to which all might and power are to become and do become now subservient; that truth, justice, wisdom, and moderation are sure to triumph; and that where in the history of individual life the contrary appears to be the case, the fault lies in our mistaking the middle for the end."-(BUNSEN.) "In this God's world, with its wild, whirling eddies and mad-foaming oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, and judgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think that there is therefore no justice? I tell thee again there is nothing else but justice. One strong thing I find here below: the just thing, the true thing."-(T. CARLYLE.) "The wisdom of God hath methodized the course of things unto the best advantage of goodness, and thinking considerators overlook not the tract thereof."(Sir T. BROWNE.) "I believe that everything in human society, even what is apparently injurious, is the cause of improvement and of progress. I believe that evil tends to good, and calls it forth, whilst good cannot tend to evil; whence it follows that good must in the end predominate."(BASTIAT: Harmonies of Political Economy.) My melancholy musings on the state of the world have been much consoled by the famous maxim, 'Whatever is is right!' Yes, I believe that the whole system taken together is the best possible-is absolutely good."-(JOHN FOSTER.) "It is a truth which cannot be too carefully weighed by us that if we could take in the whole scheme of things, we should be satisfied that the universe is but one glorious manifestation of the disposition of its Author to bless his creatures, and to conduct them to that blessedness by provisions of wisdom most beautifully suited to the infinite variety of their capacities."-(Manual of Conduct.) "To a good and just man nothing really evil ever happens either in this life or in any other; neither is the welfare of such an one for a moment overlooked by the immortal gods."(SOCRATES.) "Reconcile the events of things unto both beings that is of this world and the next, so will there not seem so many riddles in Provdence, nor various inequalities in the dispensation of things below."—(Sir T. BROWNE.)

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8"It is certain that no ship at sea keeps more exactly by the compass which directs its course than Providence doth by that promise which is

The Creator of his sovereignty in and over his own creation is not to be denied, must be regarded as the Supreme Ruler and Governor of the universe, and everything that takes place therein must be viewed as under his command or subject to his permission.' This is not less a doctrine of Scripture than it is according to reason; for we have the assurance that every good and perfect gift cometh from God, and the question is asked, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it ?"2 I make peace with and create evil," saith the Lord of Hosts.3 Even the Devil

its pole star."-(JOHN FLAVEL.) "The Christian trusts in that eternal wisdom, that unbounded mind, that all-seeing eye which diffuses itself throughout the universe, and seated in the wheels of motion, guides them all, and powerfully governs the most eccentric motions of the creatures, carrying them harmoniously forward in their several orbits to one last end.' (Rev. J. SMITH: Discourses.) "Oh how searching and delightful a sight will that be to behold at one view the whole design of Providence, and the proper place and use of every single act which we could not understand in this world. . . . All the dark intricate puzzling Providences at which we were sometimes so stumbled, and sometimes amazed, which we could neither reconcile with the promises nor with each other, nay, which we so unjustly censured and bitterly bewailed as if they had fallen out quite cross to our happiness, we shall then see to be with us as the difficult passage through the wilderness was with Israel, 'the right way to a city of habitation."-(JOHN FLAVEL.)

1 "God hath an indisputable and peculiar right to the government of the world. . . . He is the Creator, and therefore is the sovereign lord and ruler." (Dr. CHARNOCK: Divine Providence.) "Every event is to be understood as ordered by God, just as certainly as if it had taken place in a world where there were no other causes than the divine volitions."

(Dr. McCosH: Divine Government.) "There is not in anybody's lot such a thing as a crook in respect of the will and purpose of God. Take the most harsh and dismal dispensation in one's lot, and lay it to the eternal decree made in the depth of infinite wisdom before the world began, and it will answer it exactly without the least deviation--' all things being wrought by the counsel of his will.' Lay it to the providential will of God in the government of the world, and there is a perfect harmony."-(Rev. T. BOSTON: The Crook in the Lot.)

2 "He is at the same time said to create evil, darkness, confusion; and yet to do no evil but to be the author of good only. . . . He is introduced, saying of himself, I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.' What is the meaning, the plain language of all this, but that the Lord delighteth in goodness, and (as the Scripture speaks) evil is his strange work? He extends and pursues the universal good of his creation and the evil which happens is not permitted for its own sake or through any pleasure in evil, but because it is requisite to the greater good pursued."-(TURNBULL: Moral Philosophy.)

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:

Nothing is acted in the world without the will of God. His will either commands it or permits it. . . . Even the sins of the world his

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himself, we are taught, is under the power and subject to the authority of the Almighty, so that he could not harm a hair of Job's head or touch a lamb of his flock without the divine permission. And as "the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning," so it ever is that the Devil, in exerting his utmost machinations against the human race, is only by so much the more advancing the cause of Christ in the world.2

There is nothing here that militates against a belief in the original depravity of human nature, or even in the existence of sin and evil in the world in the present day. It

will permits them, his power assists in the act, and his wisdom orders the sinfulness of the act for holy ends."-(Dr. CHARNOCK.) "God does not delegate his authority to the oppressor, though he employs him as his instrument of correction; he still keeps the reins in his own hands. These black instruments who are thus allowed to ravage the earth may be in the scheme of Providence unintentionally preparing the elements of moral beauty." (HANNAH MORE: Christian Morals.)

