L I E> R_AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N I VLR_SITY 
 
 Of ILLI NOIS
 
 u
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER.
 
 ^ 
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE 
 
 AND 
 
 PRAYEE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Eev. W. F. WILKINSON, M.A., 
 
 RECTOR OF LUITEEWOBTH. 
 
 LONDON: 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY ; 
 
 56, PATERNOSTER ROW ; 65, ST. PAUL's CHCJRCHYARD ; 
 AND 164, PICCADILLY.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PBINTED BY "WTLLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 
 STAMFORD STKEET AND CHARIKG CROSS.
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 Twice witliin a very few months of the 
 year 1871 public prayer was offered to 
 Almighty God, in the hope that He would 
 graciously listen to the. supplications of His 
 people, and avert from us great calamities 
 which seemed likely to befall the nation. And 
 twice, also, we offered to Him public thanks- 
 givings, in the belief that our prayers had 
 been accepted, and that it was by the special 
 providence of God that we were preserved 
 from the evils which we feared. 
 
 When the continuance of cold and wet 
 weather late in the summer caused alarm lest 
 the crops should not ripen, or should be spoiled 
 at the season of harvest, prayer for fine weather 
 was repeatedly offered in most of our places 
 of worship. Fine weather came, the crops 
 ripened fast and well, and were successfully 
 
 B 2
 
 6 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 gathered in, so that we had nearly or quite an 
 average harvest. Then we offered thanks- 
 giving ; and nearly all congregations through- 
 out the country joined in thanking God 
 for this great blessing. We believed that the 
 atmosphere was subject to the will of God, 
 and that He could direct such changes in its 
 action as might seem good to Him, and 
 should be for the benefit of us, His creatures, in 
 the way either of mercy or of chastisement. 
 
 Again, when the Prince of Wales, the son 
 of our beloved Queen, and heir to the throne, 
 was afflicted with a severe disease, and 
 known to be in great danger, there arose a 
 universal desire to pray, and a universal 
 anxiety, almost a demand, for the issue of a 
 public form of prayer on his behalf. And 
 never was an act performed more truly 
 national than the offering of that prayer, or 
 its equivalent, in all our worshipping as- 
 semblies on the Sunday for which it was 
 appointed, and which was the most critical 
 period of the Prince's illness. 
 
 The Prince recovered, and the solemn ser- 
 
 1 UIUC 
 
 ,<r
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PKAYER. 7 
 
 vice of thanksgiving in St. Paul's Cathedral, 
 attended by the Prince himself and the 
 Queen, truly represented the national feeling 
 of gratitude to God, expression to which was 
 given in a similar manner throughout the 
 country. It was the general conviction that 
 the life of the Prince had been preserved, 
 and his health restored, in answer to prayer. 
 We believed that the course of the disease, 
 and the efficacy of medicine and skill for its 
 successful treatment, were subject to the will 
 of God, and that His will had been exercised 
 for the relief and recovery of the royal 
 sufferer. 
 
 It is very certain that, on both occasions, 
 the belief in a Divine interposition, or, let us 
 say, a Divine adjustment and regulation of 
 the forces of nature in the atmosphere, or in 
 the human frame, was not a mere popular 
 notion, a traditional persuasion of the un- 
 thinking and uninformed multitude. On the 
 contrary, those who most earnestly desired, 
 and most fervently joined in the presentation 
 of prayer and thanksgiving, and to whose 
 influence the general demand for it was due,
 
 3 SPECIAL PEOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 were tlie great majority of the thoughtful, 
 inquiring, and well-educated classes of our 
 community. Such a belief, then, is consistent 
 with a high state of intelligence, the wide 
 diffusion of knowledge, and habits of obser- 
 vation and reflection. 
 
 But there are some who tell us that this 
 belief is altogether irrational. They say 
 that it is mere ignorance of the nature of 
 things, and of the nature of God, which leads 
 us to think it possible that any change can 
 take place in the course of those events over 
 which we have no immediate control, through 
 the direct action of the will of God, or in 
 consequence of any attention on His part 
 to prayer offered by us. Their objection to 
 the doctrine of special providence, or Divine 
 intervention, on which, of course, the practice 
 of prayer is founded, may be fairly stated as 
 follows :— All events in the material world, 
 that is, all movements and combinations of 
 matter, and effects thence resulting, take 
 place according to certain fixed laws. The 
 phenomena, or visible effects, depend upon 
 others immediately preceding them, and
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 9 
 
 these upon others, and so upwards in an 
 interminable succession of causes. And 
 whatever phenomena in the chain have 
 occurred, no others than those which fol- 
 lowed them could occur without a violation 
 of the laws which regulate matter and 
 motion. So that, taking any existing phe- 
 nomena into account, those which shall 
 follow are therein provided for, and must 
 occur, in obedience to a natural ever-acting 
 law. And if we suppose any will or action 
 employed to prevent their occurrence, or to 
 cause the occurrence of different events, this 
 would be a miracle. 
 
 Thus Professor Tyndall stating, and very 
 truly, that a warm southern wind gliding 
 over the icy crest of a mountain " is as firmly 
 ruled as the earth in its orbital revolution 
 round the sun, and the fall of its vapour into 
 clouds is as much a matter of necessity as 
 the return of the seasons," draws hence the 
 conclusion that " the dispersion of the 
 slightest mist by the special volition of the 
 Eternal would be as much a miracle as the 
 rolling of a mighty river upwards over a
 
 10 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 precipice." Science, he says, asserts *' that 
 without a disturbance of natural law quite 
 as serious as the stoppage of an eclipse, or 
 the rolling of the St. Lawrence up the falls 
 of Niagara, no act of humiliation, individual 
 or national, could call one shower from 
 heaven, or deflect towards us a single beam 
 of the sun."* 
 
 But in the statements, just cited, of 
 objections to the doctrine of special provi- 
 dence, and in the instances just alleged, 
 there is to be observed a confusion between 
 the production of an effect by employment 
 and arrangement of natural causes acting 
 according to fixed laws, and the production 
 of an effect by a mere will superseding 
 natural causes, and acting contrary to fixed 
 laws. At least, it will appear to most minds 
 that a direction given to natural agencies so 
 that they shall produce an effect different 
 from that which would have been otherwise 
 produced, but still due to the operation of 
 fixed laws, is essentially different from the 
 suspension of natural agencies, the annihila- 
 * " Fragments of Science," pp. 35, 39.
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYEK. 11 
 
 tion of them for the time being, and the 
 production of an effect by no material or 
 intermediate agency, but by will alone ; an 
 effect, too, not only independent of the 
 operation of fixed laws, but in opposition to 
 them, and in direct violation of them. 
 
 Keverting to the objectors' statement of 
 the invariable succession of events depending 
 upon the action of the forces of nature, it is 
 important to notice the fact that it is within 
 human observation and experience that the 
 action of these forces is, in certain circum- 
 stances, capable of change in direction, and 
 of modification in its results, without the 
 occurrence of a miracle. Man, availing 
 himself of the knowledge which he has ac- 
 quired of the forces of nature, is able, in 
 numberless instances, to regulate and control 
 their action. He can only make them act 
 according to the laws of matter and motion, 
 but he makes them act in a manner in which 
 they would not have acted, and produce 
 results which they could not have produced, 
 but for his intervention. Hence the saying 
 of Lord Bacon, that " man obtains mastery
 
 12 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 over nature by obeying nature." The wind 
 which would impel floating vessels in one 
 direction only, and to one point or quarter, 
 is made, by an arrangement of sails and 
 rudder, to carry such vessels in several dif- 
 ferent directions, and to various points or 
 quarters. The effect is the same as if the 
 direction of the wind had in each instance 
 been changed. A gas is released from the 
 conditions and connection in which it is 
 placed by nature, and, in the state of a 
 separate substance, made to serve man's uses 
 by supplying light to his streets and dwell- 
 ings. Control is obtained over even so 
 mighty a natural force as electricity, evolving 
 its action, and directing its course, for 
 purposes with which its unmodified operation 
 and effects have no affinity. Torrents 
 descending the side of a mountain diverge 
 in all directions, devastating large tracts of 
 land, and then, flowing over a plain, form a 
 swamp, in which only reeds and rushes grow, 
 and the exhalations from which produce 
 pestilential disease, while, some miles off, 
 there is a region almost destitute of water. 
 Man, observing these effects of the properties
 
 SPECIAL PBOVIDENCE AND PEAYER. 13 
 
 of a fluid, avails himself of the same proper- 
 ties to cause the same agent to produce quite 
 opposite effects. He turns the torrent into 
 one deep channel, reclaiming the devastated 
 tracts, cuts an outlet for the stagnant waters, 
 draining the swamp, and making the land 
 productive and the locality healthy, and by 
 an aqueduct conveys a portion of the water 
 to the waterless region. 
 
