450 HISTORICAL POSITION OF MOHAMMEDANISM. [BK. III.

had not been expected, like a season in its turn, or a child at its birth: it came suddenly, like the disastrous overthrow of an earthquake. How must we interpret this startling phenomenon? how account for this fiery meteor?

In point of time, Islam was the direct successor of Christianity, which was then already practically affirming its claim to finality and universality amongst different nations, the Arabian not excepted; and addressing itself generally to the moral nature of man, as a free agent. Hence it would have been natural and easy for the new religious movement in Arabia, to fit itself into the organic growth of history, by resting content with a subordinate position and becoming the handmaid of the Christian Cause. Had Islam been willing to minister to the Divine energies of the religion of Christ, and to smooth the way for its wider propagation, it might have claimed the rank of a perfectly natural and truly beneficial evolution of history.

Even now there are not wanting thoughtful men who attribute to it this very character, and believe in its having a mission from Providence to minister to the Cause of Christ,— notwithstanding its own outspoken profession to the contrary and the undeniably hostile policy towards Christianity and Christendom, of which its entire history is one continuous illustration. What these men have affirmed about a Providential character of Mohammedanism, is this: that God raised it to be intrusted with the double mission of chastising Eastern Christendom or 'the Eastern Church,' for many grievous errors, by conquering the finest Christian lands; and also of preparing the heathen nations for the reception of the Gospel, or at least benefiting them, by imposing on them the discipline of its strict Monotheism and rigid law. 1

1 Even the theologian Dorner, in his great work System der Christlichen Glaubenslehre, apparently ascribes to Mohammedanism an essentially providential character, by declaring that 'on the whole it can only be regarded as a preparation of the masses of heathen populations for Christianity, by means of its law and monotheism' (vol. i. p. 713). But at the same time, and in virtual contradiction to this, he also says, that it 'occupies a hostile position against Christianity, and, being inferior to it, can only be looked upon as ordained to serve Christianity in its historical course, contrary to its own will' (p. 718). Now what Islam is made to do 'contrary to its own will,' does not constitute its proper essence and true nature. Professor Dorner being constrained to admit that it is in itself hostile to Christianity, or anti-Christian, and, as such, not
SEC. I.] IS ISLAM A PROVIDENTIAL INSTITUTION? 451

Now it is quite true, that in a certain sense everything which is or happens can be called Providential. The omniscient Creator naturally foreknows all the possible outcomes of the faculties with which He has endowed His personal creatures. As the Supreme Ruler He also controls whatever exists or happens. Even what is done contrary to His command and in opposition to His will, by those whom He has made free agents, is yet under His laws and shaped by the nature which He has bestowed on them. Whatever exists, sin not excepted, is, in this manner, subject to the laws of God and embraced by the unlimited sphere of His Providence. But examining Islam as to its character of a Divinely revealed religion, which it claims for itself, it cannot be admitted that it was raised up to fulfil a mission in harmony with Christianity, by seconding its efforts to advance the highest interests of mankind, nor, in fact, that its origin and rise was caused by the spontaneous action of that Holy God who sent Jesus Christ into the world.

Unfortunately it is but too true that the spread and enforcement of Islam did bring an untold amount of sufferings, degradation, and misery upon a vast portion of Christendom; and that the visible Church of Christ, on this earth, has never at any period been so entirely free from imperfections and blemishes that those calamities might not more or less have had the appearance and the intent of Divine judgments. But this as little suffices to account for the rise and progress of Mohammedanism, as our Lord Jesus permitted the inference that Pilate's slaughter of certain Galileans in the temple, or the fall of a tower in Siloam killing eighteen persons, were special acts of Divine

providential, but anti-providential, he ought not to have characterised it as 'on the whole a preparation of the masses of the heathen populations for Christianity,' as if God had raised it for this purpose; but he ought to have qualified it according to its own nature and design, as an anti-Christian power, which, however, has to submit, like everything else, to being controlled and overruled by Divine Providence. If Dorner, in speaking of the divisions and schisms of the Christian Church, says (vol. ii. p. 912), 'As all obscurations, so these also, must be derived from error and sin,' i.e. from the kingdom of darkness, how can he avoid tracing Mohammedanism to the same source, seeing it not only obscures, but flatly denies, the Christian truth? In the interest of consistency with the whole, the heading of § 69 of the admirable System tier Christlichen Glaubenslehre ought to be differently worded.