This is an influence from which in the state none can be free. Through all the institutions of society it speaks, for these are its embodiments. The Magistrate, the Husband, the Parent, are mouth-pieces of this Eternal Spirit. To all men it speaks, to all classes and individuals; it reaches even to the babe on its mother's knee. To the good, it is the secret plastic force of Society, which works upon them almost unconsciously, framing and forming them ever with a gentle and omnipresent influence; unfelt, yet not the less real. To the bad, it is a force external and severely felt, sternly thundering out its penalties, its sanctions and its punishments, placing against them a barrier they cannot leap, and calling to its aid, even when men the most reject it, powers in man's own breast and being, and in the feelings of his fellows, and even in the elements themselves, which do and will execute its decrees.

Men have felt this, and felt that there is something divine in Law, and the loftiest and holiest have concluded that this that we call law is neither more nor less than the influence and operation of the Will, and Power and Justice of "the Almighty and Allgoverning God."

Thus having spoken of Law, we ask our readers to avoid one very common error, when they think of it; the error of imagining corporeal things to be the only realities. A good many do sothey think bread and meat, &c., things that we can see, and touch, and taste, and feel the only realities; whereas there are other things, just as solid and substantial realities, honesty, and justice, and love, and truth, these are just as much realities as if you could handle them, or see them, or feel them. Now, this that we call Law is of this class, a strong and true reality, and yet not to be handled or touched.

It is, too, that means by which mediately the Will of God is conveyed to us as in a channel, which to the primitive man was directly and immediately given from the Almighty; it is the veil in which, now that through man's weakness his eyes are feeble, so that he cannot look upon the full blaze of Glory, God shrouds his effulgence and tempers it to our sight; it is the spirit which from all Nature he pours upon man (as the imponderable fluids of natural philosophy are poured from material things) to teach him of God. And well and truly does it teach him, for it, "the Law," is the revealer of God to the natural man.

For God, being the supreme fountain and standard of Good,

Law, that is, obedience to and compliance with law, is to the natural man the highest rule of all action, that by which as far as natural action goes, he shall attain to the highest truth of life.

But that not one Law, but ALL LAW in one agreeing and uniting. First, the "Law of man's own nature," the law of the ruling powers of "Conscience," "the Will," "the Affections," "the Reason." These are the faculties that make him capable of obedience to the voice of God. And then the Actual and External "Law," which teaching and educating this inward faculty, employs three schools for man; three. courts, if I may so say, of law. The one which teaches and enforces the law of obedience and the law of the affections, that is the Family. The second, the law of "right" concerning "life and property," which of course implies justice and equity, that is the State. The third, whose teaching is the law of Holiness, the Church. Putting these conclusions together, I say, if any one asks me how a natural man, (apart from the influences of Grace,) shall try to reach the good of his nature in the highest degree, and what is the rule that he should make his object to apply in act, thought, and word; I say it is nought but this, "the Law and the whole Law."

The natural man finds the law of his nature to be virtue*—that his conscience should, each moment of his life, be attended to and deferred to, so that he should obey this, for by this faculty it is that the feeling of Law is manifested to us the first. His nature and whole being will assert to him that he ought so to do. Let him then, at any risk, and at any sacrifice, set himself to obey his Conscience, and to go according to its suggestions, and he will find the light, that perhaps at first was a faint twinkle upon the remotest horizon, become brighter, clearer, steadier, larger, he will find obedience easier, and finally it will become. habitual.

And then, having gone upon this for a time with all his might, next will awaken in him the sense and feeling of the Affections as part of the guiding and governing powers of man's life, and he will feel that gentleness, wisdom, patience, love, considerateness, mercy, kindness-that these, somehow or other, give him a rule over

* "Virtue is the law of our nature."-BP. BUTLER.

himself and over others, which he could not at first comprehend, or, indeed, at all perceive.*

And then, if he act consistently upon this that he has attained, he shall come to feel the value of the will, of decision and energy in a course of straight forward travel, in a way set out and appointed for him by himself.

And the Reason, too, shall come in, although the last, and declare and show itself to him; and to obey these four, which all are the law of our nature, is to cultivate the principles of obedience to all law wherever we find it.

These four, and in this order, Conscience first, then the Affections, and then the Will, and then the Reason; each as a rule of conduct is manifested to man when he has actually, and in action, made the other preceding it, a steady rule of his life.