 Now in these, and in innumerable parallel 
 cases, results have been obtained by the 
 employment of natural forces and agents, 
 which those forces and agents would not 
 have produced by a succession dependent 
 solely upon the fixed laws regulating their 
 action, and which they would have been 
 incapable of producing, but for the interven- 
 tion of an agency dissimilar to them in its 
 character, and yet not miraculously or super- 
 naturally directing and controlling their 
 operation. That agency is a personal will — 
 the human will, allied with knowledge and 
 power, and directed towards a definite pur- 
 pose or object. 
 
 If we believe in a Divine Being, having a
 
 14 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 personal will, associated, of course, with the 
 attributes of unlimited knowledge and power, 
 is it not conceivable that He, to accomplish 
 a purpose in accordance with His will, may, 
 without disturbance of the constitution and 
 order of nature, adjust and arrange the 
 action of forces, atmospheric, or of other 
 kinds, in a manner similar to that in which 
 such action is modified by man ? If man can 
 avail himself of the properties of matter, and 
 the laws of motion, to produce innumerable 
 effects due, for their actual occurrence, no less 
 to his knowledge of those properties and laws, 
 and his will and purpose in the employment of 
 them, than to their existence and constitution, 
 why may not God ? Is it necessary that the 
 exercise of Omnipotence should be restricted 
 to such interventions as are purely miracu- 
 lous and supernatural ? that Almighty power 
 should only act in opposition to the laws of 
 nature ? or that whatever action it exerts, 
 although in accordance with, and by means 
 of those laws, should be equivalent to a 
 violation of them ? 
 
 To put this statement into a somewhat
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 15 
 
 different form. Within certain limits man 
 is able to effect changes in matter by various 
 combinations, and to control the action of 
 the forces of nature. Such power may be 
 conceived as indefinitely extended, and as 
 exercised by God, without reaching the 
 supernatural, or, at least, the contra-natural 
 or miraculous. We have to suppose an 
 action on the part of God corresponding to 
 those mechanical acts of man which are the 
 medium between his knowledge of the 
 properties of matter, and that combination 
 and employment of them which is strictly in 
 accordance with fixed laws, but which would 
 not take place except for the intervention of 
 his will and act. Such a Divine action may 
 be superhuman because peculiar to Deity — 
 to an immaterial being — and because impos- 
 sible, except to an Almighty being : but it is 
 no more contra-natural or miraculous than 
 the knowledge by which it is directed. It is 
 the medium by which the knowledge and 
 will of Deity connect themselves with ma- 
 terial substances, to arrange and employ 
 them differently from what otherwise would 
 be the case, but not in independence of the
 
 16 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 fixed laws to which they are ordinarily 
 subject. It is the action by which He puts 
 in motion forces already existing and acting, 
 but in a combination or a direction different 
 from that which their previous action, unin- 
 terfered with, would determine. 
 
 Let us take the case which has been 
 alleged, the passage of a warm body of air 
 over a cold mountain top, and its necessary 
 condensation into cloud, and hence a pre- 
 cipitation of rain in the valley. Doubtless, 
 such being the condition of the atmosphere 
 in the locality, rain will be produced. And 
 if, such being its condition, there should be 
 no cloud and no rain, owing to the special 
 volition of the Deity, that volition would 
 prevent them simply by miracle, by sus- 
 pending or contravening the action of the 
 laws of nature. But this state of things, it 
 must be admitted, is liable to alteration 
 otherwise than by miracle. The formation 
 of cloud, and the descent of rain, do actually 
 cease through the operation of causes equally 
 natural with those which produced them. 
 It is surely conceivable that a competent
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PKAYEK. 17 
 
 power may arrange and regulate these causes, 
 consisting of combinations or impulses of 
 matter ; so that while the whole action shall 
 be strictly according to the constitution and 
 course of nature, the result shall be that 
 which a personal will associated with this 
 power has determined, and other than that 
 which would occur if no such act of volition 
 had been exercised. Man can force currents 
 or blasts of air in the direction which he 
 wills, and can evolve electrical action, by 
 the employment of machinery. Is the ex- 
 istence of similar machinery necessary for 
 the production of similar effects on a larger 
 scale, and on the mass of the atmosphere? 
 May there not be natural agencies which a 
 superior will can direct, capable of producing 
 such effects ? And may not a Divine volition 
 be the prime mover in setting in motion 
 these agencies, acting upon them immedi- 
 ately, as the human will does in directing the 
 corporeal movements of the man which ^ are 
 necessary to give an impulse to the machinery 
 which he has constructed or employs ? 
 
 Again, to take the case of sickness. A 
 
 C 2
 
 18 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 disease has been produced by natural causes, 
 and has rim a certain course, one stage 
 following another, in obedience to patholo- 
 gical laws which govern the human system, 
 until a critical period is reached. A turn 
 for better or worse may depend upon some 
 .intestinal action, to produce or prevent which 
 an appropriate medicine is administered. 
 Shall we say that the favourable or un- 
 favourable operation of the medicine is de- 
 termined by mere chance, or that, whatever 
 the effect of it may be, or the state of the 
 patient subsequent to its administration, any 
 other effect or state would be a reversal and 
 violation of natural law, and as great a 
 miracle as the restoration of life to the 
 dead? Or may we not reasonably believe 
 that, two effects being possible, one, and 
 not the other, has been determined with a 
 view to a definite result by the action of 
 a Avill as personal as that of the physician 
 who has directed the administration of tlie 
 medicine ? 
 
 Or, let us make another supposition. A 
 patient may be in such a state that his
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 19 
 
 recovery may depend upon the adminis- 
 tration of medicine, or supply of food or 
 stimulants, at certain times, or that a fatal 
 termination to his disease may be induced 
 by neglect of attention for a certain period. 
 Now it would be equally natural that, in 
 obedience to physical laws, a nurse charged 
 with the care of the patient should fall 
 asleep through fatigue, or that, in obedience 
 to a mental law — sense of duty, or affection 
 — she should overcome the tendency to 
 sleep. Would the action of a personal will, 
 determining the occurrence of the one or 
 the other of these equally natural processes, 
 with the result, on the one hand, of the 
 death, or, on the other, of the recovery of 
 the patient, be miraculous ? Would either 
 event so caused be as much a miracle as the 
 recovery instead of the death of the patient 
 by the intervention of the same wall, if the 
 nurse had administered a strong poison 
 instead of the appropriate medicine? A 
 human will might originate such an action 
 upon the corporeal or mental system of the 
 nurse as to produce, without a miracle, 
 wakefulness or tendency to sleep. Would
 
 20 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PEAYEE. 
 
 it be impossible, without a miracle, for the 
 Divine will to do the same ? 
 
 It appears, then, that there is nothing 
 unreasonable in the belief in special pro- 
 vidence, meaning by that phrase the arrange- 
 ment and control of events by the personal 
 will of God acting by means of the qualities, 
 forces, and laws existing in the material 
 world. It does not imply a perpetuation 
 and multiplication of miracles, superseding 
 and contravening the course of nature, but 
 only changes in the order and succession of 
 events effected by the exercise of Divine 
 knowledge and power, analogous to those 
 produced by the will of man, and due to 
 his possession of limited knowledge and 
 power. 
 
 Let us next consider the connection 
 between special providence and prayer. It 
 is the general belief among Christians, and 
 indeed among all who acknowledge the 
 existence of a personal God, that the Al- 
 mighty can and does, in perfect consistency 
 with His Divine attributes, cause or prevent
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PEAYEE. 21 
 
 the occurrence of events, within the limits 
 already indicated, in answer to the prayers 
 of men. As has been stated, the favourable 
 change of weather in time for the harvest, and 
 the recovery of the Prince of Wales, have 
 been almost universally regarded as examples 
 of the action of special providence in answer 
 to prayer. It is, however, objected that 
 it is unreasonable to suppose that God will 
 act in consequence of human prayer other- 
 wise than He would have acted if no prayer 
 had been addressed to Him, and that His will 
 can be altered so as to produce an effect which 
 would not have been produced but for the 
 prayer. Hence it is inferred that prayer is 
 unnecessary and useless. 
 
