CONCERNING SPECIAL PROVIDENCES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1510, 18 March 1887, Page 3

CONCERNING SPECIAL PROVIDENCES.

BY DR LYMaN ABBOT. Paul and his Bhipwrockod companions gather about a little fire and dry theii o'othes, andwarm themselves, A vlpor c>mesout ef the sticks »>ncl fastennon Pani'n hand, an 1 the barbarians oonolude that bo is a murderer, whom the gods will punish. Ho ilia'ccs the viper "ff and feela no hurt ; they jump to the opposite conclu ion that ha 1b a god. The one judgment had aa little to support it as the other ; both were deductions of simple, ignorant minds, unused to reasoning. We amlle at both — and reason In the same way* For what has this incident been reoorded unless to teach us the falsity of such processes 1 But a great deal of ourront thought and feeling about speotal providences m of the same type. The opinion of Job's friends that suffering is a sign of Divine disapproval and a method of Divine punishment atill remains, m spite of all the Bible teaching to the contrary, m spite of its central truth that the Son of God, the Divine Man, was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. In a large broad way suffarltfg is the result of sin ; if there never had been sin there never would have bean suffering

— perhaps. At all event*, most of the Buffering In the world oan be traced back to sin sb its origin and aouroe. Bat the ulnne-fl are certainly not the only, Ithink not oven the ohiaf, sufferers. Vloarioca ruffering is the universal law and the universal experience. We are all immeshed m the tarns net of palu and grief, and share m it because we belong to a ainful race, not because we have committed specific bldb. Tha blind man is not born blind either because of his own aino or became of the ulna of his parents, but that the works of Qod may be made manifest. It is b oanse of sin, universal and race sin, that death has entered into tha world : but not because of sin, incidental and pornonal, that death entera Into your house or mine. The first-born died m every Egyptian's house because the Egyptian nation was a nation of oppressors ; he did not die m this or that particular house because therein tl c o had been particular aots of oppression, The sword and torch of war laid waito the South, and the death penalty fell o» the whole na'lon for its gu>lt In enslaving men. Bat that penalty made no discrimination between the innocent aid the guilty ; the planta-

tion of the despotic and of tho Christian matter knew the lame ray »i?O3 ; the s»> of the lifelong defender of slavery ; and the great emancipator himself 6iid by the hand of the nßanesin. It Is no sign of guilt or condemnation that the viper comes up out of the fire and fastens on any man's hand.

As little is it any sign of Divine approval that he shakes the viper off »nd feels no hurt Thero is nothing Incredible m this narrative. I hava known men who oouli handlo bees by the half score and they would not sting them. If one man may provoke no sting from the beo, why not another to venom from the asp ? Nor need we reokon a miraole where tho barbarians did, or jnmp to their one conclusion that the unharmed was a god, any more than to the other conclusion that the assailed waa a murderer. Exemption from pain proven as little as subjeotion to it. Some of the worst men have been tin moat prosperous and apparently happy — I do not say blessed. A callous conscience gives pecct). The hardened criminal sleeps like a child the night before his execution, and oata his breakfast with a good appetite before he goes to the gallows. So, then, not even conso'.ouco is a Divine judge aod executioner — m this life. The notion that men get their deserts as they go along ia confuted by every day's testimony. There are juet three hundred and sixty five witnesses against it m every year ; and as many m the world as there are lives. It is not by the special disfavor of Ood that the viper leaps to lha hand, nor by Hifl speoial favor that no harm la suffered. Special and particular providence there la and must be — must be if there Is any providonce at all, for the general la always made up of particulars. All great men have bolieved m thU—in a fato, a destiny, a star, a guardian angel, a providence, and worked with peculiar powor booausa of their faith m a peculiar guardianship. But it ie not nafe f?r na to interpret this providence, to oonolude that it kept me from this voyage, detained me from this train, made me oross the street at this point, and so saved me the peril of a shipwreck, a collision, or a falling stone. Thia ia to fall Into the second error cf the barbarians, as to sit silent under an imagined Divine displeasure beoause of pain inflicted is to fall into the first. If a speoial providenoe kept yon from the fated train, what sent the twenty to their death apon it 1