these legal devices and attempts, and will shut
him up to the Divine mercy and the Divine promise in Christ, where alone
he is safe.

We have thus seen that one of the two things necessary in order that
apostate man may become perfect again,--viz., the pacification of his
conscience,--cannot be obtained in and by the law, in any of its forms or
uses. Let us now examine the other thing necessary in order to human
perfection, and see what the law can do towards it.

The other requisite, in order that fallen man may become perfect again,
is a holy heart and will. Can the moral law originate this? That we may
rightly answer the question, let us remember that a holy will is one that
keeps the law of God spontaneously and that a perfect heart is one that
sends forth holy affections and pure thoughts as naturally as the sinful
heart sends forth unholy affections and impure thoughts. A holy will,
like an evil will, is a wonderful and wonderfully fertile power. It does
not consist in an ability to make a few or many separate resolutions of
obedience to the divine law, but in being itself one great inclination
and determination continually and mightily going forth. A holy will,
therefore, is one that _from its very nature and spontaneity_ seeks God,
and the glory of God. It does not even need to make a specific resolution
to obey; any more than an affectionate child needs to resolve to obey its
father.

In like manner, a perfect and holy heart is a far more profound and
capacious thing than men who have never seriously tried to obtain it deem
it to foe. It does not consist in the possession of a few or many holy
thoughts mixed with some sinful ones, or in having a few or many holy
desires together with some corrupt ones. A perfect heart is one undivided
agency, and does not produce, as the imperfectly sanctified heart of the
Christian does, fruits of holiness and fruits of sin, holy thoughts and
unholy thoughts. It is itself a root and centre of holiness, and
_nothing_ but goodness springs up from it. The angels of God are totally
holy. Their wills are unceasingly going forth towards Him with ease and
delight; their hearts are unintermittently gushing out emotions of love,
and feelings of adoration, and thoughts of reverence, and therefore the
song that they sing is unceasing, and the smoke of their incense
ascendeth forever and ever.

Such is the holy will, and the perfect heart, which fallen man must
obtain in order to be f