 The objection implies that God has so 
 ordered the course and succession of events 
 in the material world, that no such action of 
 natural forces, and no such physical effects as 
 have been instanced, can be dependent upon 
 the human will so as to happen or not accord- 
 ing as that will has been exercised with 
 regard to them. But such a proposition, to 
 be reasonable and scientific, ought to be
 
 22 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 universal. It should be stated and proved 
 that in no case whatever can the action of 
 the forces of nature for the production of any- 
 physical effect be dependent upon the will 
 of man. But, as has been shown, man has, 
 to a very great, although limited, extent, a 
 command over the forces of nature ; he can 
 combine and employ them to produce many 
 a desired effect. In all such cases the action 
 of these forces must depend upon human 
 will. If that will is not exercised, the action 
 and its effects do not occur. 
 
 And let it be observed that, in all such 
 cases, man has not altered or controlled 
 the will of God. These effects follow ne- 
 cessarily from the constitution of nature, 
 when certain conditions exist ; but they 
 do not occur, nor do these conditions exist, 
 necessarily, as a matter of fact. Some- 
 thing has happened, in accordance with laws 
 impressed by God on nature, and therefore 
 according to His will, which would not have 
 happened but for the exercise of the will of 
 man. 
 
 It may be said, indeed, that although
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 23 
 
 certain applications of natural agencies are 
 made by the intervention of the will of man, 
 and by it alone, this intervention is itself 
 absolutely determined and compelled by an 
 antecedent force, and is only a link in the 
 iron chain of a fated and necessary suc- 
 cession of events. But the human conscious- 
 ness supplies the refutation of this theory. 
 Every man feels that he is as free to use his 
 knowledge and power in employing the 
 agencies of air, water, steam, and electricity, 
 to accomplish his purposes, as he is to lift an 
 object with his hand, or to walk across the 
 room. 
 
 If, then, it is true of one order of events 
 that they are dependent for their occur- 
 rence upon the will of man, and take effect 
 through his direct action exerted accord- 
 ing to his will, without disparagement to 
 the omnipotence and unchangeableness of 
 God, at least the probability is established 
 that it may be true of another order of 
 events that they also may be influenced by the 
 will of man, so as to take effect in conse- 
 quence of it, althougb they may be of such
 
 24 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. " 
 
 a nature that he can exert no direct action 
 to produce them, but their occurrence must 
 depend upon the immediate action of 
 God ; and this, too, it is reasonable to 
 believe, witliout involving an encroachment 
 upon omnipotence on the part of man, or the 
 abdication of His sovereignty on the part of 
 God. We have seen that the direct action 
 of God may control natural agencies in the 
 material world without being miraculous, 
 that is, without amounting to a suspension 
 or change of the laws of nature. All that 
 we have to establish is the reasonableness of 
 the belief that such action may be contingent 
 upon the free exercise of the human will. 
 
 If we believe in a moral government of 
 mankind, we must believe that the relation 
 of man to external nature, that is, to the 
 objects existing in the material world, and the 
 forces at work in it, is part of his moral 
 discipline. There are physical laws by the 
 operation of which seed germinates, the soil 
 nourishes, the plant grows, the fruit is ma- 
 tured. But man must be a fellow-worker with 
 these laws, in order to avail himself of them
 
 to his substantial and increasing advantage. 
 He must prepare the soil, manure, sow, weed, 
 protect the crop, gather in the harvest. He 
 must exercise observation, reason, patience, 
 hope, caution, self-denial. The product, 
 therefore, is contingent upon the will and 
 act of man. The physical law requires the 
 intervention of a free, intelligent, moral 
 agency, other than that of the Creator, not 
 under the control of any law of matter or 
 motion, in order that its beneficial results — 
 results with a view to " which we cannot 
 doubt it was framed — may be secured. It 
 depends also upon the will and act of an 
 intelligent moral being whether the physical 
 law shall or shall not have scope for action. 
 Its full energies may be developed, or it 
 may be impeded, thwarted, perverted in its 
 operation, by the exercise of the same free 
 independent will. 
 
 But there are other influences governed 
 by physical laws, necessary for the designed 
 effect, which are not, in the same manner 
 as those already considered, available to 
 man, so that he may employ them by his 
 
 D
 
 26 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 direct action ; influences also, prejudicial to 
 the effect, or destructive of it, over which 
 he has no direct control. These are atmo- 
 spheric conditions, rain and sunshine, cold 
 and heat, bliglits and storms. Analogy 
 would lead us to suppose, and, indeed, 
 observation and experience attest, that the 
 operation of these influences is a part of the 
 moral discipline under which man is placed. 
 A part of man's trial may consist in tlie effect 
 of atmospheric changes upon his works and 
 the product of them, that is, upon his 
 material interests, as well as in the condi- 
 tions under which he is placed, that he may 
 be enabled, by the exercise of his will and 
 physical energies, to provide for the produc- 
 tion of the crops which are necessary for his 
 subsistence, or conducive to his comfort and 
 gratification. 
 
 It is certain that such changes, by their 
 results, apprehended or experienced, excite 
 hope and fear, create disappointment or 
 unexpected satisfaction, give occasion for 
 patience, resignation, sympathy, and active 
 benevolence, and in other ways affect the
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 27 
 
 moral nature of man. And it will be readily 
 understood that it may be for the moral 
 benefit of a community that one class or the 
 other of such emotions and sentiments should 
 be prevalent among them, and should pre- 
 vail as the consequence of a dispensation of 
 events obviously independent of direct human 
 agency. 
 
 But if atmospheric changes are to be 
 arranged at all so as to form a discipline 
 suited to man's varying condition and cha- 
 racter, they cannot be so adjusted by mere 
 physical laws. That the variations in the 
 condition and character and moral circum- 
 stances of men in a community may be 
 met by any correction or discipline arising 
 from atmospheric phenomena, these varia- 
 tions must be under the notice of an Intel- 
 ligence possessed of power to set in motion 
 the elemental forces which are to operate 
 morally upon men. This Supreme Intelli- 
 gence, which, is God, will then act by means 
 of physical laws, and so act in consequence 
 of the notice He has taken of the state and 
 conduct of men. It is, as we have seen,
 
 28 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PKAYER. 
 
 reasonable to suppose that, on a suitable 
 occasion, the Deity may interfere with the 
 processes of nature by so directing — not 
 suspending or superseding — the action of 
 natural forces, as to produce effects which 
 otherwise would not have been produced. 
 
 It is now shown, Ave submit, to be equally 
 reasonable to suppose that an adequate oc- 
 casion for such interference may be supplied 
 by the condition and conduct of a commu- 
 nity, by its moral state and need. But 
 these circumstances of a community are the 
 result of the action of beings possessed of 
 freedom of will. Hence the interference of 
 God with natural forces, or rather His 
 special direction of them, may be occasioned 
 by the operation of the will of man. 
 
 Human action, dependent upon human 
 will, may thus indirectly and mediately 
 originate Divine action, without intentionally 
 or consciously procuring it. But it will 
 make no difference in the possibility or 
 probability of the case, if we suppose that 
 the exercise of human will, and the ex-
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PEAYER. 29 
 
 hibition of human conduct, inducing the 
 Divine action, should consist in the offering 
 of prayer. If considerations of man's moral 
 benefit influence the Divine will so as to 
 affect the adjustment and arrangement of 
 the natural forces which act for man's 
 liiaterial benefit or injury, it may be an 
 object of such an exercise of the Divine will 
 and power to produce among men that state 
 of mind and feeling, that moral condition, 
 which finds its appropriate expression in the 
 act of acknowledgment, humiliation, desire, 
 hope, and trust, directed towards God, which 
 we call " prayer." And to this moral state, 
 it may well be conceived, certain definite and 
 special action of the Deity, of the same 
 character, may correspond, and be appro- 
 priate and consequent. The only difference 
 between this case- and the former is that, in 
 the former, man pursues a line of conduct 
 which influences, without his intending it, the 
 action of Deity, and he is morally affected 
 unconsciously by that action ; in the latter 
 case, being consciously affected by what he 
 apprehends to be, and what really is, the 
 action of Deity, he pursues intentionally a 
 
 D 2
 
 30 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 line of conduct wliich, recognizing and re- 
 sponding to that action, is fSit by him to be, 
 and really is, of a nature to influence in its 
 turn the Divine action for the further and 
 fuller accomplishment of the object in view 
 — the moral improvement of humanity by 
 means of its relation to the material world. 
 
