possible." Now, the muscular system has been placed entirely at the service of the will. As the will is the executive power of the mind, the muscular system is its appointed and obedient instrument; and hence the loss of command over any part of it by disease, is the loss of so much means of carrying our volitions into external effect.

44. One fact there is connected with this mysterious arrangement worthy of our attention -that, in obedience to the will, this muscular organization should equally express what we will to do and to have done, and what we will not to do and not to have done. Pre-eminently is this the fact in relation to one part of this organization the tongue. Not only is it capable of expressing, at the bidding of the will, what we would and what we would not have, but of conveying to others the knowledge alike of the propensities of the inferior part of our nature, of the perceptions, judgments, and ideas of the intellect, of the varying play of the emotions, and of all the movements of the internal world, with which the will perhaps has had nothing to do but to keep them in check, and to cause them to be described and imparted through the medium of speech. But this the will has to do with them. And it is because the tongue has so wide a range in relation to the movements of the world within, and forms so ample and efficient a medium of communication with the world without, that its government, whether in a personal, social, or religious point of view, is of such vast importance. And as that government is given into our own power, being placed under the control of the will, we can account for the emphatic declaration of an apostle, "that he who offends not with his tongue, the same is a perfect man."

45. (8.) Lastly, the power of the will in the individual would be indefinitely augmented by acting in harmony with other wills. The man in whom the will so far exerts its authority as to permit no explosions of passion, and no yielding to temptation, but who controls the forces within him, and "governs his own spirit," is pointed at by the finger of Inspiration itself as a model of power. By placing himself in harmony with the laws of nature, which are themselves expressions of the Divine will, he can greatly increase his power. By resisting them, he would only diminish his own proper power, and lose the use perhaps of some of those muscular organs and instruments which are already placed at the disposal of his own personal will; but by falling in with them, and availing himself of them, he can, in effect, multiply these organs

and instruments; can appropriate and arm himself with many of the forces of nature, and become the will, the moving power, of many of its laws, as to when they shall act, and when they shall not. Beyond this, he can add to his own the muscular forces of other men, by uniting his will with theirs in a community of purpose. He and they can freely will to do this. Influenced by the same motives, they can determine on the same end, and move together like one man towards it. How important that others should thus feel and will with us, in order that the injustice which one man could not restrain singlehanded, might be successfully repelled by the union of many! How important is this union in order that the good which we are unable to accomplish separately, others may help us to perform! Hence, it was contemplated in the primal benediction, as the means by which the earth should be replenished and subdued to man's dominion. And wherever it has existed for any length of time, nothing has been able to stand before it.

46. But only let us imagine this community of wills to exist in relation, not merely to some particular objects, however good, but to some central object, around which all those particular objects revolve, and to which they are subservient. Let us conceive these wills to be moving harmoniously together, not merely towards an end, however good, but towards the end for which all other ends exist, and exist only as means. Let us suppose this community of created wills to be ever moving in harmony with the Central and Supreme Will of the Creator; to regard each indication of His will as the loftiest motive for their wills; each movement of His as the broad and open path of freedom for theirs; let us suppose even their desires to be so accordant with their wills that in uttering the language of the one they should be giving expression to the other, and that the language most expressive of their united and highest energy should be- Thy will be done Thy will, as the only means of satisfying our wills; and, in order that our wills-our whole nature may find perfection! What a sublime spectacle would such a scene present!-a race of free creatures finding the very perfection of happiness and freedom in the perfection of obedience! finding, and exulting to find, that the act in which they put forth their highest energy and their noblest assertion of liberty, was, at the same time, the act most perfectly in harmony with the Divine will, and with all the laws of created nature! God, nature, and man, in universal activity, but exhibiting the harmony of a single Force!

47. But even suppose that only a single human will were in strict accordance with that supreme will, who does not see that, by moving in a line with it, everything else in accordance with it would be one with that finite will?—all the mechanical laws of nature would be one with it. Hence, "the beasts of the field" are said to be "in covenant with him;" "the stars in their courses fight for him ;" and "even his enemies are," under certain circumstances, "at peace with him." He takes all nature with him; because nature, like himself, is moving in harmony with the will of God; and he takes, if not the wills, the consciences of "his enemies" with him also. And the longer he continues to identify his will with the Divine will, the more unalterable becomes his habit of obedience, until his moral character, like that of God, assumes the regularity and constancy of moral necessity. While the prayer of Scriptural faith is represented as actually giving him "power with God," the Supreme will unites with his will, and becomes a new antecedent to new and unexpected consequents.

