In irrational agents, namely, the brute animals, the will is hidden or
absorbed in the law. The law is their _nature_. In the original purity
of a rational agent the uncorrupted will is identical with the law.
Nay, inasmuch as a Will perfectly identical with the Law is one with
the _divine_ Will, we may say, that in the unfallen rational agent the
Will _constitutes_ the Law.[122] But it is evident that the holy and
spiritual power and light, which by a _prolepsis_ or anticipation we
have _named_ law, is a grace, an inward perfection, and without the
commanding, binding and menacing character which belongs to a law,
acting as a master or sovereign distinct from, and existing, as it
were, externally for, the agent who is bound to obey it. Now this is
St. Paul's sense of the word; and on this he grounds his whole
reasoning. And hence too arises the obscurity and apparent paradoxy of
several texts. That the Law is a _Law_ for you; that it acts _on_ the
Will not _in_ it; that it exercises an agency _from without_, by fear
and coercion; proves the corruption of your Will, and presupposes it.
Sin in this sense came by the law: for it has its essence, as sin, in
that counter-position of the holy principle to the will, which
occasions this principle to be a LAW. Exactly (as in all other points)
consonant with the Pauline doctrine is the assertion of John, when
speaking of the re-adoption of the redeemed to be sons of God, and the
consequent resumption (I had almost said re-absorption) of the Law
into the Will (νομον τελειον τον της ελευθεριας, James i. 25.,)--he
says--_For the law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by
Jesus Christ_. That by the Law St. Paul meant only the _ceremonial_
law, is a notion that could originate only in utter inattention to the
whole strain and bent of the Apostle's argument.
[122] In fewer words thus: For the brute animals, their nature is
their law;--for what other third law can be imagined, in addition to
the law of nature, and the law of reason? Therefore: in irrational
agents the law constitutes the will. In moral and rational agents the
will constitutes, or ought to constitute, the law: I speak of moral
agents, unfallen. For the personal Will comprehends the _idea_, as a
Reason, and it gives causative force to the Idea, as a _practical_
Reason. But Idea with the power of realizing the same is a Law; or
say:--the Spirit comprehends the Moral Idea, by virtue of its
rationality, and it gives to the Idea causative Power, as a Will: In
every sense therefore, it _constitutes_ the Law, supplying both the
Elements of which it consists--namely, the Idea, and the realizing
Power.