 To sum up and state briefly what has been 
 said. If certain action of the Divine will, 
 taking effect by means of natural forces, may 
 be contingent upon the action of the liuman 
 will producing certain moral conduct, and 
 a certain moral state, why may not such 
 Divine action be contingent uj)on the moral 
 state and conduct involved in the offering 
 of prayer ? The expressed desire and hope 
 of man that the special act of God may 
 induce circumstances favourable to his in- 
 terests does not diminish the probability of 
 such intervention which is founded upon his 
 moral state and necessities. 
 
 We have chiefly and almost entirely kept 
 in view that exercise of Divine will and 
 power which consists in the direction of
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 31 
 
 natural forces affecting human interests in 
 the aggregate, or in communities of men. 
 The same course of reasoning may be 
 adopted with regard to individuals. By 
 means, for example, of the properties and 
 qualities of the components of the human 
 frame, and of the substances which act upon 
 it, the will of God may cause an access of 
 disease, or effect a recovery; the disease 
 occurring, or ceasing, by the Divine will, on 
 account of considerations arising from a 
 moral state or character which is altogether 
 dependent upon the action of the individual 
 human will. And so in respect of any kind 
 of trial, affliction, or danger, certain circum- 
 stances may be induced by the immediate 
 control exercised by God over various 
 agencies, the proximate occasion for which 
 circumstances may well be the moral state or 
 action, actual or prospective, of the human 
 being whom they affect. In all such 
 instances, it must be admitted that if the 
 Divine will may be influenced by considera- 
 tions arising from free human action, it may 
 be influenced by considerations arising from 
 such action in the character of prayer.
 
 32 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the regulation 
 of the powers of nature by God is restricted 
 to peculiar occasions, such as have been 
 indicated. As governor of a world in which 
 rational beings are morally as well as phy- 
 sically affected, for good or evil, by agencies 
 constantly at work upon material substances, 
 He, undoubtedly, not only has ordained, but 
 adapts and arranges such agencies with a 
 view to then- bearing on man's physical and 
 moral condition. 
 
 A large range of cases, however, may be 
 conceived, some classes of w^hich have been 
 adverted to, in which the phenomena would 
 be otherwise ordered but for occasion given 
 by the action of the will of man. It is in 
 these cases that the special appears to be 
 distinguished from the ordinary providential 
 action of God in His government of the 
 material and moral world. 
 
 To take a signal instance from our history, 
 as related by Lord Macaulay. AVhen the 
 armament of the Prince of Orange, after- 
 wards William ill., after experiencing adverse
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 83 
 
 weather, had set sail a second time from the 
 coast of Holland, and the fleet of James ii. 
 lay in the mouth of the Thames, ready to 
 intercept the invaders, the Dutch fleet, 
 directing its course westward along the 
 English Channel, was as singularly favoured 
 as the opposing fleet was baflled by the 
 changes of the wind. "The wind," says 
 the historian, *'had blown strong from the 
 east while the prince wished to sail down 
 the Channel, had turned to the south when 
 he wished to enter Torbay, had sunk to a 
 calm during the disembarkation, and, as 
 soon as the disembarkation was completed, 
 had risen to a storm, and had met the 
 pursuers in the face " (chapter ix.). 
 
 It is reasonable to conceive that the changes 
 in the direction of the wind were produced by 
 Divine action, contingent upon the under- 
 taking and prosecution of an enterprise for 
 which God was pleased to design success. 
 And we may entertain the opinion that the 
 facts are thus to be accounted for, without 
 believing, as the historian assumes that we 
 must, that " the ordinary laws of nature were
 
 34 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 suspended for the preservation of the liberty 
 and religion of England." A difference in 
 the direction or intensity of the atmospheric 
 forces might surely be effected by competent 
 wisdom and power, in a manner analogous to 
 that in which human wisdom and power can 
 occasion changes in the direction and intensity 
 of other and similar natural forces, not only 
 without any suspension of the laws by which 
 they are regulated, but, on the contrary, 
 entirely by the operation of those laws, 
 directed by the only Being who possesses 
 a perfect knowledge of their constitution and 
 character. 
 
 If we believe that the human mind is 
 free to create, by its direction of human 
 action, circumstances leading to certain re- 
 sults, or to different and opposite results, 
 through the operation of ordinary causes, 
 moral and physical, we must admit that the 
 Divine mind is equally free, by the inter- 
 vention of the Divine power, and through 
 natural agencies, to promote or prevent the 
 occurrence of these results. But, in such 
 cases, always assuming the human will to be
 
 BPECIAL PEOVIDENCE AND PRAYEK. 35 
 
 free, the exercise of the Divine will is con- 
 tingent upon the exercise of the will of the 
 finite being — a will exerted, this way or 
 that, at some definite point of time. And as 
 the will of man can freely create occasion for 
 the employment of his own knowledge and 
 power, as affecting natural agencies, so it 
 can create occasion for God's employment 
 of similar agencies, or of those which He 
 only can set in motion, to effect a particular 
 result. Thus, in the instance just alleged, 
 we can hardly doubt that- the free exercise 
 of the will of James ii. in various despotic 
 acts, and especially in the publication of the 
 celebrated Declaration of Indulgence, ori- 
 ginated that series of events which culmi- 
 nated in the expedition of William of Orange, 
 and the successful disembarkation of the 
 army of deliverance in the harbour of Torbay. 
 But for the exercise of the king's will, this 
 series of events could not have taken place, 
 and, but for the exercise of the Divine will, 
 it might have terminated otherwise than it 
 did. The actual result was really dependent 
 upon a change in the weather ; and it is no 
 more inconsistent with the physical than
 
 PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 it is with the moral government of the 
 world by God that this change should have 
 been effected by His personal, immediate 
 will. 
 
 We may also take, as an example, the 
 late war between France and Prussia. Cer- 
 tain men were free to will or not the com- 
 mencement of the war. Anyhow, its occur- 
 rence was dependent upon human will, single 
 or combined. Man's will gave occasion 
 for the employment of certain properties 
 and agencies of matter which are under his 
 control, for mischief and slaughter, and also 
 for remedy and relief. And occasion was 
 hereby created for the exercise of the Divine 
 will in arranging circumstances that might 
 conduce to or compel the continuance or 
 cessation of the war. If we suppose any 
 action at all of God in a providential ad- 
 ministration of events bearing on the war, 
 it certainly arose out of the will and action 
 of man. And if, by such Divine action, cir- 
 cumstances were induced which brought 
 about a termination of the war, this arrange- 
 ment may be, with as much reason, referred
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 37 
 
 to some special exercise of the human will, 
 as the whole providential action of God to 
 the will of man in originating the war. Now 
 prayer was, we know, extensively offered to 
 God by the Christian Church in various 
 lands, that He would cause the war to cease. 
 There is nothing unreasonable in the belief 
 that the determination of the will of God to 
 such a course of intervention as led to this 
 result was due to the regard with which ii 
 pleased Him to consider the human action 
 of prayer, proceeding from the free human 
 will, consciously directed towards the object 
 thus to be accomplished. 
 
 The objection to the efficacy of prayer 
 which is derived from the invariable succes- 
 sion of phenomena according to fixed laws, 
 and from the inference that everything must 
 occur, and does occur, by absolute ne- 
 cessity, and could not be otherwise, may 
 be shown to be equally valid against the 
 efficacy of human labour. If every effect 
 and result is fixed by an unalterable ne- 
 cessity of succession, the intervention of 
 man's labour must be unavailing or unne-
 
 S8 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 cessary. He cannot compass anything that 
 he designs if it is not in the line of suc- 
 cession, and he need not trouble himself to 
 act in the matter if it is. It may be said 
 that his own action is part of this fated 
 scheme of cause and effect, and that what is 
 to be will be, as much through his instru- 
 mentality as that of the properties of matter 
 which he has to employ, and the forces which 
 he is to set in motion. In that case, his action 
 with a view to a desired result, or his in- 
 action, must be consciously to himself under 
 an absolute external control, and he cannot 
 act or abstain from acting as he pleases. 
 But he knows and feels assured that he is 
 free, and that his own will determines the 
 interposition of his agency. 
 
