254 PROVIDENCE. 



to Moses, and David, and the prophets, and the imperfections 

 of the code of ethics, principles of government, and policy in 

 respect to other nations, which grew out of these impressions ; 

 for all these were evidently imperfect when judged by a 

 Christian standard. Still, by means of such inflowings, as 

 the psychical and mental constitutions of these mediums 

 rendered possible, God, without immediately obliterating 

 existing evils, pressed these evils into the service of ultimate 

 good : and by arraying one nation against another, subjecting 

 some to utter extermination, humbling others, by long dis- 

 ciplinary chastisements, etc., so directed the general course of 

 human events as provide for the influx of more and more 

 light, and for the final coming of him who was emphatically 

 " the Light of the world." And now that that Light has 

 come, a similar course of indirect Divine providences is con- 

 tinued with reference to nations and individuals, evidently 

 with the view to the ultimate bringing of all under the full 

 influence of its life-giving beams, and to the establishment 

 of that Divine Kingdom in the world which shall "break 

 to pieces and consume all other kingdoms, and stand for 

 ever." 



But if in this disjointed and degenerate state of the human 

 faculties, God can discharge the highest functions of his Di- 

 vine government only by bringing the appropriate forces of 

 one human faculty, one person, one society, or one nation, to 

 bear upon another, it is equally true that in the perfect man, 

 God rules directly, personally and absolutely as God, in all his 

 harmoniously consociated affectional, moral, and intellectual 

 attributes in the same way as he rules as mechanical, chemi- 

 cal, or vegetative Force, in different departments of nature 

 without. Nay, in such a being, as the ultimate and harmonious 

 embodiment of all the principles of his Love and Wisdom, 



