e Holy Spirit. This is the historical view of providence as connected with the person of Christ, which the New Testament historians present, and which we, after 19 centuries of Christian history, are warranted in holding more confidently and firmly even than the Christians of the 1st century could hold it; for the Christian centuries have proved it true. What God is in Nature Christ is in history. All history is becoming Christian history, thus realizing the New Testament conception of divine providence in and through Christ.
(4) The Pauline Writings.
No character of whom we have any account in Christian literature was providentially prepared for his life-work and providentially guided in accomplishing that life-work more truly than was the apostle Paul. We find, there. fore, as we would antecedently expect, that Paul's speeches and writings abound in proofs of his absolute faith in the overruling providence of an all-wise God. His doctrine of predestination and foreordination is best understood when interpreted, not as a divine power predetermining human destiny and nullifying the human will, but as a conception of divine providence as the eternal purpose of God to accomplish an end contemplated and foreseen from the beginning, namely, the redemption of the world and the creation in and through Christ of a new and holy humanity. Every one of the Pauline Epistles bears witness to the author's faith in a divine providence that overrules and guides the life of every soul that works in harmony with the divine will; but this providence is working to secure as its chief end, not material and temporal blessings, but the moral and spiritual good of those concerned. Paul's teachings concerning divine providence as it concerns individuals and is conditioned on character may be found summed up in what is perhaps the most comprehensive single sentence concerning providence that was ever written:
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28 the King James Version). Any true exposition of the New Testament doctrine of divine providence that may be given can only be an unfolding of the content of this brief but comprehensive statement. The greatest of the Pauline Epistles, that to the Romans, is a study in the divine philosophy of history, a revelation of God's providential purpose and plan concerning the salvation, not merely of individuals, but of the nations. These purposes, as Paul views them, whether they concern individuals or the entire race, are always associated with the mediatorial ministry of Christ: "For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever" (Romans 11:36).
(5) The Petrine Epistles, and Other New Testament Writings.
The Epistles of Peter, James, and Jude, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, are all in entire accord with the teachings of the other New Testament writings already considered. Peter, who at first found it so hard to see how God's providential purpose in and for the Messiah could be realized if Christ should suffer and die, came later to see that the power and the glory of Christ and His all-conquering gospel are inseparably connected with the sufferings and death of the Messiah (1 Peter 1:11,12). No statement concerning God's providence over the righteous can be clearer or stronger than the following utterance of Peter:
"The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And his ears unto their supplication: But the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good?" (1 Peter 3:12,13). The purpose and end of divine providence as viewed in the Epistle of James are always ethical: as conduct and character are the end and crown of Christian effort, so they are the end and aim of divine providence as it cooperates with men to make them perfect (James 1:5,17,27; 2:5; 5:7). The apologetic value of the Epistle to the Hebrews grows out of the strong proof it presents that Christ is the fulfillment, not only of the Messiani