 Man, by his labour, seeks to modify and 
 change to a great extent an existing state 
 and order of things. He does this in the 
 cultivation of the soil, and by the applica- 
 tion of the forces of nature to his purposes, 
 as well as by the devices which he employs 
 for protecting himself against their injurious 
 or destructive action. He utilizes substances,
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 89 
 
 properties, and forces, which otherwise would 
 be unproductive ; and he renders innoxious, 
 or even serviceable, others which would work 
 him harm. In all that he thus does, there 
 is a co-operation with nature. The effect is 
 dependent upon the laws and action of 
 natural forces, as well as upon the will and 
 consequent action of man. Human labour 
 does not alter the order of nature, because 
 it produces certain results by means of 
 nature which would not be produced without 
 its intervention. "The natural course of 
 things," says M. Ernest Naville, in his work 
 on the Origin of Evil, " that is to say, the 
 direct work of God, is incessantly modified 
 by the labour of man. Shall we say that by 
 our labour the designs of God are changed ? 
 No ; for God, in creating us free agents, has 
 made us partakers in His power, and wills us 
 to be fellow-workers with Himself. Our 
 labour, then, does not alter His designs, it 
 accomplishes them. Man feels in himself 
 that he has power to act : he acts ; he sees 
 the result of his action; and he cares not 
 what the philosophers say who affirm that 
 everything which happens is decreed to
 
 40 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 happen by fate " (p. 299). No more altera- 
 tion of the order of natnre, or opposition to 
 the will and action of God, can be ascribed 
 to , efficacious prayer than to efficacious 
 labour. If man by labour can do that which 
 would not have been done without or con- 
 trary to the will of God, so may he be rea- 
 sonably supposed to procure by prayer a 
 result which would not otherwise have taken 
 place, but which takes place, not in opposi- 
 tion, but in subordination to the will of God. 
 To use asrain the lano^uao^e of the same 
 eminent writer : *' Labour does not change 
 the plans of God; it accomplishes them, 
 since God has created us for labour. Prayer 
 does not assume to change the plans of God ; 
 it accomplishes them, since God has created 
 us with the necessity and instinct for prayer. 
 Prayer and labour are subject to the same 
 objections ; but these objections are derived 
 from the idea that there is no liberty either 
 in man or in God, that the world is a fated and 
 fixed mechanism. From this point of view, 
 which is that of atheism, open or disguised, 
 there is doubtless nothing for us to ask ; 
 but there is also nothing for us to do. The
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PEAYEK. 41 
 
 doctrine of universal fatalism is so contrary 
 to our immediate perception of reality, and to 
 the consciousness of tlie human race, that we 
 have good right to demand its proofs. How- 
 ever, these proofs never have been, and never 
 will be given" (p. 301). 
 
 As an illustration, let us take the case in 
 which, perhaps, more frequently than in any 
 other both labour and prayer are resorted to 
 for the purpose of securing the desired result, 
 namely, the case of sickness. The sceptic 
 as to the efficacy of prayer reasons thus : It 
 is either the will of God that the patient 
 shall recover, or that he shall die. If that 
 he shall recover, prayer is superfluous; if 
 that he shall die, prayer is unavailing. But 
 the same alternatives may be proposed, with 
 equal show of reason, in regard to labour 
 employed for the benefit of the patient in 
 nursing and administration of medicine. If 
 it be the will of God that the patient shall 
 recover, nursing and medicine are super- 
 fluous; if that he shall die, nursing and 
 medicine are unavailing. It will be said 
 that they are the observed appropriate means 
 
 £ 2
 
 42 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 for effecting the object in view, the natural 
 links in the chain by which one state of the 
 patient is connected Avith another. But they 
 are not necessary links in the chain following 
 by fixed law the operation of foregoing pliy- 
 sical forces, because the employment of them 
 is absolutely dependent upon the human 
 will. They may be applied or withheld, or 
 used with different degrees of effectiveness, 
 as some human mind or minds may deter- 
 mine. The result is, therefore, as far as it 
 is affected by them, a contingency ; it is de- 
 pendent upon the exercise of a will. And 
 why should it not be as dependent upon the 
 human will exercised in prayer as upon the 
 human will exercised in labour ? Why not 
 as dependent upon the will of God acting in 
 consequence of prayer, as upon the will of 
 God acting through freely employed human 
 labour ? 
 
 The same analogy also supplies an answer 
 to the objection arising from the fact that 
 prayer is often offered in vain, that what is 
 asked is in many instances not granted, or 
 what is deprecated is allowed to happen.
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 43 
 
 Why, then, it is demanded, should we pray, 
 since we cannot be sure that prayer will be 
 of any avail in influencing the will of God 
 according to our desires? But labour is 
 often employed, labour appropriate for effect- 
 ing a certain object in view, and yet fails ; 
 the object is not gained, or an opposite re- 
 sult occurs. Yet this is not accepted as a 
 sujBScient proof that labour is useless. Men, 
 knowing that their best conceived designs 
 and their most strennous efforts may fail, 
 still continue to plan and labour, in the con- 
 viction that these are the means by which, 
 according to the constitution of nature, they 
 must expect, although they cannot be cer- 
 tain, to effect their purposes. And their 
 very disappointments lead them, not un- 
 reasonably, to conclude that there is a will 
 and a power that must be exercised as well as 
 their own in order to success. In the lan- 
 guage of the Author already quoted, " These 
 two harmonizing powers, labour and prayer, 
 have the same condition, and the same limit. 
 The condition common to both is perse- 
 verance. If prayer is a natural function of 
 the spiritual life, it is a perpetual function.
 
 44 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYEK. 
 
 If prayer is the breath of the soul, it must 
 be incessantly renewed. Perseverance, then, 
 is the condition common to labour and 
 prayer. As for the limit of these two powers, 
 it is to be found in the designs, unfathomable 
 by us, of the Supreme Power. How many 
 prayers which do not receive a manifest and 
 immediate answer ! How many efforts which 
 apparently fail to accomplish their end! 
 Sovereign wisdom reserves to itself the 
 determination both of the success of our 
 efforts and the result of our prayers" 
 (p. 304). 
 
 It has been stated as an objection to belief 
 in the exercise of special providence, and in 
 the efficacy of prayer, that this belief sup- 
 poses the mind and will of the Deity to be 
 perpetually occupied with matters of small 
 importance. A similar objection is raised 
 against special and successive acts of crea- 
 tion, by which new states or forms of being 
 in the material world have been brought 
 into existence. It is considered a disparage- 
 ment to the dignity of Deity to represent 
 Him as concerned with any arrangements in
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 45 
 
 providence or creation except tliose which 
 are on the grandest and most extensive 
 scale, or as acting at all except at the com- 
 mencement of the series of events and for- 
 mations which make up the history of the 
 material and moral world. 
 
