The will differs from physical causes in being a cause _per se_, but although a cause _per se_, it has laws to direct its volitions. It may indeed violate these laws and become a most arbitrary and inconstant law unto itself; but this violation of law and this arbitrary determination do not arise from it necessarily as a cause _per se_, but from an abuse of its liberty. As a cause in unity with the laws of the reason, we expect it to be uniform, and in its harmonious and perfect movements it is uniform. Physical causes are uniform because God has determined and fixed them according to laws derived from infinite wisdom. The human will may likewise be uniform by obeying the laws of conscience, but the departures may also be indefinitely numerous and various. To sum up these observations in general statements, we remark;-- First: The connexion on which we base predictions of human volitions, is the connexion of will with reason and sensitivity in the unity of the mind or spirit. Secondly: By this connexion, the will is seen to be designed to be regulated by truth and righteousness, and by feeling subordinated to these. Thirdly: In the purity of the soul, the will is thus regulated. Fourthly: This regulation, however, does not take place by the necessary governance which reason and sensitivity have over will, but by a self-subjection of will to their rules and inducements;--this constitutes meritoriousness,--the opposite conduct constitutes ill desert. Fifthly: Our calculations must proceed according to the degree and fixedness of this self-subjection to reason and right feeling; or where this does not exist, according to the degree and fixedness of the habits of wrong doing, in a self-subjection to certain passions in opposition to reason. Sixthly: Our calculations will be more or less certain according to the extent and accuracy of our observations upon human conduct. Seventhly: Our calculations can never be attended with _absolute_ certainty, because the will being contingent, has the power of disappointing calculations made upon the longest observed uniformity. Eighthly: Our expectations respecting the determinations of Deity are attended with the highest moral certainty. We say _moral_ certainty, because it is certainty not arising from necessity, and in that sense absolute; but certainty arising from the free choice of an infinitely pure being. Thus, when God is affirmed to be immutable, and when it is affirmed to be impossible for him to lie, it cannot be meant that he has not the power to change or to determine contrary to truth; but that there is an infinite moral certainty arising from the perfection of his nature, that he never will depart from infinite wisdom and rectitude. To assign God any other immutability would be to deprive him of freedom.