The Practical Atheism of Our Age

It is the rejection of the doctrine of providence, considered as entering into particulars, which constitutes one of the great evils, the practical atheism, perhaps we may call it, of the age in which we live. It is true, undoubtedly, that men, with but few exceptions, admit the existence of a God; but they do not admit, except in a very mitigated and imperfect sense, his presence and supervision. They allow him a being, but they practically strike off its infinity, by assigning him a distant and strictly bounded locality. They allow him the privilege of casting a look down upon the world's affairs; but cannot bear the thought that the world does not and cannot go on without him. Here, then, is one of the great evils of the day, one of the secrets of our misery; the acknowledgment of God's existence, with the excision of his practical omnipresence; the recognition of God in general, but the rejection of him as God in particular.

One would be almost inclined to think that heathen nations are less faulty in this particular than those which bear the name of Christians. The untutored savage

“Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind."

Because an advanced knowledge in the sciences has explained many physical laws, men have fallen into the habit of ascribing to law what belongs to agency. And by thus attributing almost everything to what they denominate the laws of Nature, they forget the God of Nature. The mind of the savage, on the contrary, contemplating the result without understanding the law by which it is brought about, sees God in all the objects around him. It is God, dwelling in the cave of its fountain waters, who pours down the mighty rivers. It is the Great Spirit that sends the storm and the lightning from the mountain tops. It is God that shines in the sun, and walks in the clouds, and dwells even in four-footed beasts and creeping things. Here is a great truth, founded in the nature of God, although it is perverted and darkened in its development by the imperfection of fallen hearts. It is a truth, therefore, which ought to be respected. And the question may be put in all sincerity: — Who would not rather be the superstitious savage than the unbelieving philosopher?

It is certainly necessary that science, bewildered in its own wanderings, should return at last, and baptize itself in the truth of the Scriptures: those Scriptures which constantly associate God with all his works. The beautiful Psalms, unequaled in poetry as they are in devotion, may be said to be built upon this great idea, which is equally philosophical and religious. Speaking of God, the Psalmist says, “He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. He watered the hills from his chambers. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man. He hath planted the cedars of Lebanon, where the birds build their nests. He appointeth the moon for seasons and the sun knoweth his going down, Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.” [Psalm 104: 10, 20.]

This is the spirit which pervades these divine poems They everywhere represent the union of God with his works by an ever-present supervision and love. It is not a system of second causes, it is not nature, but God, who does all. It is God "who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry." [Psalm 147: 8, 9]

The same spirit, the same devout disposition to recognize God in everything, pervades all parts of the Scriptures.

— A Treatise on Divine Union Part 6, Chapter 1.

The Doctrine of Divine Providence

THE  word providence is derived from the Latin term PROVIDENTIA, meaning watchfulness, care, oversight.  As the  term is commonly employed, it means the constant oversight or care which God exercises over all his works. Says a judicious writer:

The doctrine of divine providence is of the very first importance, and contributes greatly to the peace and happiness of human life. Were it not that God maintained a constant and watchful care over all his works, all piety would immediately cease. A God who did not concern himself in the affairs of the world, and especially in the actions of men, would be to us as good as none at all. In that case,  should men live in a virtuous and pious manner, they would have no approbation to expect from him. Should they be guilty of crimes, they would have no punishment to fear. Were they persecuted, they would think of God only as the idle witness of their wrongs. Were they in circumstances of suffering and sorrow, they could find no consolation if God were unmindful of them. 

— Lectures on Christian Theology, by George Christian Knapp.

In  considering this important and interesting subject, it is proper to notice the distinction which is frequently made between a particular and general providence. It is certainly doubtful whether such a distinction ought to be made; — especially if the doctrine of a general providence is designed to supersede that of a particular providence. How can we readily conceive of a general providence, extending its watchfulness over things in their general aspects, which does not involve the fact of a particular providence, extending its watchfulness at the same time to those particulars, out of which that which is general is constituted? If there is a God, to whom the attributes usually ascribed to God belong, there is and must be a providence of God. If there is a providence of God extending with any degree of certainty, and with any good results, to things in their general nature, it extends to everything. We do not propose, however, to enter into an argument in support of a view which seems to us to be obvious of itself.

— A Treatise on Divine Union Part 5, Chapter 8.

Once More Becoming the Children of God

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

In once more becoming the children of God, we receive and retain a filial nature, but without ceasing to possess a moral nature. Much is involved in that free and full consecration which every true Christian is supposed to have made of himself to his heavenly Father. As free and moral agents, we consent now, and forever, if we do what we ought to do, that God shall be a truth, a life, a nature in us; which he never has been and never will be without our consent. Adam before he fell, Christ in his humanity, angels in heaven, all holy beings everywhere, either have existed, or do now exist, as  holy beings, by means of the operation of God in the soul; and yet without any alienation of their moral attributes and responsibilities, because they have received this operation with their own choice, and have sanctioned it by their own approbation.

There is no true place of rest and safety, short of the reestablishment of those relations which we have endeavored to illustrate. Accordingly, we cannot regard it as safe for any one to stop in the progress of inward experience, until he feels and knows that he has become, in the Scripture sense of the terms, a LITTLE CHILD; not only having a child's name, but a child's nature. And when this relation is reestablished, not as a name merely, but as a reality, not as a mere conventional arrangement, but as a true nature, — then, and not till then, we are brought into true union with our heavenly Father.

