40. The development of man's moral nature, as we have just described it, leads to, and involves the development of his religious nature. By looking within himself, and seeing the Moral Law, he learns to look upwards to God, the Author of the Law, and the Awarder of the rewards and penalties which follow moral good and evil. But the belief of such a dispensation carries us, or makes us long to be carried, beyond the manifestations of this dispensation, as they appear in the ordinary course of human life. By thinking on such things, man is led to ascribe a wider range to the moral Government of God:--to believe in methods of reward and punishment, which do not appear in the natural course of events: to accept events, out of the order of nature, which announce that God has provided such methods: to accept them, when duly authenticated, as messages from God; and thus, when God provides the means, to allow himself to be placed in intercourse with God. Since man is capable of this; since, as a religious creature, this is his tendency, his need, the craving of his heart, without which, when his religious nature is fully unfolded, he can feel no comfort nor satisfaction; we cannot be surprised that God should deem him a proper object of a special fatherly care; a fit subject for a special dispensation of his purposes, as to the consequences of human actions. Man being this, we can believe that God is not only "mindful of him," but "visits him." 41. As we have said, the soul of man, regarded as the subject of God's religious government, is especially termed his _Spirit_: the course of human being which results from the intercourse with God, which God permits, is a _spiritual_ existence. Man is capable, in no small degree, of such an existence, of such an intercourse with God; and, as we are authorized to term it, of such a life with God, and in God, even while he continues in his present human existence. I say _authorized_, because such expressions are used, though reverently, by the most religious men; who are, at any rate, authority as to their own sentiments; which are the basis of our reasoning. Whatever, then, may be the imperfection, in this life, of such a union with God, yet since man can, when sufficiently assisted and favored by God, enter upon such a union, we cannot but think it most credible and most natural, that he should be the object of God's special care and regard, even of his love and presence.