 Bat when we look into the question thus 
 raised we see that it is the objector who forms 
 a low, mean, unworthy, and altogether human 
 notion of Deity. He attributes to God our 
 scale and standard of great and small, im- 
 portant and trivial. And he implies that 
 there are limits and degrees of Omnipotence 
 and Omniscience. For he who thinks it too 
 little a thing for God to take notice of the 
 interests of an individual or a community, 
 but a thing sufficiently grand and dignified 
 for God to have in mind the affairs of 
 empires, or the general interests of the whole 
 human race, assumes that it is so in the 
 estimation of God as well as in- his own. 
 But it is surely a more just and noble con- 
 ception of the Divine Majesty to consider it 
 independent of the comparative extent or 
 vastness of the thinofs with which Divine
 
 46 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 will and action have to deal, to reduce all 
 human and all created things to the same 
 level in the sight of God, and to believe that 
 the highest are to Him no higher than the 
 lowest. On the principle of the objection 
 which we are considering, it might be said 
 that it is reasonable, and consistent with 
 right ideas of the Divine Majesty, to suppose 
 that Omnipotence and Omniscience were 
 exerted to produce the wonders revealed by 
 the telescope, but not those revealed by the 
 microscope; that we may rationally and 
 reverently believe that these attributes were 
 necessary to the creation of immense systems 
 of worlds, but that it is contrary to reason 
 and to true reverence for Deity to suppose 
 that they were directly employed in the 
 formation of the wings and sting of a 
 gnat. But who does not see that it is a 
 much grander notion of Deity to conceive 
 that it was no greater effort of Omnipotence 
 and Omniscience to plan and create the 
 whole universe of worlds, and to arrange 
 their revolutions, than it was to devise and 
 form the wings and sting of the insect, and 
 that both these infinite attributes were as
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 47 
 
 necessary for the production of the insect as 
 for the production of the systems of worlds, 
 each act of creation being equally impossible 
 to any but the one Almighty and All-wise 
 Being, and each equally possible and easy 
 to Him? 
 
 There is another objection to special 
 providence and prayer, which also imposes a 
 limit upon the Divine power and knowledge. 
 It is founded upon the difficulty which our 
 minds experience in apprehending the idea 
 that the will and action of the Deity can be 
 exercised in innumerable instances, and in 
 innumerable places, at the same time. Hence 
 the denial of any direct operation of the 
 Divine mind or power in ordinary and par- 
 ticular cases, and the restriction of it to 
 certain central or initiatory points of action. 
 
 But, in the first place, we have but to 
 admit the existence of an Omnipotent and 
 Omniscient Being, and this difficulty must 
 vanish. If God be Omnipotent and Omni- 
 scient, He can act everywhere and in all cases 
 at the same time. If He cannot, He is not
 
 48 SPECIAL PPvOVIDENCE AND PEAYER. 
 
 Omnipotent and Omniscient. In the second 
 place, the exercise of the Divine will and 
 power in two cases only, one here and the 
 other at the Antipodes, simultaneously, 
 creates as great a difficulty, and as great a 
 demand for perfect and active Omnipotence, 
 as its simultaneous exercise in millions of 
 cases scattered over an area of millions of 
 miles. If it be not incredible that God 
 should perform acts of ordinary and special 
 providence in several parts of the universe 
 at once, it is not incredible that He should 
 perform such acts continuously and simulta- 
 neously in all parts of the universe. 
 
 In fact, most of the difficulties which are 
 made about the Divine action in special 
 providence, and in answer to prayer, as well 
 as about miracles, arise from inadequate 
 conceptions of the infinite power, wisdom, 
 and righteousness of God, or a practical 
 disbelief in His existence as an independent 
 personal Being. It is true that we, with our 
 finite and limited intelligence, cannot form 
 a just and adequate notion of attributes 
 possessed in infinity, or of the nature of
 
 SPECIAL PROYIDENCE AND PEAYER. 49 
 
 Him who possesses them. But we are all 
 capable of understandiug as a matter of fact 
 the personality of the Almighty and All- 
 wise — that He is not identical with the 
 aggregate of existences which we call the 
 Universe, or the complication of substances, 
 properties, and agencies which we call nature, 
 or the observed order which we call law, or 
 the tissue of energies and operations which we 
 call force, or the supposed inflexible series of 
 sequences which we call fate ; that, on the 
 contrary, none of these can be conceived of 
 as having an origin, or constitution, without 
 the exercise of a will and a corresponding 
 act of power on the part of a personal Being. 
 Corresponding to this fact, its complement 
 and reflexion in ourselves, is our own pos- 
 session of personality and consciousness of 
 will, our certainty that we are not mere 
 agencies or machinery, determined to this 
 course or that by external forces over which 
 we have (as separate and independent 
 beings) no control. It is this co-existence of 
 our individual personality with that of God, 
 of our freedom of will with His, that necessi- 
 tates our belief in His continuous superinten-
 
 50 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 dence and direction of events, concurrently 
 with our own action, and having a constant 
 relation to ourselves. We are quite sure 
 that He has absolute power to order all 
 things according to His will, or He would 
 not be God. But, if we had no other reason 
 or evidence, the phenomena of moral evil, 
 and the opposition of our own hearts to a 
 perfect law of righteousness, prove to us the 
 existence of will other than and differing 
 from the will of God. Such will, of necessity, 
 must be finite, having a commencement in 
 time, that is, some period in the lifetime of 
 the being who exercises it. 
 
 If, then, it be admitted that there is 
 an action of the Supreme Will in re- 
 gard to events actual or possible, in 
 which we are interested, ordering and con- 
 trolling them under that aspect, and an 
 action of the human will, influenced by the 
 occurrence or anticipation of such events, 
 and tending to moral results, it is difficult to 
 conceive of such contemporaneous actions of 
 will without concluding that there must be 
 some connexion between them, and that one
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 51 
 
 must be affected by the other. But as the 
 human will is free, and begins to act at a 
 certain definite point of time, it is that of the 
 two which is the condition of the exercise of 
 the other. And the exercise of the Divine 
 will, so conditioned, is what we understand 
 as special proyidence, or answer to prayer. 
 
 The purport of the preceding observations 
 has been to show that the objections which 
 have been raised against the theory and 
 practice of prayer have no sufficient or real 
 foundation. But our case will be imperfectly 
 stated without reference to a few considera- 
 tions, of a direct and positive character, 
 which, even if we could not altogether 
 remove difficulties, would, when weighed 
 against them, turn the scale in favour of the 
 reasonableness, efficacy, and obligation of 
 prayer. 
 
 Communication, immediate and personal, 
 between the spirit of man and God the Great 
 Spirit must be acknowledged to be possible. 
 Sentiments, aspirations, devout meditations, 
 of which God is the object, are certainly
 
 52 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 cognizable by Him. And if so, we cannot 
 doubt but that they are reciprocated by the 
 Divine Mind in action, of which the human 
 beings from whom they proceed are, in turn, 
 the object. This action must be considered 
 as consisting at least in approbation, sym- 
 pathy, and good-will. But it cannot be 
 supposed to be restricted to the perceptions 
 of Deity, so as to terminate in the Divine 
 Mind. It must have some issue, some effect 
 of a spiritual nature upon its object. For 
 if not, then the human minds which are thus 
 affected, and act thus towards God, are in 
 the same condition and circumstances as if 
 there were no God at all. If any spiritual 
 benefits of which they are conscious, answer- 
 ing to such processes of thought, are at- 
 tributable solely to their own reflex action, 
 then these would be the same if the object 
 of their contemplations had no real existence, 
 and were the creature of their own imagina- 
 tion. It may be said, that we have no right 
 to infer this, because no such spiritual 
 feelings and actions would be possible to 
 rational, moral, and spiritual beings if there 
 were no God. Most certainly they would
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 53 
 
 not. And consequently such feelings and 
 actions are one of the proofs of the existence 
 of a God. But then thej^ carry with them 
 the further proof that He must be such a 
 God as they necessarily imply — a personal 
 Being, cognizant of, interested in, and re- 
 sponding to the spiritual wants and wishes 
 of men. 
 
 Now this communion with God is the 
 primary and essential element of prayer. 
 Let it be once admitted that men may 
 derive spiritual benefit immediately from 
 Him by thus approaching Him, then such 
 intercourse, with such results, settles the 
 whole question of the reasonableness, efficacy, 
 and necessity of prayer. If, in correspond- 
 ence with human feelings and desires di- 
 rected towards Himself He exercises an 
 influence over human minds as the " God of 
 the spirits of all flesh," then equally may He 
 be expected to reciprocate the same human 
 action by exercising an influence, as the 
 God of creation and providence, upon what- 
 ever is the subject of creative power or 
 providential rule. 
 
 F 2
 
 54 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PKAYER. 
 
