through which, by an internal way, the Lord operates for the purpose. Happy are those young persons who, by the care of affectionate, prudent, and well-informed parents and instructors, have their minds well furnished, from early years, with the knowledge of the principal genuine truths of the Holy Word, and with a predilection in their favour! The things thus stored in the mind in infancy and childhood, become, when approved by the young person's own reason, when he comes to the exercise of that faculty, his own; and in endowing him with the faculty of reason for the purpose, together with the things on which the reason is thus to be exercised, man's Heavenly Father, when he arrives at the proper season of life, "divides," or apportions, "unto him his living." Now, my brethren, all of us have received this inestimable "portion;" all of us have had the seeds of good affections inseminated into our breasts from infancy, and have been furnished with some share of knowledge respecting the Lord, His Word, and our own immortal nature;—— how have we employed the acquisition? Have we given diligence, acting from our own liberty and reason, to increase the store, to make the natural good affections which we have received the basis of spiritual ones?—to rise from the natural love of parents to the celestial love of the Lord; from the natural affection for early companions and friends to the spiritual affection of charity, or the love of our neighbour; from the knowledge of divine things, as a matter of common information, to the genuine understanding and interior perception of divine and spiritual truths; in a word, to the acquisition, under Divine guidance, of continually new accessions of heavenly goods and graces? If we feel in our consciences that we have hitherto been too regardless of this essential duty,—are aware that the talents confided to us have remained unimproved, if they have not been entirely dissipated and destroyed; let us now in earnest set about correcting our negligence. If we have actually, with the prodigal, dissipated and lost them, let us exercise vital repentance, and again seek the face of our Heavenly Father. Whatever may have been the endowments received immediately from His hands, without some improvement of them by ourselves, in the exercise of His free gifts, nothing becomes appropriated to us, so as to be imputed to us as our own. Whatever the talents, and of whatever kind, confided to us by Him, without some addition made to them by ourselves, all will eventually be taken away from us. Let us, then, in earnest set about applying the portion of our living bestowed upon us by our Heavenly Father to its proper use. Let us labour sincerely to attain a state of purification from the evils of our own nature, and of deliverance from the influence of those which, by our own fault and criminal conduct, we have made our own. Let us practise obedience to the dictates of the Holy Word, till it comes to be yielded spontaneously and with delight. Thus shall we eventually behold the face of our Heavenly Father with joy, and be received among His true children in the mansions of eternity. FREE WILL: ITS EXTENT. PART III. Ir will be seen from our previous remarks that every human being possesses free will, and that it is one with his existence; also, that the capability of willing is caused by an influx of life from God, over which man has no control, so that he is necessitated to will, whatever be his quality or the circumstances by which he is surrounded, free will being the power of choosing one thing in preference to another, and not the power to will or not to will. We now proceed with our disquisition, and consider in the next place the extent of free will. Free will does not imply absolute power, nor that man can do impossibilities, but only that he is free to do what he has the power and the means of doing, or that he is free to do what he can do and no more. Free will is a human capability, and therefore is confined to human powers, and circumscribed by human means, and also by external things and circumstances. Human powers are the capabilities with which man is born, and which are grounded in his constitution, or his substantial form, which is man himself as a subject. These he possesses without any effort of his own, they being connate. Human means are all the knowledge which is deposited in the memory, and also all the ideas which have been formed thence by the understanding. External things are all the substantial objects with which man is surrounded; and circumstances are the condition, variations, and changes of these, therefore all occurrences, from whatsoever source they exist. It has been supposed that if the will were free, whatever man willed he would be able to do; and to hold that the will was free, and not able to do this, would be to maintain what is contradictory; for it is said— "How can the will be free when it can and does will what it cannot do? What is such a liberty of the will but a mere name?" But we must remember that free will is not an independent capability, nor an absolute power; it is a relative power, and cannot exist but in relation to other human faculties, and also in relation to objects which are out of and distinct from man; hence, free will is not to be understood as FREE WILL: ITS EXTENT. 109 a power which is free in and of itself; for in and of itself it is not free, nor can it of itself do anything; nor are we to suppose that it is free to act independently of external things, and the circumstances which exist in them. We may speak of the will as a subject; but free will is a power, and is predicable only in relation to other things. When it is asserted that the will is free, we are not to understand thereby simply the faculty of willing independent of thinking and acting, but rather that it is free to act according to the extent of the power of its possessor, and in agreement with the circumstances in which he is placed. The will cannot act without power, neither can it act without means; it must have reason to guide it, and things and circumstances towards which it may be directed, and on which it may be terminated. It is from a want of a knowledge of the extent of free will that so many errors exist concerning its nature and its action, and also why so many absurd questions are asked, and impossibilities demanded, of him who maintains its existence. The extent of free will is always commensurate with man's power and means, and it is not free beyond them; it is in and by these that the will is free, and out of them it has no actual existence. Man's powers include that peculiarity of humanity which is denominated genius, which is itself an extraordinary manifestation of some specific power, and which qualifies man for the performance of a certain use; it is peculiar to the person who possesses it, it