376 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



is suggested by the analogy of all the knowledge 

 which we possess and all the conceptions which 

 we can form. And, accordingly, no persons, ex- 

 cept those whose minds have been biassed by some 

 peculiar habit or course of thought, are likely to 

 run into the confusion and perplexity which are 

 produced by assimilating too closely the govern- 

 ment and direction of voluntary agents to the 

 production of trains of mechanical and physical 

 phenomena. In whatever manner voluntary and 

 moral agency depend upon the Supreme Being, 

 it must be in some such way that they still con- 

 tinue to bear the character of will, action, and 

 morality. And, though too exclusive an atten- 

 tion to material phenomena may sometimes have 

 made physical philosophers blind to this manifest 

 difference, it has been clearly seen and plainly 

 asserted by those who have taken the most com- 

 prehensive views of the nature and tendency of 

 science. " I believe," says Bacon, in his Con- 

 fession of Faith, " that, at the first the soul of 

 man was not produced by heaven or earth, 

 but was breathed immediately from God : so 

 that the ways and proceedings of God wit It 

 spirits are not included in nature ; that is in the 

 laws of heaven and earth; but are reserved to 

 the law of his secret will and grace ; wherein 

 God worketh still, and resteth not from the work 

 of redemption, as he resteth from tbe work of 

 creation ; but continueth working to the end of 



