PROVIDENCE. 251 



any of its forms, except through the forces and laws of animal, 

 sensational, and semi-intellectual life ; He can act directly on 

 selfish and sinful human nature, only by those isolated and 

 disjointed motive forces which are adapted to reach and affect 

 the disjointed mental and moral constitutions of selfish and 

 sinful human beings ; while God can act directly and fully as 

 God, in all his affectional, intellectual, and moral nature, only 

 upon a perfectly pure and sinless intelligence a being fitted 

 for the harmonious influx of all the affectional, intellectual, and 

 voluntative principles of the Divine Soul a being, hence, 

 who stands in the perfect image of God, and who, in principle, 

 is one with Him. Hence, when such a being acts (and there 

 never was but one such a being), it may be said that God acts 

 with him, in him, and through him, and that his every act is in 

 the fullest and most Divine sense, a providence. 



But as the infinite Divine, personal, and volitional Intelli- 

 gence is above all things, and over -all things, and is the inex- 

 haustible Source of all streams of vitality and motive force 

 which flow into the various departments of His creation, it may 

 be rationally conceived, that by withholding his inflowings 

 into the universal system as a whole, he could cause univer- 

 sal stagnation and dissolution to ensue; or that by increasing 

 those inflowings, he could stimulate all firmamental develop- 

 ments and solar and planetary motions, to unwonted activity ; 

 or that by diminishing his influence in one portion of space, 

 and increasing it in another, He could cause the dissolution of 

 some worlds, and the absorption of their materials by others ; 

 or that by modifying his influences upon the electric, aerial, 

 and subterranean forces of a particular planet (such as our 

 own), he can cause floods to deluge the earth, or subterranean 

 fires to overwhelm cities, and destroy such human beings as 

 must otherwise stand as obstructions to true progress ; or that 



