with reason, with science, and with all progress, Christianity is in union and progresses as they progress.1

In nature as well as in Scripture we have a revelation of the divine will.2 God reveals his will to us in nature by

manifest tendency to improve the condition of mankind are equally with the authorised institutions of a divine dispensation to be regarded as means which God. . . has ordained for the gradual improvement of His offspring, and the final extension of His kingdom over the communities of men."-(Manual of Conduct.)

1 We regard the kingdom of God "as embracing all the arrangements by means of which, in any shape, and to any degree, the well-being and improvement of the universe, or of human life, are promoted; and hence not only the religious dispensations or institutions of Providence are to be classed among the means of promoting the extension of this kingdom, but art, and science, and legislation, and every improvement in human knowledge everything, in short, which has a tendency to promote the reign of wisdom, or freedom, or concord, or purity among men-everything by means of which the best condition of the world is advanced, or the existence of ignorance, of tyranny, of guilt, or of discord is destroyed or diminished; everything even that has a tendency to beautify the face of external nature, and so far to advance man in that course in which, as an active, a social, a moral, and an intelligent being, he has been appointed to proceed.' -(Manual of Conduct.)

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2" We discover God's will in the habitual course of nature and in the invariable tendency of events."-(DE TOCQUEVILLE.) "Those precepts which learned men have committed to writing, transcribing them from the common reason and common feelings of human nature, are to be accounted as not less Divine than those contained in the tables given by Moses. It could not have been the intention of our Maker to supersede, by a law graven upon stone, that which is written with his own finger on the table of the heart."-(MELANCTION.) "The general and perpetual voice of men is the sentiment of God Himself; for that which all men have at all times learned nature herself must needs have taught; and God being the Author of nature, her voice is but His instrument."(HOOKER: Ecclesiastical Polity.) "Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of light and Fountain of all knowledge communicates to mankind that portion of truth which He has laid within the reach of their natural faculties."-(LOCKE.) Whatever is the nature and original constitution of man, and appears a necessary consequence of this nature and constitution, certainly indicates the intention or will of God with respect to man, and consequently acquaints us with the law of nature."(BURLAMAQUI.) "The language of reason is that of God Himself; and when our reason tells us anything clearly, it is God Himself who, by this internal oracle, gives us to understand what is good and just-what is agreeable to Him and suitable to ourselves.”—(Ditto.) "Those things which nature is said to do are by Divine art performed, using nature as an instrument; nor is there any such art or knowledge divine in nature herself working, but in the guide of nature's work.-(HOOKER: Ecclesiastical Polity.) "I call the effects of nature the works of God, whose hand instrument she only is; and, therefore, to ascribe His actions unto her is to devolve the honour of the principal agent upon the instrument; which if with reason we may do, then let our hammers rise up and boast that they

laws; and he signifies their obligation upon us by attending infringement of them by punishment.1 Every law of nature the infringement or non-observance of which is attended with evil has ever good as the reward of its observance.2 All progress, all success in life, even life itself is dependent upon the observance of natural laws; which are, have builded our houses, and our pen receive the honour of our writings." -(Sir T. BROWNE.)

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Law "is a rule of life directing us by proper means to the best ends, and armed with punishments for the disobedient and rewards for the obedient. For that cannot be law which cannot direct to what is best, nor a rule that does not point out proper means to attain the end, nor obligatory without a power to enforce it."-(Dr. ELLIS: On Divine Things.) "A law," says Dr. Pye Smith, "is a rule of action with sanctions." Law, "if separated from its sanction, resembles only solemn advice, and to the corrupted or heedless ear of man, partakes of little inducement. The influence of law on our character and conduct is, therefore, derived chiefly from the sanction by which it is enforced."---(Domestic Constitution.) "We must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also some reward or punishment annexed to that law. It would be in vain for one intelligent being to set a rule to the actions of another, if he had it not in his power to reward the compliance with, and punish deviation_from, his rule, by some good and evil that is not the natural product and consequence of the action itself." This, if I mistake not, is the true nature of all law properly so-called."-(JOHN LOCKE.) "The term law, in a higher sense, is applied to beings endowed with conscience and will, and then there is attached to it the idea of rewards and punishments. It is then used to signify a constitution so arranged that one course of action shall be inevitably productive of happiness, and another course shall be as inevitably productive of misery."-(President WAYLAND.) "It has pleased Almighty God to place us under a constitution of universal law. By this we mean that nothing, either in the physical, intellectual, or moral world, is in any proper sense contingent. Every event is preceded by its regular antecedents, and followed by its regular consequents; and hence is formed that endless chain of cause and effect which binds together the innumerable changes which are taking place everywhere around us." (Ditto.) "We are morally bound to have respect to the natural laws which are observed to operate in the created world, and to keep them in view as ordinances of the Creator in the regulation of our conduct." (Dr. CANDLISH: Fatherhood of God.)

