The physical laws are made subordinate and subservient to the organic; both the physical and organic are subservient to the intellectual; the physical, organic, and intellectual are subservient to the moral; and the intellectual and moral are subservient to our preparation for the spiritual and eternal.

In the words of Bishop Butler, "The natural and moral constitution and government of the world are _so connected_ as to make up together but _one scheme_; and it is highly probable that the first is formed and carried on merely in _subserviency to the latter_, as the vegetable world is for the animal, and organized bodies for minds."[204] Every instance of pleasure or pain arising from the voluntary actions of men, is a proof that a relation of some kind has been established between all the distinct, but independent, provinces of Nature; and the invariable connection between moral and physical evil shows how the lower are made subservient to the higher departments of the Divine government.

Apart from a scheme of moral discipline, there is no reason discernible, _a priori_, why pain should be the accompaniment or consequent of one mode of action rather than another; and the relations which have been established, in the natural constitution of things, between sin and misery, affords a strong proof not only of the _reality_ of a moral government, but of the _subordination_ of physical and organic agencies to its great designs.
This relation between the _natural_ and the _moral_ government of God is admirably illustrated by Bishop Warburton: "The application of _natural events_ to _moral government_, in the common course of Providence, connects the character of Lord and Governor of the intellectual world with that of Creator and Preserver of the material....

The doctrine of the _preestablished harmony_,--the direction of natural events to moral government,--obviates all irreligious suspicions, and not only satisfies us that there is but _one_ governor of both systems, but that both systems are conducted by _one_ scheme of Providence.

To form the constitution of Nature in such a manner that, without controlling or suspending its laws, it should continue, throughout a long succession of ages, to produce its physical revolutions as they best contribute to the preservation and order of its own system, just at those precise periods of time when their effects, whether salutary or hurtful to many, may serve as instruments for the government of the moral world: for example, that a foreign enemy, amidst our intestine broils, should desolate all the flourishing works of rural industry,--that warring elements, in the suited order of _natural_ government, should depopulate and tear in pieces a highly-viced city, just in those very moments when _moral_ government required a warning and example to be held out to a careless world,--is giving us the noblest as well as the most astonishing idea of God's goodness and justice....