 Man has been defined as " the worship- 
 ping animal." It is certain that there is in 
 human nature an universal tendency to 
 prayer. This tendency is a moral instinct, 
 the elements of which are a sense of de- 
 pendence and a sense of responsibility, both 
 directed necessarily to a personal object, 
 possessing and exercising will and power in 
 regard to ourselves. Closely connected, 
 indeed, identical in principle, with this, is the 
 tendency or impulse to praise, particularly 
 under the form of thanksgiving. On ex- 
 periencing any great benefit or success, on 
 deliverance from any great danger, especially 
 if in either case unexpectedly, there is in 
 every mind a consciousness of a feeling of 
 gratitude, prompting in most instances an 
 energetic utterance of thanks. This instinct 
 of prayer and praise exists even in those 
 whose notions of the Being who is the 
 natural object of it are most obscure, con- 
 fused, and erroneous. It exists, we will 
 venture to say, even in those who profess to 
 disbelieve a special providence or a personal 
 God. Let one of this class find himself 
 amidst the horrors of a threatened ship-
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 55 
 
 wreck, or lost, maimed, and in imminent 
 danger of perishing amidst Alpine snows and 
 precipices, and it is morally certain that he 
 will pray. And should the storm cease, or 
 himself be saved while others around him 
 are destroyed ; should relief arise in the 
 waste, or a point of safety be discovered and 
 attained, it is equally certain that, in the 
 moment of assured deliverance, he will offer 
 thanks. Even if it should be possible for 
 him in such circumstances to act consistently 
 with his professed unbelief, so as neither to 
 pray in his danger nor to give thanks for 
 his escape, it would be possible only by the 
 exercise of a strong effort of will controlling 
 his natural emotions. But the effort itself 
 would bear witness to the existence and 
 powerful operation of the instinct of prayer 
 and praise. His philosophy and science, 
 so-called, might succeed in overcoming his 
 instinct, but it is doubtful whether he himself 
 would feel perfect satisfaction in its success. 
 
 The cogency of this argument from human 
 instinct may be illustrated by the miserable 
 attempt to meet it, unworthy of a man of
 
 56 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 science, lately made by an unbeliever in the 
 efficacy of prayer. He compares with the 
 instinct of prayer the instinct which impels 
 animals to utter cries when in distress or 
 danger. But there is nothing to prove that 
 these are cries for help or deliverance. It 
 is in the last degree improbable that they 
 have any such character. They are of the 
 same nature as the cries extorted from our- 
 selves by actual suffering. Whereas, human 
 prayer, in emotion or expression, is a definite 
 supplication, consciously addressed, not to a 
 fellow-creature, nor to a law of nature, nor to 
 nothing, but to a personal Being. Similarly, 
 the feeling and utterance of gratitude, in 
 such cases as have been instanced, must 
 have for its object a personal Being. No 
 one can be grateful to an inanimate sub- 
 stance or an abstraction, to matter, or to 
 force. The existence of the instinct of 
 prayer and thankfulness, as a part of human 
 nature, is a testimony to the existence of 
 the object of this instinct — a personal God — 
 and of His existence in that relation to the 
 instinct — the relation of special providence 
 — apart from which it has no meaning, and
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PKAYER. 57 
 
 would be a function purposeless and without 
 a final cause. 
 
 A proposal has lately been made, anony- 
 mously, but under the introduction and with 
 the approbation of Professor Tyndall, that, 
 as a test of the efficacy of prayer, a hospital, 
 or ward of a hospital, should be selected as 
 the special subject of the prayers of all 
 Christian people for four or five years, and 
 that then the number of cures recorded in 
 its books should be compared with those of 
 other hospitals during the same time. It 
 has been admitted by the proposer that the 
 test must be imperfect unless such a hospital 
 could be compared with some other, or others, 
 for and by the inmates of which no prayer 
 should be offered. A periodical which 
 generally expresses the common sense and 
 common feeling of the public, although 
 professedly devoted only to its amusement, 
 has remarked very justly upon this, that the 
 only kind of prayerless hospital that can be 
 imagined must be a veterinary hospital, 
 since " none but brute beasts can be trusted 
 not to p^ay in their extremity."
 
 58 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PEAYER. 
 
 A word or two more on this proposal may 
 not be out of place, as it has obtained con- 
 siderable notoriety, and was offered, we 
 cannot doubt, with a view to disparage and 
 discourage faith in the efficacy of prayer. 
 It evinces a lamentable misapprehension of 
 the nature of prayer, of special providence, 
 and of God. The author of it says that it is 
 identical in character with invitations, such 
 as are repeatedly given, to united prayer for 
 the prosperity of Sunday schools, or the 
 conversion of the heathen. And he affects 
 to wonder that it is not as cordially accepted 
 by religious people as those invitations are. 
 But such united prayer is not offered with 
 an object in view different from that which 
 is expressed, nor with an understanding 
 that if no marked success attends Sunday 
 schools or missions within a given time it 
 will be concluded that prayer for special 
 objects is of no avail. If it were, none who 
 have formed their conception of prayer and 
 of God from the teaching of the Bible would 
 expect it to be answered. 
 
 The proposal in question takes the form of
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 59 
 
 a challenge to the Christian world to test the 
 reasonableness of their universal practice and 
 belief in regard to prayer. But it is really 
 a challenge to God to prove the reasonable- 
 ness of the commands, and the truth of the 
 promises, on the subject of prayer, undoubt- 
 edly contained in His Word. Compliance 
 with it would be an act of irreverence and 
 presumption of which no serious, earnest, 
 religious person could be guilty. They 
 would remember that a similar demand 
 was repeatedly made of our Lord when 
 upon earth by those who said, " Master, 
 we would see a sign from Thee;" that 
 He rejected the demand with indignation, 
 and characterised in strong terms of repro- 
 bation the generation, or class, who offered 
 it.* And they would reply to the proposal 
 in the language addressed to him with 
 whom this kind of challenge originated: 
 
 * " Then certaiu of the Scribes and of the Pharisees 
 answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from 
 thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil 
 and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and 
 there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the 
 prophet Jonas" (Matt. xii. 38, 39).
 
 60 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 " It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the 
 Lord thy God."* 
 
 Another important consideration derived 
 from the practice of mankind is the fact 
 that not only do human beings, as a race, 
 naturally pray in time of need, but the best 
 and wisest of men in all generations and 
 countries have been, as a class, believers in 
 the efficacy of prayer. That the best men 
 are men of prayer may be taken for granted ; 
 it will appear to most minds a matter of 
 course, a mere truism ; an exception, if it 
 exists, must be regarded as a moral phe- 
 nomenon both extraordinary and unnatural. 
 But it is true also of the wisest. Let us 
 instance in men of science. No names in 
 history, certainly none in our time, can be 
 compared with those of Kepler, Newton, 
 Pascal, and Bacon for scientific knowledge, 
 
 * " Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, 
 and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith 
 unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down ; 
 for it is written, He shall give his angels charge 
 concerning thee ; and in their hands they shall bear 
 thee up, Itst at any time thou dash thy foot against a 
 stone, Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou 
 shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 61 
 
 and for depth and comprehensiveness of 
 intellect. And we know that they were all 
 firm believers in special providence, and in 
 the duty and value of prayer. It is not to 
 be supposed that such men were unaware of 
 the difficulties and objections urged, but by 
 no means originated, by modern sciolists. 
 On the contrary, Lord Bacon made such 
 trials of faith a subject of prayer. The 
 following is the conclusion of the Student's 
 Prayer, composed by the father of natural 
 science: "This also we humbly and 
 earnestly beg, that human things may not 
 prejudice such as are Divine ; neither that 
 from the unlocking of the gates of sense, 
 and the kindling of a greater natural light, 
 anything of incredulity, or intellectual night, 
 may arise in our minds towards Divine 
 mysteries. But rather, that by our mind 
 thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy 
 and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly 
 given up to the Divine oracles, there may 
 be given unto faith the things that are 
 faith's. Amen." 
 
