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Now we feel reluctant to ascribe directly to the Divine Will the gasping of the dove under the talons of the hawk, which seized her, as she was carrying food to her young ; we had rather say, it came of the contingencies in a large scheme, which make death at some time certain, and possible there and then. But whatever contingencies or reasons operate in a scheme of law, may equally be present to any mind superintending the whole, and acting upon each part. It is only from narrowness of mind that we suppose any higher guardian of each separate object would not take account of fitness, and of other objects aroimd. Even mankind, in superintending things, do so, as far as they can, by method. The more perfect our method, the more minute our supervision ; so the more vast and regular the Divine laws appear, the more easily we should believe each want is, as far as fitness permits, provided for by the Author of all. Thus our Master Christ went on to assure His disciples, they were of more value than many sparrows*/ here He shews us Divine Providence taking account of things, and proceeding by reason; and again, elsewhere f, He teaches that men who die under cruel tyranny, or by accident, are not therefore guiltier than others, as if their misfortune might be called a judgment. So the book of Job seems a lesson, that Divine favour is not to be measured by outward prosperity, but that there is a crookedness in things, which the enemy may take advantage of to hurt us, though such machinations will be overruled for good. Hence it is implied, that the Ruler of the world permits things to go otherwise than we might expect, for some reasons which He considers sufficient, and which we most easily explain as belonging to the nature of general law. " The truest wisdom as to these things is shewn in the simple prayer, that God would give or take away, according to His will. • St Luke xii. 7 — 14. + St Luke xiii. i — 5. 464 THE HEARING OF PRAYEIl. Thus we acknowledge that there may be reasons against our prayer, yet trust that they are under control of Him to whose fashioning thoughts they may be traced. The same conscious- ness appears dimly in our feeling that prayers for the soul's health are more certain of being granted than prayers for bodily gifts. For the first come within Christ's promise, that our heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him; so that to pray for the Holy Spirit* is to pray in Christ's name; and by the same Spirit we are shewn 'the things to comet,' or the spiritual * powers of the coming age J,' that is, of the kingdom of God, and all the force of pure truth, in distinction from the earlier dispensations of the temple and the letter. We find also that prayers for spiritual gifts, such as holiness, and calmness of mind, and insight into truth, are in a way fulfilled by being ofiered; so that the allwise God answers them by method and law. Whereas, in praying for bodily gifts, we may ask what counter-claims oppose, or what fitness, or even possi- bility, prevents. Yet even here we see some tendency of the prayers to fulfilment, as when they act on our own minds, and suggest means; or when they stir sympathy, and bring about co-operation. Beyond such a range, which may be called the sphere of instrumentality, many, even pious persons, feel less confident of being heard for temporal things, and think that, after securing right action, our next prayer should be for resig- nation, or acknowledgement of gifts, rather than petition for them. For they find nothing in which the Divine Will has not, as far as is fit, anticipated us for good, and they would not have us dictate to the best wisdom. But most men have an instinct, that where the sphere of our action ends, that of petition more emphatically begins ; for it is when we have done all in our power, that we properly ask for a blessing; as men must sow their com before they pray for rain. Such an instinct implies that human agency is an instrument which Di\nne • St Luke xi. 13; St John vii. 39. + St John xvi. 13 ; xiv. 17 — ^o. * Hebrews vi. 5 ; xii. 28. SUOGESTIVENESS OP PRAYER. 465 Providence takes into account in its plan of the world. We can understand, how defects in such agency make the plan turn out worse, in some aspects or relations, than it otherwise would have done. Nor do I know that any topic is so pregnant as this of prayer is (if considered in all its aspects and experiences), with suggestions which throw light on the Divine government of the world. It is itself an action in time, having temporal results. But it is also a voiceless colloquy of that which is immortal in us, with that which is eternal above, and so it opens the doors of the kingdom of heaven. It shews us in this world a scheme of vast largeness and variety, with order wrought out of freedom. The laws, we find, invite us by persuasion rather than compel, yet are terrible in punishing disobedience. Not the least spring can anywhere be touched, without affecting we know not how much of the whole machine ; yet He who governs the whole, seems not unmindful of the least part. When we pray to Him, our very prayer becomes a remedy or a fulfilment ; yet it loses this healing power, the moment we rest in itself as a process, or direct it to any less than Him whom we conceive as its living object. Thus He teaches us, that His government is by all-embracing method and law, yet forbids us to stop short of Himself as the true Gt)vemor. He gives no warrant for ex- pecting fresh interference to cancel His own work (as if He were a clumsy artificer) at every step; but still less does He reveal Himself as inert, or as withdrawn from the world, when we should rather conceive of Him as upholding by His bene- ficence every life, and rejoicing in the operation of His thought as eternal law. All wills minister to His Will, and though each of them were perverse, it might still express a portion of that which is perfect. " He who thus conceives of the Providence of GM as general, may judge Jewish history differently from those who dream of perpetual interferences. He may call a sacred instinct, in- breathed, and a feeling taught of Grod, rather than find a form of words prescribed, or an inmiutable model laid down. Thus he M. p. 30 466 LARGER VIEW OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. may think the conquest of Canaan was conducted with mixed motives, and sullied with crimes. But these things will not startle him more in a religious history, than they would in any other. If they may happen in tlie world, they may be recorded in the Bible. But he considers them as events which happened, and not as examples, which he need admire, of faultlessness. So he may think that patriotism, as well as religion, inspires the songs which call Jerusalem * the joy of the whole earth.' Again, if he reads that Jeroboam was particularly sinful for making priests who were not of the tribe of Levi, he may infer that the Levi- tical recorder resented the injury to his tribe, no less than the degradation to Divine service. Perhaps in the story of Samuel and Saul he may note a like mixture of motives. For whatever passions and frailties, and whatever complications from human ignorance, are found under the Divine rule elsewhere, will seem to him natural accompaniments of the evolution of truth in Israel. Nor need even a play of imagination, or of poetry, in magnifying the elder epochs, appear to him strange, unless he is prepared to say, that such poetry elsewhere has not naturally sprung from the human mind, and in turn elevated its tone. For since we know that parental and conjugal love are divine, we suffer them to ascribe beauties hardly due to children or wives, without feeling ourselves bound to tame down their expressions exactly; and thus the better spirit of a nation often tinges with its fancy the early stages of a history, which becomes typical of its destiny. Nor is there any reason, why such a mode of edu- cating men, through poetry as well as prose, should not have been extended by the God of the whole earth to the Hebrew people. Nor need any kind of human shortcoming, or temporary misunderstanding, much surprise us. There may be one know- ledge for the child*, and another for the man; and one virtue for the soldier, and another for the saint.