same as their making themselves a new heart; but is causing them to make themselves a new heart. (On Will, Sec. 12, p. 189.)

32. AGENCY, DIVINE.

An Indian having been urged to embrace the Christian religion, shook his head, and replied, "Your religion bring God too near."

After an excellent and powerful sermon, several persons collected, and spoke in terms of admiration of the preacher, when one of Brainerd's female Indian converts joined the group, and remarked, "What a good God that is, who made that man preach so."

Cowper. Some say that in the origin of things,

Ib.

When all creation started into birth,

The infant elements received a law,

From which they swerved not since. That under force

Of that controlling ordinance they move,

And need not His immediate hand who first
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now.
But how should matter occupy a charge,
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law

So vast in its demands, unless impelled
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under pressure of some conscious cause?
The Lord of all, himself through all diffused,
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,

Whose cause is God.

Happy the man who sees a God employed
In all the good and ill that checker life!
Resolving all events, with their effects,
And manifold results, into the will,
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And, having found his instrument, forgets,

AGENCY, DIVINE.

Or disregards, or more presumptuous still,
Denies the power that wields it. Has not God

Still wrought by means since first he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means

To drown it? What is his creation, less
Than a capacious reservoir of means,
Formed for his use, and ready at his will?

Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve; ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught;

And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.

Prof. Nichol. It seems necessary, in order that the Universe be comprehensible, that we recognize Deity not merely as the Creator, but as the ever-present Preserver, Sustainer, and efficient Cause of all phenomena. In the rain and sunshine, in the soft zephyr, in the cloud, the torrent, and the thunder, in the bursting blossoms and the fading branch, in the revolving season and the rolling star, there is the Infinite Essence, and the mystic development of his Will.

Chalmers. God is as much master of the human heart and its determinations, as he is of the elements. He reigns in the mind of man, and can turn its purposes in any way that suits his purposes. He made Paul speak. He made the centurion listen and be impressed by it. He made the soldiers obey. He made the sailors exert themselves. · The whole of this process was as completely overruled by him as any other process in nature - and in virtue, too, of the very same power by which he can make the rain descend, the corn ripen, and all the blessings of plenty sit in profusion over a happy and favored land. Paul told them that their lives depended upon it. God put it into the heart of Paul to make use of this argument, and he gave it that influence over the hearts of those to whom it was addressed, that, by the instrumentality of men, his purpose, conceived from eternity, and revealed beforehand to the apostle, was carried forward to its accomplishment. The will of man, active and spontaneous, and fluctuating as it appears to be, is an instrument in his hand- he turns it at his pleasure he brings other instruments to act upon it - he

he measures the force and

plies it with all its excitements proportion of each one of them—and every step of every individual receives as determinate a character from the hand of God, as every mile of a planet's orbit, or every gust of wind, or every wave of the sea, or every particle of flying dust. This power of God knows no exceptions. It is absolute and unlimited, and while it embraces the vast, it carries its resistless influence to all the minute and unnoticed diversities of existence. It reigns and operates through all the secrecies of the inner man. It gives birth to every purpose. It gives impulse to every desire. It gives shape and color to every conception. It wields an entire ascendency over every attribute of the mind; and the will, the fancy, and the understanding, with all the countless variety of their hidden and fugitive operations are submitted to it. At no moment of time does it abandon us. It is true, that no one gets to heaven but he who, by holiness, is meet for it. But the same power which carries us there, works in us the meetness.

Woods. God, in the exercise of his agency, not only lets us be free, moral agents, but makes us so. He not only leaves us, as some express it, to exercise the faculties of moral agents without hinderance, but causes us thus to exercise them. And as our agency is dependent upon God; so are all its properties and circumstances. Thus, in the most perfect sense, our free, moral agency, taken just as it is, has to Divine agency the relation of an effect to a cause.

Ib. The powers and laws of nature, though distinct from the power and agency of God, are not in any respect nor in any degree independent of God. He worketh all in all, especially in intelligent, free, moral beings. * * * The agency of material things is manifestly related to the Divine agency, as an effect to a supreme cause. And if we ascribe an agency of a lower kind to a Divine cause, shall we not ascribe to the same Divine cause an agency of a more exalted kind, that is, the agency of intelligent beings? Do we honor God by representing all the operations in the natural world as resulting from his sovereign appointment and agency? And shall we not

honor him more by representing the higher and more wonderful operations of mind as resulting from the same? (2. p. 46, 47).

Ed. It is perfectly absurd and preposterous to suppose that God would have created his rational offspring with such a fearful power to do mischief, if he does not hold them completely in his hand. [See 101, 760.]

Congregationalist.

33. AGITATION.

We believe in excitement, when the theme is great. We hold to a great deal of talk and agitation when huge evils are to be reformed. It is thus that a State or nation clears itself of great moral wrongs, and not by doing nothing. Still waters gather to themselves poisonous ingredients, and scatter epidemics and death all around. The noisy, tumbling brook, and the rolling and roaring ocean, are pure and healthful. The moral and political elements need the rockings and heavings of free discussion, for their own purification. The nation feels a healthier pulsation, and breathes a more invigorating atmosphere, than if pulpit, platform, and press, were all silent as the tomb, leaving oppression to play its infernal pranks unwatched and unscathed. If long cherished and idol sins are earnestly though prudently assailed, there will be raging passions and high words. Men do not part quietly with their gods. As of old devils were not cast out without tearing the possessed, so demon evils in the State are not exorcised without rending the body politic. Both the one and the other are sure to exclaim in a fit of fright and frenzy, "Let us alone. Art thou come to torment us before the time;" and to the "let alone" doctrine would they subscribe in great joy and hope.

They who mistake the excitement of a reform for the source of danger, must, we should think, have overlooked all history.

Jesus Christ. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I, if it be already kindled?

Ed. Agitation, under pretence of reform, with a view to overturn revealed truth, and order, is the worst kind of mis

AGRARIANISM--- AMBITION.

35

chief. On the contrary, conservatism, under pretence of prudence and peace, which prevents the action and measures and triumph of real reforms, is stereotyped opposition to Christ and his kingdom, and confirmed misanthropy. [See 792.] 34. AGRARIANISM.

Edwards, (Tryon.) Some insist that all the property of the community ought to be equally divided among all its members. But if so divided to-day, industry on the one hand, and idleness on the other, would make it unequal to-morrow. It has well been said, There is no Agrarianism in the Providence of God.

Johnson. Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy grow faithless to each other.

Ed. Ostensibly, to put down kings and priests, but secretly, hoping to attain their advantages, communists unite their interests, and combine their influence; but soon learn that a community of kings is a practical absurdity. They pretend that human depravity is the child of circumstances, and associate to correct "the evils that flesh is heir to," with unbounded confidence in human nature. But circumstances domestic soon teach them that their confidence is delusive, and that merely entering communities cannot cast out the adversary, nor prevent him from leading men captive at his will.

35. AGRICULTURE.

Agriculture, the original employment of man, if we except the clerical profession, is, perhaps, the best adapted to preserve the morals, train the feelings, and raise the heart to the great First Cause.

D. Webster.

The farmers are the founders of civilization.

Ed. Agriculture is most favorable to independence. 36. AMBITION, WORLDLY.

Young. Eager ambition's fiery chase I see;

I see the circling hunt of noisy men

Burst law's enclosure, leap the mounds of right,
Pursuing and pursued, each other's prey;