We can not only hold with Galen and Harvey, and all the great physiologists, that the organs of animals give evidence of a purpose; not only assert with Cuvier that this conviction of a purpose can alone enable us to understand every part of every living thing; not only say with Newton that … ‘the business of natural philosophy is to deduce causes from effects, until we come to the very First Cause, which certainly is not mechanical’: but we can go much further, and declare, still with Newton, that ‘this beautiful system could have its origin no other way than by the purpose and command of an intelligent and powerful Being, who governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of the Universe; who is not only God, but Lord and Governor’

There is, I speak humbly, in common with Natural Science, in the study of living History, a gradual approximation to a consciousness that we are growing into a perception of the workings of the Almighty Ruler of the world; that we are growing able to justify the Eternal Wisdom … [and] that we are coming to see, not only in His ruling of His church in her spiritual character but in His overruling of the world to which His act of redemption has given a new and all-interesting character to His own people, a hand of justice and mercy, a hand of progress and order, a kind and wise disposition ever leading the world on to the better, but never forcing, and out of the evil of man's working bringing continually that which is good.