And as schools and legislative institutions to aid us in this selfdiscipline, there are the institutions I have mentioned. This is the moral perfection of the natural man; and for him, as far as his nature and his position is concerned, if he wishes to attain this perfection, the institutions are just as needful as is the moral

nature.

Now, he that shall look at this influence of Society upon man that we call "Law," must see that it is directly and immediately a good one, and that the only thing that possibly can make it evil, is that it is partial occasionally, that interest is made to override the law of Conscience, the law of the State to smother that of the Family, or of the Reason to destroy that of the Conscience;

** Gentleness, virtųe, wisdom, and endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance,
Which bars the pit over destruction's strength.
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,

Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with its length,
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite,
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,
To love and bear, to hope till hope creates
From its own wreck, the thing it contemplates,
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great, and joyous, beautiful and free,

This is alone, Life, Joy, Empire and Liberty."

these things excepted, the Law is a teacher wholly good, and is the great means of advance to the mere natural man.

The resolution to uphold it in all difficulties, to defer to it, and to act accordingly, this is the one and only means of natural morality to individuals or to States*-the only standard and the only source of it.

I may be permitted here, in opposition to the many sophisters and theorists who have erected standards of Ethics from Hobbes, who thought man to be a ravenous beast of prey at eternal war with his fellows, and therefore concluded that his leading character was fierce and warlike selfishness, down to Bentham, who took "utility" for the "supreme rule of conduct,"—I may be permitted in opposition to these men, to urge this view, that Law and Duty, these are the grand standard of morals for the Natural Man, and the grand means of self-development, in a moral way, if he would cultivate his own moral nature, just as I have shown that by means of these, God is ever to man the Supreme Standard of Good.

And this view is also corroborated by the word of Christ to a mere natural man, who asked him, "Good master, what shall I do that I may have eternal life?"—and his answer was, "Why callest thou me good-there is none Good but one, that is God; if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”

in

How completely does this agree with the doctrine above specified, “none Good but one," the supreme fount and source-and the supreme law and standard-the treasure of Good in every way, is God the Father of Heaven and Earth. And the way which that is reached is not by knowledge, nor by wisdom, nor by deep penetration, but by Law; "if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." The great way is to obey the law, by which he'manifests himself, the law of God in whatever way it is shown, wherever it is found.

This is the commandment of Christ to the young man; and this,

*Of Law, there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven do her homage the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admire her as the mother of their peace and joy.-HOOKER, Eccles. POLITY.

to the man who is of Nature apart from God's Grace, is the only the exclusive means of moral advancement.

power,

And while I have many things to say as a conclusion to this subject upon the relation of the Law to the Gospel, which I cannot take up now, but shall speak of at another time, inasmuch as there is a certain proportion to be observed, which to break through would enlarge this treatise immeasurably,-while I must therefore observe this proportion, I still would ask of my readers to remark the weight of the Principle I have been urging, and exemplifying as the principle of progress in morality to the Natural Man.

For you that are unbaptized in Christ's Name and his Faith, "no arrangement of external circumstances, planned and devised by yourselves or others, can give you the beginning and impetus of moral progress; no knowledge or learning, no philosophy of mind, or subtle examination of the Nature of Man, search it out; no acting upon "Fundamental Principles," or Ethical Theories, such as that of "Utility," that of Benevolence, that of "Sympathy," that of "Enlightened Selfishness," that of "Nature," or any other theory or fundamental notion; nor aught else than this, that of acting up to Law and Duty wherever it is found. Wherever from Country, from Parents, from Society, from Conscience, from Reason, from Revelation, the Commandments come, -there, "if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."

Dwell not in mere sensibilities, or in the luxury of feeling; dream not of some future access of influences, that shall whirl you on to moral perfection by a tornado of overpowering emotion, but at once, and now, yield to and obey the eternal spirit that is by you, and "keep the commandments." For your own natural constitution is framed according unto Law, external Nature corresponds, and Society guides and directs the influences of Law upon you. And all these are but the appliances and means whereby God, the Standard of Good, is brought nigh to you.

Central art thou, child of man! among all these moral influences; and if thou wouldst be profited of them all, this is the first and the only step-the only beginning of moral improvement to man upon the earth.

And the first and only way to enter upon this path is by the Conscience; then, as I have said, the Affections, as a Moral Law, begin to exert themselves; then the Reason, and then the Will.