Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together!" But, although he loved them with all the intensity of a father's affection, still the eternal principles of his nature compelled him to exercise his benevolence in subordination to the sentiments of justice. When his people rebelled, and did not listen to his warnings, he gave them over to disastrous punishments. He brought upon Israel the strength and violence of battle, and set him on fire round about. But, although he willed the wasting, and desolation, and sufferings of his people (for he says, "who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord ?"), we do not feel at liberty to say that he desired it, for everything in the Old Testament shows that it greatly grieved him.

And who does not recollect the affecting language of the Saviour, uttered over the Holy City? "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee!" And yet soon afterward the sign of the Son of man appeared in heaven; the sun and the moon were darkened; the earth mourned; there was famine, pestilence, and earthquake; of the beloved and beautiful Temple not one stone was left upon another; and all Jerusalem, that delight of the whole earth, was bathed in blood and wrapped in fire.-Not because the Saviour, now acting in a higher sphere and from a celestial standpoint, had ceased to love it, and to desire its good; but because the measure of its iniquity was full, and the dictates of eternal justice compelled him to will and to inflict a punishment which a being so infinitely benevolent could never have desired to see.—And does he not, at this moment, truly desire the return and salvation of every sinner? Does he not, in the warnings and teachings he has left behind him, earnestly entreat them? And when he shall inflict on these same sinners the chastisements which follow in

the track of their obduracy, will it be because he ceases to love, or because immutable justice requires it?

§ 46. The scriptural teachings to be understood in their obvious import.

On this subject we cannot refrain from adding, in unfeigned sincerity, that sound philosophy requires the Bible to be understood as it stands, in its obvious import, and as it would be interpreted by an unlettered reader. In the great outlines of his mental constitution, it is strictly and emphatically true, as Scripture informs us, that man is formed in the image of his Maker. And it is as true of God as of man, that there are elements in his nature which lead him to determine or will that which He does not desire. It neither is nor can be true of God, that he ever desires the infliction of punishment, or rather the misery and suffering involved in punishment, though the obduracy of transgressors often leads him to will it. To desire the infliction of misery in any way whatever, in the strict and true sense of the word desire, and with misery as its appropriate object, is the characteristic of an evil, and not of a good being. If sorrow, in itself considered, did not give him pain, where would be the possibility of his benevolence? And therefore it is great impiety, as well as injustice to the truth, to attempt to pervert the often repeated and earnest expressions of the Supreme Being on this subject. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but my pleasure or desire is (for that is the implication involved in the Hebrew form of the expression), that the wicked turn from his ways and live."

PART II.

LAWS OF THE WILL.

CHAPTER I.

LAWS OF THE WILL IMPLIED IN THE UNIVERSALITY OF

LAW.

§ 47. The preceding chapters preparatory to what follows. THE remarks that have thus been made in the First Part of the doctrine of the Will have had relation to its general nature. It seemed important to take this general view. It was obviously necessary, before entering into the examination of the long-contested topics that are to follow, to review concisely the outlines of the mind in its three great departments, and to indicate their relations to each other. It seemed especially necessary, when we consider the mistakes that have prevailed upon that point, to assert and maintain the distinction existing between Desire and Volition. Nor was it enough to inquire into those things which distinguish the Will from the other mental departments, and to point out their relations. It seemed to be requisite also to indicate briefly some particulars which are especially characteristic of the Will, in itself considered, and which contribute to constitute its essential and distinctive nature. And in looking back upon what has been brought forward, we indulge the hope that some doubts have been cleared up, and some important principles established.

And it seems to come in place to add here, that in everything which has been said there has been an object. Every part of this discussion of the will is more or less connected with all other parts, and, perhaps, more closely than would at first seem probable. And accordingly, the doctrines and principles which have been brought forward, and more or less elucidated and established, are introductory to three distinct series of views of great interest in themselves, as well as of great practical importance, having relation respective