 We must also take into account the evi- 
 
 G
 
 62 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PEAYER. 
 
 dence afforded, by Christian literature from 
 the earliest period, and notably that of later 
 times and our own age, that prayer in innu- 
 merable instances has been answered. The 
 experience and observation of thousands now 
 living would confirm the fact. There can 
 be no doubt but that, in the case of the 
 incalculably vast majority of those who have 
 been in the habit of offering prayer, blessings 
 have so repeatedly followed the petitions of 
 each individual of the number as to establish 
 the conviction that they were their result 
 and consequence. This conviction, so wide- 
 spread and deep-rooted, cannot be neglected 
 or despised in a truly philosophical inquiry 
 into the value and effect of prayer. It 
 cannot be accounted for by a mathematical 
 theory of so many concurrences happening 
 in so many trials, or by a psychological 
 theory of credulity and delusion. After 
 making every deduction that can be de- 
 manded on the ground of merely accidental 
 coincidence, or of ignorance and fanaticism, 
 there remains the testimony of multitudes of 
 intelligent, practical, well-informed persons 
 to the fact of a connexion between their
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PEAYEE. 63 
 
 prayers and subsequent events, and to 
 their assured belief that it has been a con- 
 nexion of cause and effect. The acknow- 
 ledgment made by so many and such wit- 
 nesses, and by each repeatedly, in the 
 language of the Psalmist, *' Verily God hath 
 heard me ; He hath attended to the voice of 
 my prayer," will suffice to counterbalance in 
 most minds the reasoning which has brought 
 some to the conclusion that the same things 
 have happened in all cases as if there had 
 been no prayer, and as" if there were no 
 God. 
 
 It must be added that in the Bible 
 throughout — in the Old Testament and in 
 the New — we are taught, by examples, in- 
 vitations, commands, and promises innumer- 
 able, the duty and benefits of prayer. 
 Hence, denial of the reasonableness and 
 efficacy of prayer is necessarily equivalent 
 to a denial of the inspiration and truth of 
 the Bible. 
 
 In conclusion, let it be considered that 
 provision is made against the difficulties
 
 64 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 which exist on this subject, as well as many- 
 others which have to do with the relations 
 between God and man, in the manifestation 
 of Deity to us by the incarnation, and in the 
 person, of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is in 
 itself indeed a great mystery, but when re- 
 ceived and apprehended in all the fulness of 
 its reality it solves other mysteries. And it 
 may be so received and apprehended, because 
 it is a matter of plain historic fact, capable 
 of being proved to be such on the ordinary 
 grounds and principles of evidence and testi- 
 mony. If we believe the narrative of the 
 Gospels, we believe in One who, being found 
 in fashion as a man, and identifying Himself 
 with humanity in all its interests, general 
 and particular, possessed absolute and in- 
 herent dominion over all the substances and 
 forces of the material world. On the same 
 authority, and, indeed, as an immediate 
 inference from His independent possession of 
 such dominion, we acknowledge Him to be 
 the Creator of all things, the Infinite and 
 Eternal God. Herein, then, we have a firm 
 foundation for our belief in God's providen- 
 tial government of the world, both ordinary
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 65 
 
 and special. God is, in Christ, Lord and 
 Ruler of all things. And the knowledge we 
 have of Christ, through the revelation of 
 -His word, gives us the assurance that He can 
 and will take cognizance of circumstances 
 and events affecting us, whether arising out 
 of the operation of natural law, or originating 
 in our own conduct and action, or that of 
 others ; and that He will order and arrange 
 them with a view to certain results which, 
 without such actual and personal interposi- 
 tion, would not happen. . This providential 
 action, continuous, ordinary, and special, is 
 implied in His parting assurance, "All power 
 is given unto me in heaven and in earth ;" 
 " all power" meaning all authority in adminis- 
 tration exercised at will. And the fact that 
 His personal active interest in human affairs 
 is the exemplification of and identical with 
 that of the Deity from the beginning, was 
 declared by Him when He said, " My Father 
 worketh hitherto, and I work." 
 
 It is true that Christ exerted His power 
 over nature miraculously, that is, in indepen- 
 dence of its known and permanent laws, 
 
 G 2
 
 66 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 while what we are cod tending for is an 
 exercise of power in accordance with such 
 laws, in the direction and management of 
 the properties of material things which are 
 subject to them, appropriate to certain cases 
 and circumstances as they arise. It was 
 necessary to the proof of His Divine mission, 
 and of His being whatever He claimed to be, 
 that He should work miracles. And this 
 was the primary object of them. But the 
 miraculous exercise of His power over 
 nature was also necessary to the proof of His 
 general and ordinary possession of that power. 
 In no other way could the fact of His pos- 
 session of it be satisfactorily established. 
 The greater includes the less. If His will 
 and word be in themselves law, which all 
 things in nature must obey, His will and 
 word can set in motion the forces of nature 
 towards a designed end to which they are 
 appropriate, within the limits of those sub- 
 ordinate laws under which they ordinarily 
 act. Besides, under this aspect there is a 
 conspicuous relation of the examples of His 
 supernatural exercise of power to the depart- 
 ments of His providential action. In the
 
 SPECIAL PKOVIDENCE AND PRAYEK. 67 
 
 most numerous class of his miracles, the cure 
 of diseases, a pledge is given that this vast 
 range of " ills that flesh is heir to " is under 
 His notice, and subject to His control, not 
 generally or in the aggregate only, but in 
 the individual cases of their occurrence. 
 Also, in the great variety of attendant 
 circumstances, and of the methods employed 
 by Him, is felt in the apprehension and 
 consciousness of thousands to be an indica- 
 tion of His attention to specialities, and of 
 His willingness and power to bless the use 
 of means. His creative multiplication of 
 materials of food designates Him as the 
 author and provider of the means of our 
 subsistence, the giver of our daily bread, the 
 Being to whose government of the seasons it 
 is due that our " land yieldeth her increase." 
 By His command over the elements evi- 
 denced in stilling the storms on the Lake of 
 Galilee, He is presented to us as the constant 
 Kuler of the powers of nature, habitually 
 directing their operation, and guiding it to 
 such issues as all and each of the human 
 interests affected by it may seem to His 
 Divine wisdom to require. In the resuscita-
 
 68 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 tion of the dead, and His own resurrection, is 
 involved the fact of His sovereignty over 
 life and death, His determination of the 
 period for each one's removal into the eternal 
 world, and His personal admission of those 
 who are His to the blessedness of His pre- 
 sence. Thus He exemplified in the resurrec- 
 tion of Lazarus the universal truth then 
 enunciated by Him concerning Himself, "I 
 am the resurrection and the life." And 
 with regard to His own resurrection, He 
 testifies, " I am He that liveth and was 
 dead ; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, 
 Amen ; and have the keys of hell (the 
 invisible world) and of death." 
 
 And the revelation of the Gospels affords 
 as much aid to the mind in the matter of 
 prayer, and answer to prayer, as in that of 
 special providence. The Lord Jesus Christ, 
 when on earth, was accessible to those who 
 were in want, or suffering, or sorrow, and 
 exercised unlimited free-will, as well as un- 
 limited authority, in receiving and granting 
 the petitions addressed to Him. To those 
 who Avitnessed the grace and power which
 
 SPECIAL PEOVIDENCE AND PKAYER. 69 
 
 dwelt in Him, no considerations of the 
 unalterable determination of all events by 
 Divine decrees, or fixed laws of nature, could 
 reasonably avail to convince them that 
 application to Him for the attainment of a 
 desired result was superfluous if the thing 
 was ordained or in sequence to be, and 
 useless if it was not. All difficulty of a 
 speculative nature, if it had been suggested 
 or entertained, would have vanished in 
 the presence of One who, it was evident, 
 could deal with all substances and all forces 
 in nature, as man deals with those over 
 which he can exercise control. It is a 
 matter of fact, according to the testimony of 
 the Gospel history and of Christianity from 
 the beginning, that there was such a Being. 
 It is equally so, on the same testimony, that 
 He now exists. Also that He is Himself the 
 Author of nature, the Omnipotent and 
 Omniscient One, to whose will and act the 
 beginning and the course of the whole order 
 of the universe, in every part of it, are due. 
 
 Here, then, is the practical and satisfactory 
 solution of the mystery with which specula-
 
 70 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRATER. 
 
 tions on the attributes of God and of nature 
 surround the subject of prayer and answers 
 to prayer. Christ is God. Universal nature 
 is subject to Him ; " all things in heaven and 
 in earth." He has a will like our own, and 
 has perfect power to act according to His 
 will. He chooses to act through existing 
 means, properties, and agencies. By them 
 His will is accomplished as surely and com- 
 pletely, as if He acted without them, that is, 
 miraculously. He is the God of Providence, 
 and, as such, is the proper object of prayer ; 
 and everything that concerns every man is 
 properly and reasonably an occasion -and 
 a subject of prayer. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY ; 
 56, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 164, PICCADILLY. 
 
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