We have first the great conviction to which religion clings, that God being on our side all things are for us, and not against us.
Now, that is the standing faith of the Old Testament, which no doubt was more easily held in those days, because, if we accept its teaching, we shall recognize that Israel lived under a system in so far supernatural as that moral goodness and material prosperity were a great deal more closely and indissolubly connected than they are to-day. So, many a psalmist and many a prophet breaks out into apostrophes, warranted by the whole history of Israel, and declaring how blessed are the men who, apart from all other defenses and sources of prosperity, have God for their help and Him for their hope.
But we are not to dismiss this conviction as belonging only to a system where the supernatural comes in, as it does in the Old Testament history, and as antiquated under a dispensation such as that in which we live. For the New Testament is not a whit behind the Old in insisting upon this truth. All things work together for good to them that love God.' All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?' The New Testament is committed to the same conviction as that to which the faith of Old Testament saints clung as the sheet anchor of their lives.
That conviction cannot be struck out of the creed of any man, who believes in the God to whom the Old and the New Testament alike bear witness. For it rests upon this plain principle, that all this great universe is not a chaos, but a cosmos, that all these forces and creatures are not a rabble, but an ordered host.
What is the meaning of that great Name by which, from of old, God in His relations to the whole universe has been described--the' Lord of Hosts'? Who are the hosts' of which He is the Lord,' and to whom, as the centurion said, He says to this one, Go!' and he goeth; and to another, Come!' and he cometh; and to another, Do this!' and he doeth it? Who are the hosts'? Not only these beings who are dimly revealed to us as rational and intelligent, who excel in strength,' because they hearken to the voice of His word,' but in the ranks of that great army are also embattled all the forces of the universe, and all things living or dead. All are Thy servants; they continue this day '--angels, stars, creatures of earth--according to Thine ordinances.'
And if it be true that the All is an ordered whole, which is obedient to the touch and to the will of that divine Commander, then all His servants must be on the same side, and cannot turn their arms against each other. As an old hymn says with another reference-
All the servants of our King
and none of them can injure, wound, or slay a fellow-servant. If all are travelling in the same direction there can be no collision. If all are enlisted under the same standard they can never turn their weapons against each other. If God sways all things, then all things which God sways must be on the side of the men that are on the side of God. Thou shalt make a league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.'