2"The very giving of a law does, in the nature of the thing itself, imply a desire in the lawgiver that his commandments should be observed; and the adding a sanction of rewards and punishments is only an express and explicit declaration in particular of what was before tacitly implied in general in the nature of the thing; that a wise and good lawgiver would take care that the happiness of all his subjects should be proportionable to their obedience to the laws of his kingdom.”—(Dr. S. CLARKE: Sermons.) "All the laws of our nature, when respected and obeyed, work in favour of us; they are intended to do this.”—(Rev. T. BINNEY.) "Every law of our nature is of value, and has an important place in the great purpose of promoting the interests of society."-(ALBERT BARNES.)

indeed, the natural means provided by God for the improvement and advancement of the race.1

All the evils that afflict humanity result from the infringement, in some way or other, of natural laws-laws

1"As soon as man has a consciousness of his being, he finds himself in a world strange and hostile, whose laws and phenomena seem in direct opposition to his own existence. He defends himself, he lives, he breathes, though it be but two minutes in succession, only on condition of foreseeing, that is, on condition of having known, these laws and these phenomena, which would destroy his frail existence if he learned not little by little to observe them, to measure their influence, and to calculate upon their recurrence."-(COUSIN: Philosophy of History.) "Without some knowledge of the laws of nature, it is evident that man would immediately perish." (President WAYLAND.) "All the happiness of man is derived from discovering, applying, or obeying the laws of his Creator," and "all his misery is the result of ignorance or disobedience; " and hence "the good of the species can be permanently promoted, and permanently promoted only by the accomplishment of that which I have stated to be the object of education."-(Ditto.) "For all his happiness in this life man must depend on his obedience to the natural and moral laws of God.”— (Rev. PAXTON HOOD.) Knowledge is power, because it imparts foresight, and foresight furnishes control. The grand aim of science he (Comte) states to be the discovery of laws; and through this discovery the attainment of foresight and the power of acting on nature. There is first foresight, then knowledge, and then action."-(Dr. M'COSH.) "He who understands the laws of nature. . . has such foresight of the future, and of the effects which will arise from certain causes, that in many instances he can interpose and control events to answer his private ends." (Dr. N. ARNOTT.) "Man can construct exquisite machines, can call in vast powers, can form extensive combinations in order to bring about results which he has in view; but in all this he is only taking advantage of the laws of nature which already exist; he is applying to his use qualities which matter already possesses; nor can he by any effort do more. -(Dr. WHEWELL.)

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2 "Misery is always the result of a violation of some of the laws which the Creator has established.”—(President WAYLAND.) "Disease, famine, and the rest of the ills to which flesh is heir, are not inherent in the constitution of things, nor the results of any contrivance or any agent of nature which is evil in itself, but arise from derangement or disturbance of its ordinary course. They are constantly to be traced to our own misconduct; and there can be little doubt that all the ills which shorten life have originated in transgression of the organic laws."-(Rev. R. A. THOMPSON: Christian Theism.) "Of the successive embarrassments and reverses that overtake ourselves; not one of them in particular perhaps is our own doing; but yet all are so, inasmuch as they were contained in germ in some first false step that we might have avoided. A thorough knowledge of the truth would lay to the charge of each one of us almost all the evils that are attributed to a foreign influence."—(VINET.) "Amidst this universal prostration of such God-like powers and faculties, it is some consolation to reflect that all the evil may be traced to negligence. Left to itself, the spirit of man will become one of the most unruly things in the world; but if guided aright, it is one of the most tractable powers in Creation."(Rev. B. PARSONS.)

which when observed are ever at work for our good, and upon the certainty and regularity of whose operations all our progress and happiness of necessity depend.1 Those evils, when regarded as penalties of broken laws, cannot be viewed as other than beneficial, since they serve to point out the laws that have been broken, and to show the necessity of observing them.2 Our duty, then, clearly is not to ignore or despise these laws, but to strive to understand them, and to avail ourselves of them to the utmost for our improvement and benefit. This can only be done by

3

1 Man" attains to knowledge and power by means of the circumstance that all things are happening according to an order which he can observe, and of which he can take advantage in all his operations."-(Dr. M'Cosн: Divine Government.) "No certain end could ever be obtained unless the actions whereby it is attained were regular; that is to say, made suitable, fit, and correspondent unto their end by some canon, rule, or law."(HOOKER: Ecclesiastical Polity.) "It is the regularity of the laws of nature which leads us to put confidence in them, and enables us to use them. Without such order and uniformity, man would have no motive to industry, no incentive to activity."-(Dr. M'Cosн.) "Moral advancement is as completely under the control of natural laws as bodily growth."(Dr. DRAPER.) The informed man in the world may be said to be always surrounded by what is known and friendly to him; while the ignorant man is as one in a land of strangers and enemies."(Dr. N. ARNOTT.) Every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellect into wholesome force."-(EMERSON.)