It is on these principles, and these only, that we can make our position harmonize with our prayers. When we pray, we address God as our Father. This implies that we either are, or ought to be, his children. And our language throughout in prayer corresponds to the idea that our true position is the filial position. We pray that we may distrust and renounce ourselves, and look only to God for guidance and support. Recognizing our inability to supply our own wants, we pray for faith, for wisdom, for love, for the guidance of our wills. We go to him, in form at least, just as the little child goes to its earthly parent. If we will go in the same sincerity, our heavenly Father will recognize the relationship, and we shall thus become the true sons of God.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.­

Childlike Will

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

The will of the child is naturally merged in the will of the father. There is a nature in this case, as there is in the others. The filial will is not harmonized in the parental will as a matter of calculation, but as the result of a mental tendency. There are, undoubtedly, some variations from this view, in consequence of the power of choice inherent in the will, and particularly in consequence of man's fallen condition; but what has been said is correct as a general statement. Accordingly, yielding readily to the tendency of their mental position, little children do what they are commanded to do. Sometimes it will cost them trouble and suffering; but this does not alter the general direction and the general inclinations of their feelings and actions. Subjecting their own wisdom to a higher wisdom, they have an instinctive feeling that their appropriate and first business is to harmonize with the expression of a parent's will. And so strong is this tendency to a union of wills, that very frequently they act without knowing what will be the end of their action. It is natural to them to leave everything with their father, — the mode, the time, the object, and the results of action, as well as the action itself.

And this, in a remarkable manner, represents the state of things as it existed in man at his first creation. The will of Adam, before he fell, not only harmonized perfectly with the divine will, but naturally; that is to say, without effort, and by an implanted tendency. It is so with all holy beings now. It was eminently so, (as I think we may safely infer from the passages which indicate his submission and union of will,) with Christ, the second Adam; and it will be found to be so with all those who are restored again and perfected in Christ's image. What God chooses, they choose. What God wills, they will. The will becomes in relation to God what the will of the affectionate and dutiful child is to its earthly parent.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.

Childlike Love

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

Again, the child LOVES his father. The evidences of this are constantly exhibited. He rejoices with his father's joy, and weeps with his father's sorrow. The slightest injury to his father's honor is felt as an injury to his own. The true child would not hesitate to die for its father or mother, if the occasion presented. And this strong and permanent love is not a matter of calculation, but a nature.  It is born with him, grows with him, lives with him. Blows will not beat it down; waters will not drown it; fires will not burn it.

At  his first creation, man's love to his heavenly Father was like this, — a love implanted by a divine power and kept in operation by a divine presence. He afterwards lost it, it is true; but he could not have lost it, if he had not first possessed it. As a moral being, man allowed, and perhaps we may say, was expected and required, to sanction the principles and methods of his inward vitality, by his own voluntary concurrence. Failing to do this, in a way and under circumstances which the human mind does not now perhaps fully understand, God withdrew himself as the central element of his being; and he became from that time the subject of spiritual alienation and death. But in his restoration to God through Christ, he is necessarily restored to the possession of that divine nature from which he fell. As he is made anew in faith and knowledge, so he is made anew in love. The lost principle of holy love is not only restored, but becomes again, under the transforming operations of divine grace, what it was in the beginning, namely, a nature, —  an operative life, moved by a power of movement existing in itself. In other words, it once more becomes in relation to God what the child's love is in relation to its earthly father.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.

Childlike Knowledge

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3.

Again, it is natural to the child to look up to the Father, and to be guided by him in matters of KNOWLEDGE. It is an established principle, in the philosophy of the human mind, that knowledge is and must be preceded by faith.

 It is impossible for us, in the very nature of things, to accept as our teacher a being in whom we have no confidence. Faith, extending to all things which are its appropriate objects, is first given to the child as an inherent and essential part of his nature. Then, under the influence of that filial confidence which leads him to look to his parents for everything else, it is natural to him (and it would be against nature to do otherwise) to look for and to receive his intellectual guidance from the same parental source. We have evidence of this original and natural tendency of the mind in what we notice every day, every hour. By a law of nature, the mind of the father becomes the mind of the child.

It was in this manner that man, at his first creation, recognized God as his teacher. He believed in God, and received him constantly as a source of inward inspiration. God was his knowledge. Such was the state of things before he fell. And such will always be the state of things, whenever, in being united with God, he is brought back to the simplicity and purity of his estate.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.

Childlike Faith

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

The earthly child, in its relations to its earthly father, is the representation, the earthly development, if we may so express it, of the relations of the child of God to his Father in heaven.

And this is seen, in the first place, in the matter of FAITH. It is very obvious, in regard to the faith which the earthly child has in its earthly parent, that it is a faith given, a faith implanted.  The filial confidence which it exhibits is not something which the child makes himself; nor is it, as some seem to suppose, the result of experience; but is innate. God himself is the giver of it. Implanted by the divine hand, and operating instinctively, the faith of the child is seen in the earliest movements of its infancy. And ever afterwards, in the various situations in which the child is placed, it retains all the attributes and exhibits all the results of an implanted or connatural principle; so much so, that, to withhold confidence from a father or mother, we all feel to be doing that which is a violation of nature.

And such precisely was the character of the faith which man possessed in his heavenly Father before he fell.

 The first man was created in the possession of faith. He could not have been created in any other way. To believe in God was a nature to him; just as we find, at the present time, that it is natural for the child to place confidence in its earthly parent. And in the full restoration of man to God, (a restoration for which provision is made in the coming and atonement of Christ, and in the renewing agency of the Holy Spirit,) the principle of faith will be re-established, not merely as a variable exercise of the mind originating in the will, but as a permanent element or nature of the mind existing in harmony with the will, and with the  will's  consent. And those who are thus restored will become, in respect to their faith, "little children."

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union Part 5, Chapter 8.