commandment in the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Here, it is clearly seen, that Love is the great fundamental law, and elementary principle of all moral law-love to God, and love to man;-and it is worthy of special remark, that it is added, "on these hang all the law and the prophets;" thus fully recognizing the position we have assumed, that love is the great fundamental principle of all moral law, as well as the great principle involved in the whole subject of revelation itself, communicated through and by the prophets as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. From the whole exhibition of this deeply interesting subject, we have a system of truth, a unity of design in the creation and government of matter and mind, in which the most simple elementary principles produce the most magnificent results: and it is clearly evident, from all that has been said, that gravitation is the great law of matter; and love, most analogous to it in its conservative principles, the great law of mind.

§32. Nor can we avoid, in contemplating the action of these two great universal laws, being forcibly struck with the strong analogy they have to each other. Gravitation is not a mere passive principle, confined in its effects to a single world, where it concentrates all its powers for its own advantage; but it is active, and its very activity sustains the worlds around in the sweetest harmony. In like manner, pure love is not concentrated in itself, but in its active benevolence, scatters blessings far and wide. Some worlds have a little system of worlds around them, and are peculiarly under each other's kind attractions; and in a variety of forms, promote each other's well-being; moving all harmoniously together, around the great centre of attraction. So, in like manner, moral beings have their systems

of families and friends, who also move onwards, harmoniously and sweetly, in being happy, and reciprocally in making happy;-and that, too, without a jarring, discordant note, so long as love controls them in all their generous movements. But while gravitation acts on various worlds, and little systems, it also peculiarly acts on all such individually and unitedly, in preserving them in all their respective harmonious relations, and concentrates them all in their active movements about a great centre of attraction, from which they derive all their harmony and all their glory. So also, where moral beings are under the due influence of love, they are all, not only harmoniously united in their active benevolence one towards another, but also, are all under the most powerful attractions towards their great moral centre-the God of love.

§ 33. We have already, in another place, briefly considered some of the direful effects that would inevitably follow a suspension of the great law of gravitation, and found that utter disorder, disorganization, and destruction of all that is fair and beautiful in creation, would be the sad consequence. Nor would less evil be experienced in the moral world, if the great law that governs it, be in like manner, interrupted or suspended. All the ties that bind moral intelligence together in sweet union, would be sundered. Each would experience the sad disorganization of every vital principle, designed by the Creator to elevate and beatify; and each acting in wild disorder on others, would most fearfully augment the dreadful ruin. The imagination can easily fill up these outlines of the sad picture; and the misery of a fallen, degraded race, may be a practical comment on these remarks.

§34. We will now proceed to examine the circumstances connected with man's creation, who, coming from the hand of an infinitely perfect Being, must necessarily have been

created perfect in all the attributes of his nature. With all the other works of the Creator, he received his attributes and powers under the influences of the great law of love, one of the essential attributes of Jehovah, and a governing principle manifested in all the dispensations of his ways, `as well as of all his works.

§35. That essential influence which constitutes the living principle of all the laws of the universe, by which the whole creation, animate and inanimate, is sustained, is the Spirit of God, which, according to the Scriptures, "moved (or brooded) on the face of the waters," and subsequently, animated the body of Adam, when into his nostrils was breathed the breath of life. Thus Adam became a living soul. Had the Divine Spirit been retained in man, operating on all the laws of his nature, and giving full efficacy thereto, by his all-animating power, as well as sanctifying influence, there would have been secured to him, as well as to all his posterity, not only every perfection of moral and intellectual, but also of physical being, together with all the blessings flowing from immortality itself; for that Spirit, it must be borne in mind, is emphatically the author, as well as upholder of life, in its broadest extent. Under such influences, disease, pain, corruption, and death, could never have been known. That the Spirit, in the manner described, dwells in man's very physical nature, after his restoration to the favour of God, we have abundant proof; for it is so declared in Scripture, in a variety of places, in the clearest terms. We need only quote a passage or two: 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17.-" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 1 Cor. vi. 19.-"What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?"

It is true, the indwelling of the Spirit since the fall, and the operation of his influences on the physical economy, is not of the same nature as that prior to the fall of man, for then would man be free from disease, pain and death, as well as from all moral turpitude and imperfection; but the Spirit, as now vouchsafed, has a different province in which to act;-originally it dwelt in a body of purity; whereas it now has to sanctify a body of sin.

§36. In the further prosecution of the subject, we have again to present for consideration, the propositions connected with universal law, the most of which are as applicable to the moral, as they are to that of the physical, organic, or intellectual economy. The first proposition needs only a bare reading, to see its full application. The second admits. that the natural order and relation of things may be partially or wholly interrupted, by various agencies. Of the laws whose operations are thus capable of being affected, that of the moral is especially so. Unlike the action of some other laws which are placed entirely beyond the power of being affected by human, or even angelic agencies, (as that of gravitation,) the proper action or influence of moral law is especially and directly committed to the full disposal of each and every intelligent moral being throughout the universe, and for whose government and benefit, it was established in infinite love. In this dispensation, moral agents are raised far above the condition of mere machines, and thereby properly constituted accountable beings. Man, in his original estate, was thus placed in a condition as nearly approximating entire independence, as the human mind can possibly conceive; that is, (according to Prop. I., of the established universal law,) his physical, intellectual, and moral powers were upheld, and would for ever have been upheld in their original condition, had not the order of dependence, the medium through which

these laws act in their appropriate life-giving energies, been violently interrupted, in a manner which, in the prosecution of the subject, will be duly considered.

§ 37 On our first parents devolved the most simple and easy of all duties, which consisted merely in permitting the action of these laws to take their own natural, proper, and full effect. Free to act as a moral and accountable being, on him was imposed the most solemn responsibilities, as exhibited in Prop. IV.;—and fearful and heaven-daring was the act of violating the order of dependence, by which was interrupted the regular action of those laws which God had wisely established, and connected with every attribute of man's nature, for his safety, preservation and happiness. That such a constitution of free agency was wise and good, no one will dare deny. To have framed the best laws thus to insure man's highest interest, was befitting an infinitely wise and gracious God; and to have committed to man the ability to exercise the passive power, (which may be termed passive obedience, or submission to law,) consisting simply in permitting the action of these laws to take its own appropriate course; and also the ability to exercise the active power to change the order of dependence, so as to affect the regular action or influence of law, was most indubitably consistent with every principle of justice and goodness. When we speak of passive and active conduct towards established law, we simply refer to the state of the disposition either passively to acquiesce in, or actively to resist its claims. True obedience to the law, however, in common parlance, includes not only the cordial yielding to its claims, but also the willing and active obedience to all its requisitions, so that the creature sweetly yields to the action of the law, and to all its impulses, as holy, just and good. Indeed, as stated in Prop. I., the action of these laws has its specific application to each intelligent, moral being, and the injury