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1" Satan is under the power of God, and is so ruled by his authority that he must yield obedience to it. Moreover, though we say that Satan resists God and does works at variance with his works, we at the same time maintain that this contrariety and opposition depend on the permission of God."-(CALVIN: Institutes.) "The Devil cannot arrest Job nor touch a lamb of his flock, nor a hair of his head without a commission from God."-(Dr. CHARNOCK.)

2 "Had Adam not fallen, and had he filled the earth with a holy race, I know not what the Adamic state of glory would have been, but I know that it is a much higher state unto which we shall be brought through union to the Incarnate Son of God.”—(Prof. DUNCAN.) "The breach of the first covenant was an occasion of introducing a better; man's sinning away his first stock was an occasion to God to enrich him with a surer. The loss of his original righteousness made way for a clearer and more durable."-(Dr. CHARNOCK.) "That both angels and men attain to the proper ideal of their creation, more fully than they could have done had there been no fall, no incarnation, no redemption, is confessedly the doctrine of my book. But I am not acquainted with any sound divine who asserts the contrary, or who does not assert the same."-(Dr. CANDLISH: Fatherhood of God.) "Infidels are working for God though they do not know it. They shake and rend his truths until they think that they have destroyed them, but they have only cleared them of the shuck."(BEECHER.)

"The laws of Providence may be regarded as harmonious without their necessarily excluding evil. Enough that evil has its explanation and its mission, that it checks and limits itself, that it destroys itself by its own action, and that each suffering prevents a greater suffering by repressing the cause of suffering."-(BASTIAT: Harmonies of Political Economy.) "There is no inconsistence in supposing that God may hate a thing as it is in itself and considered simply as evil, and yet that it may be his will it should come to pass considering all consequences."(JONATHAN EDWARDS).

only says that granting and in view of these everything is arranged and established by the Supreme Governor of the universe in the best possible way for encountering and counteracting them.1 It argues for the doctrine that the present order and disposition of things is the best possible under the circumstances, and that, even evil itself is in the hands of God the means of effecting a greater good."

1 "Without being the author of evil, the bare suggestion of which is blasphemy, He converts it to his own glory by causing the effects of it to promote our good;" and "by turning our suffering to our benefit, He repairs by grace the evils produced by sin.'

He "makes use of the faults even of good men to show them their own insufficiency, to abase them in their own eyes, to cure them of vanity and self-dependence." (HANNAH MORE: Christian Morals.) "What a work of power and wisdom is it thus to make man's misery the source to him of a higher bliss; to make his sin end in greater holiness and purity; and to cause a rebellion which threatened confusion, an occasion for establishing that empire more firmly than ever in the affections of all his happy subjects!"-(Dr. ALEXANDER.)

2 "It is difficult to handle the necessity of evil in such a manner as not to stumble such as are not above being alarmed at propositions which have an uncommon sound. But if philosophers will but reflect calmly on the matter, they will find that, consistently with the unlimited power of the Supreme Cause,it may be said that in the best ordered system evil must have place." (TURNBULL: Moral Philosophy.) "I believe there is no person of good understanding who will venture to say he is certain that it is impossible it should be best, taking in the whole compass and extent of existence, and all consequences in the endless series of events, that there should be such a thing as moral evil in the world." (JONATHAN EDWARDS.) "I believe," says John Foster," that all the evil that ever has taken place, or that now prevails, was strictly necessary to the ultimate good which the Father of all intends." 66 Evil when traced to its consequences is only used as an instrument of good."-(Manual of Conduct.) "The evil in the world is overruled by the Author of good to be a means for the exercise of the highest faculties of benevolence, truth, and goodness, and the education of a moral nature in the discrimination of weeds from flowers."-(PAXTON HOOD.) "It is necessary in order to a man's existing as a moral being that sin should be possible."-(VINET.) "If in this life good men were to be constantly rewarded, and wicked men punished according to their deserts, it would operate upon us with so much force and violence, that we should cease to be free agents, and sink into mere machines."- (Dr. JAMES SCOTT.) "Men don't realize the truth that the curse of the law is blessed." (Prof. DUNCAN.) "It is remarkable how all the great movements of society for the last fifty years, the wars, diplomacies, and even the public wrongs of the world, have tended universally and even visibly to favour the extension of Christian truth, and invigorate the efforts of Christian love."—(HORACE BUSHNELL.) "I believe in war, I believe there are times when it must be taken. I believe in it as a medicine. Medicine is not good to eat, but when you are sick it is good to take." (H. W. BEECHER.) "It is strange to imagine that war, which of all things appears the most savage, should be the passion of the most heroic spirits. But 'tis in war that the knot of fellowship is closest drawn; 'tis in war that mutual succour is most given, mutual danger run, and common