1. It is said that the mind may act under the influence of a great
variety of motives at one and the same time. The same intention,
therefore, may be the result of different and opposite motives, and as a
consequence, combine the elements of good and evil. In reply, I remark,
that when the Will is in harmony with the Moral law, it respects the
good and rejects the bad, alike in _all_ the motives presented. The
opposite is true when it is not in harmony with the law. The same regard
or disregard for moral obligation which will induce an individual to
reject the evil and choose the good, or to make an opposite choice, in
respect to one motive, will induce the same in respect to all other
motives present at the same time. A mixed moral act can no more result
from a combination of motives, than different and opposite motions can
result in the same body at the same time, from forces acting upon it
from different directions.
LOVING WITH GREATER INTENSITY AT ONE TIME THAN ANOTHER.
2. It is said that we are conscious of loving our friends, and serving
God, with greater strength and intensity at one time than at another.
Yet our love, in all such instances, is real. Love, therefore, may be
real, and yet be greatly defective--that is, it may be real, and embrace
elements morally wrong. It is true, that love may exist in different
degrees, as far as the action of the Sensibility is concerned. It is not
so, however, with love in the form of intention--intention in harmony
with moral obligation, the only form of love demanded by the moral law.
Such intention, in view of the same degrees of light, and under the same
identical influences, cannot possess different degrees of intensity. The
Will always yields, when it really does yield at all to moral
obligation, with all the intensity it is, for the time being, capable
of, or the nature of the case demands.
MOMENTARY REVOLUTIONS OF CHARACTER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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