SECTION I.

PRINCIPLES NECESSARILY DIRECTING IN THE TRIAL.

HUMANITY, from its constitution and relation to its Creator, presents many points from which the reason sees determining principles, relatively to the discipline which must be applied, and the trial it should receive at the hand of the Father and Sovereign of the human family. It does not lie open to arbitrary arrangements on the part of the sovereign, nor admit that there be any claim to consent on the part of man to arrangements divinely made. It cannot be viewed in the light of covenant-making, binding by mutual contract; but from the state of the parties, the fact and the manner of trial must be settled by the Creator himself, on considerations which he shall see to be equitable and reasonable, in view of his own honor, and what also shall be seen to be the most favorable to a happy issue on the part of man. The paternal heart of the sovereign is more deeply interested in securing confirmed loyalty and perpetual safety to the human race, than any other being; and just as the divine perfections make God sovereign, so they also determine that he is to appoint the mode of discipline and direct in all the trial. Absolute Reason

must control and guide himself in all his arrangements by eternal principles of rectitude and benev olence.

There can be no

1. THE INTEGRITY OF HUMAN CHARACTER IS IN THE CONTROL OF SENSE BY THE SPIRIT. - Humanity is constituted of sense and spirit, and to one or the other must the supreme control be given. neutral position between the ends of gratifying sense and honoring the spirit; and the point of danger is the disposing of the spiritual activity to the end of sense-gratification, and therein incurring spiritual degradation. The alternatives presented are not at all of degrees in the same thing, but of utterly distinct kinds. Gratification of sense and approbation of spirit cannot be included under any one term, as happiness, or blessedness, so that it may become a question of policy or expediency in taking that which shall on the whole give the most; the question of vir tue, or integrity of character, is only in taking the spiritual end, and this is wholly lost in taking the end of sense. An animal may be guided by prudential considerations in attaining highest happiness on the whole, since sentient gratification is the end of animal life, and by no way can the animal attain integrity of character in virtue. But for man to attain the highest gratification possible, as end of his life, would be not only the missing of all virtue, as in the case of the brute, but the incurring unmitigated sin and guilt. The highest possible happiness sought and

attained against the end the spirit claims, subjects the spirit to perpetual debasement and shame. And with the spirit so subjected to sense, and self-disposed to carnal indulgence, it is also ready for all spiritual wickedness in its own high sphere of mere spiritual agency. The spirit itself has in this become alienated from the ends of all other spirits, and in its selfishness it will manifest its pride, and scorn, and hate, and envy, and jealousy, and revenge, as the devils do, who can have no carnal lusting. The birthright of humanity is perpetual self-approbation, securing eternally God's approbation; but in fixing on sense-gratification and self-ascendency, there is inevitable self-degradation and divine abhorrence.

Any one appetite allowed to control the spirit will keep the door open for every appetite when its occasion comes; and only by putting and keeping "the body under" can the man be safe, or his conscience peaceful. The fruit of the fleshy disposition is in all forms of iniquity, and the fruit of a spiritual disposing is every virtue. The entire moral man is in his disposition, and out of it, as carnal or spiritual, come all the vices or virtues of his life. To be complete, then, the trial need not be made in reference to every sensuous appetite, nor any more in regard to every spiritual claim; when fairly made in reference to some one opening for sensual indulgence, it will be conclusive for all, and the test will need neither repeating nor varying. The trial must be, or the virtue cannot be

Gal. v. 19-23.

confirmed and established, but fairly and fully to put the man between the ends of the flesh and the ends of the rational spirit, for the issue of his sense-disposing or his spirit-disposing, is all that is needful; and as the disposition which he shall there give to himself may be, such will be his radical character on his own responsibility. In some way the trial and the issue must come, and the only question is, whether the trial shall be left to a fortuitous occurrence, or whether it shall be divinely and thus paternally ordered. The first must be unreasonable, the latter must every way be desirable.

2. THE TRIAL MUST BE IMPOSED AT THE VERY OUTSET. Were humanity left to its own way, and the first man started upon his practical course under the light and influence which daily experience alone might give, the issue between sense and spirit in his constitution would be soon joined and the disposition taken. Appetite would immediately prompt to gratification, and reason must soon assert its claims, and the occasion come for a conflict between passionate impulse and conscious obligation; and the disposing of the spirit in servile compliance with the appetitive impulse, or the imperative behest, would form and fix the radical character accordingly. But for the sake of God and man, such fortuitous trial should be prevented. God's love to righteousness, and his kind care for his intelligent creatures, will certainly secure that the most favoring conditions and influ

ences for the integrity of the spirit, consistent with the completeness of the trial, shall be interposed.

And such divine arrangement and interposition must be at the start, for the discipline immediately commences with the opening experience, and any delay will endanger the issue in a fixed disposition before the paternal arrangements are made. If, in such delay, an issue should be disastrous, although man would have fixed his character by his own act, and on his responsibility, yet must there ever be the unhappy reflection that the prompt benevolence of the Creator had failed in doing for human holiness all that full equity and justice would have allowed. To satisfy his own fatherly heart, and show to mankind forever his earliest love and regard for human welfare, God will infallibly begin his dealings with humanity by putting man amid arrangements for discipline and trial as salutary and kindly influential as possible, consistent with its necessary strictness. The very first point in human history must, therefore, be the account of God's arrangements, under which he wisely determines that the character of the first human pair shall be formed. This, and the general facts of the process and result, will stand upon the very first page, and all subsequent pages of human history must transmit the hue which colors the transactions of this earliest record.

3. THE TEST MUST

PUT THE SENSE AND SPIRIT SQUARELY IN CONFLICT. In many cases appetite will