the understanding, and there acquire a definite form. Or, to vary the illustration, good in the will can only act by means of wisdom in the understanding: for before it is thus manifested, it is hidden, not being the subject of thought. The understanding is, therefore, the manifestation of the will; and if any one in the body can behold the thought of another, he can behold his will, which is the spirit of that thought,
No one can approach the will of another, but through his understanding. Before any impression can be made upon the will from without, the understanding must be interested: as no one can approach the spirit of man, but through his outward senses, which are the visible forms of his spiritual faculties. These two powers—the will, and the understanding which depends upon it, and is filled with it—are distinct, yet they form but one; and from the will, through the understanding, proceeds the power of operation.
Now let us, with humility, apply this to the Great Being, of whom man is the image. In Him there is a threefold distinction, as in man. The Father, "whose nature and whose name is love:"—the Son, who is the manifested form of the Father, and who, in holy Scripture, is known by the name of the Word, the Truth, the Wisdom: and the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, through the Son, and whose title is the power of God. Here, then, as in man, is Love producing Wisdom; and, through wisdom, putting forth Power.
Let us now see how the situations in which the Father and the Son, in the Deity, stand respectively to each other, answer to the operations of the two powers in man. We have already seen that the Son is said to depend upon the Father, as the understand-
