at
is immediately before our eyes, and glance at the annals of the world,
we behold so many manifestations of God, that we may adduce as a sixth
proof of Providence the facts of history. The giving and transmission of
a revelation, as the Mosaic and the Christian--the raising up of
Prophets, Apostles and Defenders of the Faith--the ordination of
particular events, such as the Reformation--the more remarkable
deliverance noticed in the lives of those devoted to the good of the
world, etc., all indicate the wise and benevolent care of God over the
human family. But the historical proof of a Providence is perhaps
strongest where the wrath of man has been made to praise God, or where
efforts to dishonor God have been constrained to do him honor. Testimony
in favor of piety has fallen from the impious, and has had a double
volume, as coming from the unwilling. They who have fought against the
truth have been used by God as instruments of spreading the knowledge of
it, awakening an interest in it, or stimulating Christians to purify it
from human additions, and to exhibit its power. The scientific
researches also with which infidels have wearied themselves to overthrow
a revelation have proved at last fatal to their daring scepticisms. Too
many histories, like Gibbons', have been written as if there were no God
in the heavens, swaying the sceptre of the earth. But a better day is
approaching; and it is exhilarating to observe that Alison, the first
British historian of the age, writes in the spirit which breathes in the
historical books of the Bible, where the free actions of man are
represented as inseparably connected with the agency of God. If we may
judge of the future by the past, as the scroll of time unrolls, we, or
our posterity, and some think glorified spirits in a yet higher degree,
shall see more and more plainly the hand of God operating, till every
knee shall bow. Judgments, now a great deep, shall become as the light
that goeth forth. The tides of ambition and avarice will all be seen to
roll in subserviency to the designs of God. To borrow the illustration
of another, "we shall behold the bow of God encircling the darkest
storms of wickedness, and forcing them to manifest His glory to the
universe."

As a seventh ground for believing in Providence, it may be said that
Providence is the necessary basis of all religion. For what is
religion? One of the best definitions calls it the belief in a
super-human power