"Created it for himself?" exclaimed Campbell. "Yes! for I hold that these phantasies, important as they may be in the actions they promote, are not the direct interposition of Heaven, but the mere accidents of nature; but, then, like other commoner occurrences, they also become the medium through which Providence governs the course of things. They are, in fact, as I have before observed, Second Causes, as much as any others we know; and you must deny Providence altogether, if you deny its power to avail itself of the imagination in the direction of mankind."

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Granting this," said Campbell," I am at a loss how any Second Cause can be used as an instrument to govern, that is to force, any particular conduct, if the subject, man, is left free."

"I waited for this," replied St. Lawrence, “but wished first to clear the specific question of supposed apparitions from the ambiguities which hung about it; and I now ask if you are prepared to grant me that these visionary appearances are intrinsically nothing more nor less, in regard to consequent conduct, than other natural sources of impulse and action."

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"I think I may grant this," said Campbell; "and you are to show me in return how they can be the work of Providence, and not be predestined; and if predestined how we can be free?"

"To do this," answered St. Lawrence, "I must begin with certain postulates, which you will have no difficulty, I dare say, to answer. You of course allow a Creator of the world?"

"Of course."

"That the world had a beginning? "For the argument's sake, yes!"

"Before that then, what we now call time, did not exist. In other words, the history of time, as we are acquainted with it, began with the world." "Agreed."

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Perhaps too you admit that the Creator, when he made the world, and with it ordained that time should be, knew, that is foresaw, all that was to happen; by all, I mean, the most trifling occurrence in the minutest thing, though spread through the whole boundless creation the whole course of the time he had thus ordained. All things, therefore, were before him, when time began, though they were to occupy ages upon ages in their performance."

"This is profound," said Campbell, “and requires much thought; but I see no reason why I should gainsay it now. I remember some such idea in Tremaine,* in one of the Chapters upon Providence, in which it is stated that the Map of Time was before the Almighty at the creation of the world."

* See Tremaine, vol. iii. p.

"And did not this lead you to ultimate satisfaction?" asked St. Lawrence.

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"It required beating out," answered Campbell, more than I had leisure, or perhaps disposition at the time to effect. I remember too the application of the theory to the practice was rather complicated, and not made so obvious in all cases as it ought to have been."

"Probably this was so," said St. Lawrence, "and at any rate, the notion, and the use designed to be made of it, was at least so uncommon, if not new, that more time ought to have been given to it. I have, however, myself explored its consequences in all their ramifications, and find the theory so sound in every case that can occur, as to prove Providence every where, without trenching upon free will, that I hope I can satisfy your doubts as I have my own, which have long been set at rest."

SO

"Do this," said Campbell," and you will indeed be mihi Magnus Apollo."

SECTION III.

PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE.

"My reasoning is this," said St. Lawrence. "All his works, to use the words of the Apostle, are known unto God, from the beginning. Nothing that has happened, or ever will happen, but must have received his sanction. This you must grant, or deny his power to create or alter, in short to govern: which I do not understand you to do."

"I do not," observed Campbell.

"Well then; having sanctioned, that is, authorised, and therefore ordered, all things from the beginning, there is in fact no such thing as what we erroneously are in the habit of thinking and calling a particular intervention, or, if you will, a Particular Providence, suddenly brought into action on the spur of an occasion, not provided for, and not foreseen: as for example, the suspension of a law of nature, to effect or prevent a particular purpose ;-as to preserve or to take a particular life, or discover a particular secret All this has been observed, having been sanc

tioned and known from the beginning. There was no occasion to provide for it when it happened, for from the beginning, the thing itself, and the mode of producing it, was settled in the divine mind. Take, for example, the Gunpowder Plot. There God foresaw that the Catholics, by virtue of their free agency, would lay a plot to blow up the Parliament. Under the scheme he had formed for human action, he could not or would not take away this free agency, but allowed it to proceed. Being, however, equally resolved that the plot should not succeed, he designed to defeat it; and we have already agreed, that to defeat intention, is not to fetter free will. Now there were various ways in which this might be done, when the decree went forth at the beginning of the time. The second causes that influence the will, might have been so cast as to have prevented the plot from going so far as it did, or prevented it even from being planned; but his fore-knowledge pointed out another resource, in the compunction, or private friendship and gratitude towards Lord Monteagle, which prompted the letter which occasioned the discovery of the conspiracy. You will observe there was here no interference with free will, no forced event, not even a dream infused for the purpose into any one's mind (which so infused, would have been miraculous); but all