And here we come across that solemn and awful power which is the prerogative of manhood—the _power of resisting the will of God_. Nature obeys God’s will. The flower that blooms in hedge-side or meadow; the lark that sings its way up to heaven’s gate in the spring sunshine; the rivers that roll towards the sea; the ocean with its regular ebb and flow; the sun and moon and stars observing their seasons and travelling along their appointed orbits—all these are what they are, and do what they do in obedience to God’s will. The wind is God’s messenger; the thunder His voice; the lightning His sword. Nature obeys God. And above, in heaven, the angels and the blest do God’s pleasure. “Thousands at His bidding speed, and post o’er land and ocean without rest.” Is there any one then who resists God’s will? Yes, there is one, just one, and that one is _man_. In all God’s universe he is the only one who is disobedient. He is the only one who clenches his fist and says “No” to God. He is the only one invested with the terrible power of resisting, thwarting, opposing the will of God. And that awful power he possesses because he possesses a free and independent will of his own. God made man, we are told, in His own likeness. The special feature that marks man off from the brute creation and links him on to the Divine, is his possession of _moral freedom_. God is a moral Being. Man, too, is a moral being. But in order to make man a moral being, God had to limit Himself and make man _free_. For there can be no moral quality where there is no freedom. Nature is un-moral because nature acts under necessity. Man is _not_ under necessity. He can either obey or disobey. He is a moral being because he is _free_. Now all the misery of the world is due to the fact that man abused his freedom, that he chose not to obey, but to _dis_-obey. What was the first sin? An act of disobedience; and that act of disobedience brought in its train a multitude of woes. I want you to remember that vice is not here by God’s will; lust is not here by God’s will; strife and malice and envy are not here by God’s will; war and bloodshed and slaughter are not here by God’s will; misery and poverty and shame are not here by God’s will. They are here by _man’s_ will, because man set up his own will in opposition to that of God. The secret of the world’s unhappiness and sorrow and pain you will find in these familiar words of the General Confession, “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” “Selfishness,” as Bishop Westcott says, “lies at the root of all sin.” Here is the fountain of the world’s woe, that man preferred his own will rather than the will of God. While man was obedient there was happiness and joy, happiness that lasted. As John Milton says—