Plan in History. By Rev. E. A. Lawrence, D. D. [pp. 555-564]

ear as the organs of mnan's sight and hearing, needs no instru ments or organs, gains nothing by study, and loses nothing
through forgetfulness. For the remotest future he requires no
telescope; for the mninutest present, no microscope; and for the
infinitude of ever-recurring changes and combinations, no ka leidoscope.
When dwelling alone in the plenitude of his undisclosed per fections, if we may be allowed the illustration, and unmoved
save by a desire to create other beings and impart to them of
his own blessedness, God held in mind fromn eternity the whole
pictorial of providential history. Every world and every atom,
with all their properties, laws, and motions, their attractions
and repulsions, their balancings and harmonies, were thlere;
every man and beast, every thought and motion, every birth
and every death. every act of sin and every act of holiness,
every martyr and every murderer, the minutest rustling leaf
and the mightiest crash of worlds-all were there, in the exactest order of nature and of time, each in its just relations to
everytihing, and everything to each.
Thus, back of the creation of man, back of the origin of mattel, back of all finitude and of everything but God, away in the
depths of the Infinite Mind, the All-originating Will, lies the vast
providential scheme which is now slowly but wisely unfolding.
This plan, in its comprehensive unity, is the key-note in history.
It rules its rise, its progress, and its end. There is but one plan
of providence, one course of history, one universe, because there
is but one originating and unifying Will. All laws of intelligence, volition, thought, feeling, memory, and motion; all attractions and repulsions, revolutions and counter-revolutions by
evil and by good-all find their centre and explanation iii the
unity of this Divine plan. Through all it moves onward steadily, from the great First Cause to its culmination in the grandeur of a final cause. And ever, under the calm or agitated
surface, there is a deep, strong current of concord. All conflicts
and struggles end in this. All minor discords lead to this richer harmony.
From this unity of plan the next step is to that of a Person
who is the sole and sovereign Planner.
As the projector of such a scheme for the world's course, he
Plan in Htistory.
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