_Several ways whereby God addresses Himself to men._ How different the method which God uses towards the _rational_ from that which He uses towards the _material_ world. In the world of matter God has not only fixed and prescribed certain laws according to which the course of nature shall proceed, but He is Himself the sole and immediate executor of those laws. . . . It is to Himself that He has set those laws, and it is by Himself that they are executed. But He does not deal so with the world of _spirits._ He does not here execute the laws of _love,_ as He does there the laws of _motion._ He contents Himself to prescribe laws, to make rational applications, to _speak_ to spirits. He speaks to them because they are _rational,_ and can understand what He says, and He does _but_ speak to them because they are _free._ And this He does in several ways. 1. _By the natural and necessary order and connection of things._ God, as being the Author of nature, is also the author of that connection that results from it between some actions and that good and evil that follows upon them, and which must therefore not be considered as mere natural consequences, but as a kind of rewards and punishments annexed to them by the Supreme Lawgiver, God having declared by them, as by a natural sanction, that 'tis His will and pleasure that those actions which are attended with good consequences should be done, and that those which are attended with evil consequences should be avoided. Not that the law has its obligation from the _sanction,_ but these natural sanctions are _signs_ and _declarations_ of the will of God. 2. _By sensible pleasure and pain._ A thing which everybody feels, but which few reflect upon, yet there is a voice of God in it. For does not God, by the frequent and daily return of these impressions, continually put us in mind of the nature and capacity of our souls, that we are thinking beings, and beings capable of happiness and misery, which because we actually feel in several degrees, and in several kinds, we may justly think ourselves capable of in more, though how far, and in what variety, it be past our comprehension exactly to define. 3. _By that inward joy which attends the good, and by that inward trouble and uneasiness which attends the bad state of the soul._ This is a matter of universal experience. It is God that raineth this pleasure or this pain in us, and that thus differently rewards or punishes the souls of men, and thus, out of His infinite love, is pleased to do the office of a private monitor to every particular man, by smiling upon him when he does well, and by frowning upon him when he does ill, that so he may have a mark to _discern,_ and an encouragement to _do_ his duty.--_John Norris._