In natural order, the next lesson like this, is _God in providence_――God administering the agencies of earthly good or ill, making his presence manifest among his intelligent and moral offspring, and even “coming down to see” (as the early record has it) what men were doing and whether the cry coming up to him told truthfully of the guilty violence perpetrated by man upon his fellows. This idea――God ruling over the race in righteous retribution for their good or evil deeds――was obviously one of the first great moral lessons to be illustrated, enforced, impressed. So vital is this conviction to the ends of a moral government that it should not surprise us if the actual administration of present rewards and punishments in the common course of human life in this world should be made far more prominent and palpable in the early than in the later ages of the race, so much so as to force itself upon the dullest eyes and compel the attention of the most stupid and reluctant observers.――――Such (we shall have occasion to notice) was unquestionably the divine policy throughout the earlier stages of human history, abundantly apparent in the records of the Bible. In later times, the exigencies of a system of probation, and especially the importance of giving large scope to _faith_, after sufficient evidence has been afforded, served to impose narrower limits upon present retribution, reserving the larger share to the perfect adjustments of the great future. In the earlier stages of human history, it would obviously be vital to give men sufficient demonstration that God _does rule_, and therefore is to be believed when he threatens to punish either here or hereafter, and consequently is evermore to be _feared_ as the certain avenger of crime. Hence the imperative need in those early ages of such manifestations of God’s justice as would impress the _fear_ of his name. With our eye open to the native pride of depraved souls and to their appalling tendency to disown God and bid him “depart” and not trouble them with his “ways,” it will not surprise us that God should shape his earliest agencies of providence to inspire fear rather than love. It needs but the least thought to see that this policy was a simple necessity――the most obvious dictate of wisdom. In this point revelation might naturally be _progressive_, advancing as soon as was safe and wise from manifestations inspiring fear to those which would reveal his love.