of THEIR REDEMPTION, through His Son our Lord JESUS CHRIST,) for reinstating them in their original condition, and restoring to them all the privileges which they had forfeited by their failure. He gave them a more distinct, enlarged, and impressive rule, for determining their wills; (first, in His LAW, and afterwards more particularly in HIS GOSPEL;) He administered to them an increase of powers, peculiarly adapted to the nature of free-wills, (by means of the co-operating succours of His HOLY SPIRIT,) for enabling them to reduce their wills into a conformity with His sóvereign will; He condescended to reveal to them the common interest which they shared with HIM, their Creator, in fulfilling His ultimate scheme in the creation; He urged them above all things, to acquire, and establish in themselves, an habitual disposition of conforming with His supreme and eternal laws, as being indispensably necessary for rendering sure and complete the agency which will be required from - them in that ultimate scheme; (which will

consist, in the final application, and employment, of the several moral agents, after their wills shall have once acquired a settled, and sufficiently fixed, bias towards the will of their Creator;) and He assigned them an average measure of life, limited to SEVENTY YEARS, more or less, as a measure of time amply sufficient for acquiring that disposition of conformity.

If the will, instructed by the reason, guided by the judgment, and admonished by the conscience, acquired no such habitual disposition, in any degree, within the allotted time, it was well known to the omniscient Creator, that the moral agent would never answer the gracious purposes for which He had finally intended him; and that his remaining any longer here, was wholly unnecessary, he having wasted and exhausted the powers assigned him for prosecuting his moral perfection. If, on the other hand, the disposition was, in a certain degree, known to the Creator, well established and confirmed, his end was answered; it was needless that he should be left any

در

longer here, since God himself would finish and complete what remained to be done, in another stage of existence.

The SEVENTY YEARS of life, are therefore assigned to man, as an allowance of time, sufficient for establishing in his will, an habit of conforming itself to the MANIFESTED WILL OF THE CREATOR; which habit being once acquired, he will be able hereafter to fulfil, and execute, a perfect agency, when that great stage, or period of the creation shall be arrived, for which he is here upon trial, and in training. The perfection for which he is designed, can only be acquired by degrees, and by a continuance in the same course of action for a definite term of time. Exercise and practice are indispensably necessary, for creating habit; and habit, is all that the Creator looks for from His moral agents, in this their period of imperfection and preparation. By a fundamental law of this part of His universe, a continuance, for a certain time, in any one course or direction, produces a facility, or fixed tendency, which fixed tendency is called habit; either

towards the rule of action, or in opposition to it. And, by the same law, habits once contracted, may be subdued and overruled, by contrary habits resolutely superinduced upon them. If a conforming habit is once established, in a sufficient degree, the agent is removed; and is " made perfect," by some unknown act of divine confirmation, subsequent to his removal.

As, therefore, such moral agents as man indispensably require a preliminary interval of exercise, before they can become sure agents for God to introduce, and employ, in a state of perfect existence and society; we plainly discern these four things. First, that the first state of such an agent, under a government of wisdom, must be a state of probation or of training. Secondly, that he must be placed apart from perfected agents, so long as he is under discipline; that his imperfections may not communicate their evils to the perfect parts of the creation. Thirdly, that such a separated state, must of necessity abound with a great intermixture of good and evil, and with a

very general appearance of confusion, resulting from the various and conflicting conduct, of the various moral agents who are under trial. And, lastly, that such a state of trial can only be an elementary, or incipient state, conducing to another, which is the principal and final one for which they were originally designed. Now, if we add to these considerations, that of the momentous fact, that WE, OURSELVES, are now living in such an elementary or incipient state, conducing to a principal and perfect state; that an average measure of SEVENTY YEARS, more or less, is allotted to us, to qualify ourselves for that state; and that our final participation in it, or exclusion from it, depends, really and absolutely, upon the use we shall have made of that preliminary allotment of time; it will need no great sagacity to discern the importance, above all things, of applying that measure, precarious at the best, to THE END for which it was allotted.

We cannot, therefore, exercise ourselves with too much activity and diligence, in