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"The very penalties which they (i.e., intelligent beings) suffer are so many proofs of the divine goodness, mere monitions to direct them in the paths of obedience."--(President WAYLAND.) Every error engenders suffering; but either suffering reacts upon the man who errs, and then it brings responsibility into play, or if it effects others who are free from error, it sets in motion the marvellous reactionary machinery of solidarity. The action of these laws, combined with the faculty which has been vouchsafed to us of connecting events with their causes, must bring us back by means of this very suffering into the way of what is true and right." (BASTIAT: Harmonies of Political Economy.)

"All the phenomena of disease, of life, and of health, everything in the entire round of the economy of man's microscosm, move according to certain laws and fixed modes of procedure-laws which are ascertainable by those who honestly seek them, and which, in virtue of their reasonableness and beneficence, and their bearing as it were the image and superscription of their Divine Giver, carry with them into all their fields of action the double burden of reward and punishment."-(Dr. JOHN BROWN.) "It is certain matter of universal experience that the general method of divine administration is forewarning us, or giving us capacities to foresee, with more or less clearness, that if we act so and so, we shall have such enjoyments; if so and so, such sufferings; and giving us those enjoyments and making us feel those sufferings in consequence of our actions."-(BUTLER: Analogy.) "The events of life contain in them the letters of God's will to individuals. They are a revelation of the Divine

observation, experience, and a right use of our reasoning powers.

If we study aright the page of history, we shall find that from the earliest times there has been a gradual progress going on in the race towards a higher and more perfect state of development; and that exactly in proportion as the laws and operations of nature have come to be more fully understood and acted upon. This progress is

will to men, if they have learned to read that revelation."— (H. W. BEECHER.) "God made man intelligent and voluntary; and the law of his nature and the reason of his mind, God intended for the great rule of his life, to take place in all particulars where God did not think good further to express his will and declare his pleasure.”—(Dr. WHICHCOTE.) "We discover that the laws according to which all events occur are appointed by God; and can further discover the exact adaptation of this arrangement to the nature of man; and instead of feeling less disposed to see God in his works, because of this constitution of things, we are all the more inclined to discover, and, when we discover, to admire, his wisdom and goodness."-(Dr. M'CosH: Divine Government.)

1"The noblest minds of all Christian nations have recognized a visible and traceable progress of the human race towards truth, justice, and intelligence." (BUNSEN.) There is progress in the world. There is progress in agriculture; there is progress in all the arts; there is progress in all the sciences; the earth is every succeeding year made to yield a greater quantity of produce, and man's dominion over nature is rapidly increasing. The fruit of the discoveries. of one age contains the germ of the discoveries of the generation that follows. The wealth of all preceding generations is thus to be poured into the lap of the generations that are to live in the latter days of our world's history."-(Dr. M'COSH.) "The universal law of humanity is advancement. Mental, moral, and social health is suspended upon this. And it has on the whole been always and everywhere apparent, though individuals stagnate and corrupt, and nations and peoples are scattered and destroyed. These are but the rebound of the waves at the shore, which seem to go back though the tidal current is steadily setting in all the time, and is raising the ocean over its surface. The law of the universe is progress, higher and higher development, larger acquisitions, profounder views, purer light."-(Rev. T. BINNEY.) "The world is growing better than it was. It is better than it was in the times when Greece and Rome flourished; than it was in the times of the Christian fathers; than it was when councils were held at Carthage, at Nice, at Clermont; than it was in the days of chivalry; than it was in the times of Elizabeth or James; than it was in the days of the pilgrims; than it was a quarter of a century ago. We would have every man adopt it as a settled truth to be adhered to all along his journey of life, that the world is growing better; that our own country is making advances; that the Church is increasing in numbers, in purity, and in knowledge, and that there is a sure and steady progress towards the universal triumph of Christianity and of civil and religious liberty."(ALBERT BARNES.) "That God has formed mankind for progressive improvement is manifest from those susceptibilities of progress