ical and
organic agencies to its great designs.

This relation between the _natural_ and the _moral_ government of God is
admirably illustrated by Bishop Warburton: "The application of _natural
events_ to _moral government_, in the common course of Providence,
connects the character of Lord and Governor of the intellectual world
with that of Creator and Preserver of the material.... The doctrine of
the _preestablished harmony_,--the direction of natural events to moral
government,--obviates all irreligious suspicions, and not only satisfies
us that there is but _one_ governor of both systems, but that both
systems are conducted by _one_ scheme of Providence. To form the
constitution of Nature in such a manner that, without controlling or
suspending its laws, it should continue, throughout a long succession of
ages, to produce its physical revolutions as they best contribute to the
preservation and order of its own system, just at those precise periods
of time when their effects, whether salutary or hurtful to many, may
serve as instruments for the government of the moral world: for example,
that a foreign enemy, amidst our intestine broils, should desolate all
the flourishing works of rural industry,--that warring elements, in the
suited order of _natural_ government, should depopulate and tear in
pieces a highly-viced city, just in those very moments when _moral_
government required a warning and example to be held out to a careless
world,--is giving us the noblest as well as the most astonishing idea of
God's goodness and justice.... When He made the world, the free
determinations of the human will, and the necessary effects of laws
physical, were so fitted and accommodated to one another, that a sincere
repentance in the _moral_ world should be sure to avert an impending
desolation in the _natural_, not by any present alteration or suspension
of its established laws, but by originally adjusting all their
operations to all the foreseen circumstances of moral agency."[205]

Viewed in this light, the course of Providence is wonderfully adapted to
the constitution of human nature, since it affords as much _certainty_
in regard to some things as is sufficient to lay a foundation for
forethought, prudence, and diligence in the use of means, and yet leaves
so much remaining _uncertainty_ in regard to other things as should
impress us with a sense of constant _dependence_ on Him "in whom we
live, and move, and have our bein