cannot be learned, and but faintly imitated. One man may excel another in mental powers, and also in mental endurance; and in respect to the body, one man greatly surpasses another in physical strength and agility, which are natural possessions. By virtue of inherent human powers. men become poets, painters, musicians, architects, &c. These powers cannot be acquired; they are grounded in the constitution, and are developed only, and not attained. They are developed by means which are acquired and possessed, which consist of the various branches of education. These may be acquired to a greater or less extent by all men, but none can manifest a genius but he who has it naturally in his constitution; and what may appear to some the acquisition of such a power is only its cultivation, that it may be orderly and correctly developed. All men are equally free, but each one is free only to use the powers which he possesses; none can become a poet but he who has the necessary power innate in his substantial form; therefore none but he is free to write poetry, and that for a very good reason, viz., he has not the power; and to suppose that a man could write poetry who had not the genius of a poet, would be to suppose that he could do what he could 110 FREE WILL: ITS EXTENT. not do; and it is the same with other geniuses. None but a painter is free to paint a picture, and no one is free to excel in designs and construction but he who possesses architectural skill. We do not say no one but a genius is free to try-all are free to do this, but none except a genius is capable of producing the desired effect-the work of an artist. A man without a genius could not become a Milton or a Byron, a Raphael or a Vandyck, a Wren or a Stephenson; he is free to exercise such powers as he possesses, but not those which he does not possess; or, what is the same thing, he is free to exercise himself to the extent of his own powers and means, but not to the extent of those of another. It is the same also with mental acquisitions-human means—as it is with innate powers; if man has not acquired the arts of reading, writing, arithmetic, &c., he is not free to practise them; he cannot be free to practise what he does not possess. As well might he be expected to walk without legs, or ground to put his feet upon. Hence we conclude that man's free will is limited by his powers, and though he is perfectly free to act to the full extent of them, he is not free to go beyond that limit; which amounts to this-he is free to do what he can do and no more; and not that, because he is free to do what he can, he is free also to do what he cannot. Man's free will is necessarily limited by his powers, for it acts in and through them, and never goes out of them; and it must be plain that it can be in them only such as they are, or to their full extent; the freedom of the will existing in relation to those powers and means, and never without them. Only endeavour to think of the existence of free will without human powers and means, and you will be convinced beyond the power of argument. Now, admitting that man has a will and also a genius, but has not the means by which his will can be exercised in his genius, his will in this case is not free; for instance, the painter has a desire to paint a portrait, but wants canvas, pencils, and pigments, consequently he cannot practise and bring his desire into effect; his will is not free, but, like a person who is prison-bound, it cannot come forth into act; and it is just the same in the other cases previously cited, for though man may have the will to act, and also the skill necessary for the accomplishment of the intended work, if he does not possess the means his will cannot be free. It would be just the same with a man of a benevolent disposition, who grieved on account of the distress and suffering of his fellow-man, and who had the most sincere and ardent desire to alleviate his sufferings, and though he saw clearly how this might be effected, yet not having the means of relieving him, it is certain his will would FREE WILL: ITS EXTENT. 111 not be free; that is, his will could not do what it willed, or bring its intention into actual existence. It is the same with a man who is confined in a prison, or with him who by circumstances is placed under the control of another; or with him who by accident is deprived of the means of walking; or with him who by disease is prostrated on his bed. In all these cases the will is not free; and as was said of the will in relation to his powers and his means, so it may be said in relation to the things and circumstances which are necessary for the carrying of his will into effect; for though the will is free to do what it has the means of doing, it is not free to do what it has not the means of doing; or, as previously said, the will is free to do what it can, but it is not free to do what it cannot. The free will of every man varies as to extent; he who has a large mental acquisition having a wider field for its exercise, whilst he who has only a very limited acquisition has but a small range of will and thought, each one's free will being circumscribed by his mental as well as his natural possessions. And though every man cannot become an Arkwright or a Watt, because he has not the requisite power, still he is perfectly free to the extent of his own power; and his will is as free in its own powers as the wills of Arkwright and Watt were in theirs; and it does not follow that because he is not free to exercise their powers, he is not free to exercise his own. For man to suppose that his will is not free because he cannot exercise it in or to the extent of the powers of others, is like imagining that he is not himself because he is not some one else. There is also a difference in the natural force of the wills of men, one being energetic and indefatigable, another feeble and inconstant; nevertheless they are all equally free. The will being more powerful or active does not make it more free, nor have the adjectives more and less any application to the freedom of the will. Man is not less free because another has superior powers or larger means, the amount of power or extent of means making the will neither more nor less free. It is poised by Divine Wisdom and supported by Omnipotence, and all existing finite powers and things can never affect it; each one being perfectly free, and having an extent of range proportionate with his powers, means, and external possessions. In order that free will may exist, three things are necessary; first, a substantial form, which is the subject; secondly, life to give it consciousness; thirdly, objects out of itself of which it is to be conscious. It has been supposed that the will is free in itself, not depending upon any power to bring it into effect, nor upon objects on which its action |