God wills this highest unity, He creates the highest individuality, and gives being to a will under concessions of freedom. We conceive of the Divine conservation of the world and man as "the simple, universal, uniform efficiency of God which sustains the created powers in every moment of their activity, and thereby keeps them bound to Himself. As such it makes itself the basis of all individual efficiencies in the life and movement of the world, _without indeed itself, as such, giving to the efficiency of creaturely powers any particular direction_." The conserving activity of God moves in prearranged lines, and according to laws and measures determined by the infinite wisdom of God, and conserves, therefore, all individual existence only within the boundaries which are fixed by these arrangements, and through the relations of the powers of the world. Thus as the world-conserving activity of God leaves all creatures just as it finds them, and equally embraces irrational as well as rational beings, "the evil as well as the good" (Matt. v. 45), it can in nowise remove the answerableness of man for his sins, or in any way taking part in the same. The world-conserving efficiency of God sustains man every moment in being, and conditions the activity of his moral powers even when they are exerted in an evil choice, just as it sustains the universe according to a predetermined plan and in harmony with fixed laws; but it does not thereby give to the activity of the moral creature any determinate direction whatever, either good or evil. The general power to will and do is received immediately and constantly from God, but it is a delegation of power under concessions of freedom and conditions of accountability. The specific determinations of that power are from man himself. He may give an evil direction to his derived and dependent activities, and thus commit sin. The responsibility for that evil determination rests upon himself alone, even though he is every moment pervaded and sustained by the conserving efficiency of God. Alternative power is a talent loaned out by God to man. But it is a talent which still belongs to God, for the proper or improper use of which man is accountable.