e dividing knife must be struck between the
two _phenomena_ in question, between an active state of the will and the
passive states of the intelligence, and the obstinate association be
severed in our imagination, before the truth can be seen otherwise than
through distorting films of error.

As every state of the intelligence is necessitated, so God may act upon
this department of our mental frame without infringing upon the nature of
man in the slightest possible degree. As the law of necessity is the law
of the intelligence, so God may absolutely necessitate its states, by the
presentation of truth, or by his direct and irresistible agency in
connexion with the truth, without doing violence to the laws of our
intellectual and moral nature. Nay, in so acting, he proceeds in perfect
conformity with those laws. Hence, no matter how deep a human soul may be
sunk in ignorance and stupidity, God may flash the light of truth into it,
in perfect accordance with the laws of its nature. And, as has been well
said, "The first effect of the divine power in the new, as in the old
creation, is light."

This is not all. Every state of the sensibility is a passive impression, a
necessitated phenomenon of the human mind. No matter what fact, or what
truth, may be present to the mind, either by its own voluntary attention
or by the agency of God, or by the cooeperation of both, the impression it
makes upon the sensibility is beyond the control of the will, except by
refusing to give the attention of the mind to it. Hence, although truth
may be vividly impressed upon the intelligence, although the glories of
heaven and the terrors of hell may be made to shine into it, yet the
sensibility may remain unaffected by them. It may be dead. Hence, God may
act upon this, may cause it to melt with sorrow or to glow with love,
without doing violence to any law of our moral nature. There is no
difficulty, then, in conceiving that the second effect of the divine power
in the new creation is "a new heart."

Having done all this, he may well call on us to "work out our salvation
with fear and trembling, for God worketh in us to will and to do of his
own good pleasure." We have seen that the state of the will, that a
volition is not necessitated by the intelligence or by the sensibility;
and, hence, it may "obey the heavenly vision," or it may "resist and do
despite to the Spirit of grace." If it obey, then the vivifying light and
genial shower hav