48. Having already, in the preceding paragraph, indulged in remarks somewhat in advance of what the subject requires, I may be permitted, in the same strain, to call attention to the manner in which the Scriptures assume all these laws of the will, or take their existence for granted. For example: can the will either indirectly repel, or call for, objects of thought, which are sure to excite corresponding emotions? we are exhorted to stand aloof from certain things, lest they should injuriously affect us, and we are to set our affections on objects of a different order. Can we select one object out of many, and mentally dwell on it? we are exhorted to "distinguish between things that differ," to make the right selection of things on which the mind is to dwell; to "keep our hearts," in this respect, "with all diligence," remembering that every object admitted into them will leave its print there. Do objects affect us in proportion as we attend to them? we are to "take heed how we hear," and are held responsible, on the pain of perdition, for not believing the Gospel. Are emotions to be carried out into action, and to lead to the formation of habits? we are reminded that "pure religion is this," not merely to talk of the suffering, not to shed fruitless tears over unseen woes, nor even to give money for their relief (for that may not be in our power, or may be done without sympathy), but "to visit the fatherless and the widow"-to cultivate active benevolence. Is the muscular system placed at the service of the will? we are to "bow our

ear" to receive instruction; and to "yield our members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Can our wills mutually harmonize? the church is the community instituted expressly to exhibit the sublime spectacle we have described; and the glory of God is the great end which is to harmonize and unite them. In a word, can the finite will accord with the Infinite? It must live in the contemplation, and move daily in the presence of that ethereal purity and unclouded glory, which transforms the beholder into its own image.

SECT. VII. Conscience.

1. In the preceding section, we behold the introduction of that novelty in the created universe,—at least in this part of the Divine dominions, an intelligent will. In our previous survey of the progressive unfolding of the Divine scheme, we started from the Infinite and Only Will, in which the whole had originated, and, descending regularly from link to link in a prolonged chain of causes and effects, we had encountered nothing capable of being anything else than clay in the hands of the potter. Now, however, we have come to another will: to a being who is not only capable of intelligently examining that chain, though he himself, as far as all but his will is concerned, forms a part of it, but capable, also, by means of his will, of disturbing and putting himself out of harmony with it,-of putting even the inferior part of his own nature in opposition to it. Here, then, in the bare possibility of this opposition is a hypothetical effect, of which nothing in the antecedent chain can be regarded as the cause. There, in truth, is, in some sense, a cause, or a power hypothetically opposing itself to the First Cause. For, if the production of the natural universe be traceable to a cause -the Will of God-the possibility of disturbing it, or of consciously taking anything out of harmony with it, must obviously originate in a cause also; certainly, it could not originate in one of the mechanical links of the pre-existing chain.

2. Owing to this new power alone it is that man can form the idea of a First Cause. The fact that he himself possesses a will, is revealed to him exclusively by its own acts; and this gives to hin the idea of a cause, of a power capable of originating an act or state. He is conscious that in willing, he, though influenced and conditioned by motives, originates and constitutes an actual beginning, and as there is no example of this in the phenomena

of Nature, he can only refer their origination to a Supreme Will.

3. But while these phenomena are consecutive, and exist in linked continuity, his will, for the reason assigned, claims immediate descent from the Divine Will, and direct alliance with it. The Divine Will originated them all; man's Will is above them all. But for the Infinite Will, creation could not have taken place; but for the Finite Will, the existence of that Infinite Will, as the originating power of creation, would have been unknown; so that no manifestation would have been possible. Wanting in the human will, therefore, creation would have been defective in the principal respect; for the very image and knowledge of the Will in which the whole had originated, would have been wanting. In the human will alone does God behold and manifest the reflection of His own will.

4. But by the possession of a will representative of the Divine Will, man ceases to be a thing, and becomes a person. Destitute of this attribute, he might be used or employed as a means to an end; but, possessed of it, he could not be so employed, without doing violence to this distinctive part of his nature, for it would be against his will. He is now a being who has, consciously, an end and object of his own, and, as such, a person. For, as God is his own end in that scheme of manifestation which originated in his Divine Will, so, by right of his finite representative will, man is not merely a means for the attainment of this end: he is capable of seeking his own end, and of subordinating everything created and inferior to it, though he is made to find the true end of his own existence only by seeking it in perfect coincidence with the great end.

5. And, for doing this, he is to be held accountable. In giving him a will, a foundation was laid for his responsibility. Up to that point he was irresponsible, because mechanical and powerless. But the bestowment of a will-grave and awful privilege!-gave the other parts of his nature into his own keeping, placed the most sacred trust in creation-his character -in his own hands. Still, though man is a voluntary being, and though this element of his nature is indestructible and inalienable, free agency alone does not constitute and complete his accountableness. This is only the executive power of the mind. If there be a right and a wrong, and if every voluntary act be the one or the other, it is essential, in order to responsibility, that the free agent should know what he ought and what he ought not to do. In other words, if man is to be a manifestation