bring them to pass, this will run into the same objection which has been already answered. If we can be persuaded that God can cause the exercises of moral agents, and still these exercises be free, there will be no peculiar difficulty in supposing, that he can previously determine to do so, and still they be free.

But after all, says the objector, you cannot make me believe that both sides of a contradiction are true. Man a free agent and yet perfectly dependent for all his moral actions-has his own choice, and yet this choice was predetermined before he was born! What can be more repugnant to reason? In the view of many who appear to be rational men, it is altogether more repugnant to reason, to suppose man to be capable of willing or doing, without God's working in him both to will -and to do ; or to suppose our moral actions were not determined by him, as much as the motion of the planets. But when theology is the subject, we ought to be sure that we reason out of the scriptures. And I presume it is not more difficult for the human mind to reconcile this, than many other things which are most surely be·lieved by us all. We all believe in the eternity of the Godhead. But how amazingly difficult it is for our minds to conceive of a being, whose existence is, in this respect, so perfectly different from our own.

We are ready to say, How can it be? He did not create himself, and no other being created him; how then came he to exist? The atheist says, "It cannot be, it is perfectly repugnant to my reason, and I must give up my rational faculties in order to believe it." But let the atheist remember, however difficult it is to conceive of the eter nity of God, yet he must have existed from eternity, or nothing could now be in existence. The objector, with whom we have to do, will say, The eternity of the divine existence is mysterious, yet not contradictory; but there is no inan who can reconcile decrees and free agency. We answer, they were reconciled in the mind of Peter, when on the day of Pentecost, he said to the crucifiers of Christ, Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; and when to those who had thus fulfilled the determinate counsel of God, he said, Repent. The tears of this same Peter

testified, that there was nothing in his mind irreconcileable between decree, and moral agency, when he went out and wept bitterly for doing just so, as his divine Master had told him he certainly would do.

We have spent the more time on this topic, as we are persuaded that if our minds can be helped over the difficulty of free agency, as being consistent with divine decrees, other difficulties will not be insurmountable. But I proceed to other objections which are urged against God's having a fixed purpose concerning every thing which comes to pass.

2. It is urged against a divine plan, which shall include all the wickedness of creatures; that it makes God the author of sin, in such a sense that sin can all be charged to him and that God, instead of being infinitely holy, must be the greatest sinner in the universe. "If every event which comes to pass, is brought to pass by God's plan, as you call it, or is an effect of his decree, then there can be no event however trivial in itself, however wicked, foolish and inconsistent, but what is included in this plan which you ascribe to God, and which according to your statement, is the effect of his uncontrolable decree. If this system does not ascribe wickedness, foolishness, and absurdity to God, there are no such things as wickedness, foolishness, and absurdity in the world; for all events whether they be wicked or good, foolish or wise, absurd or consistent, you intimate are included in God's plan." p. 15.

I admit, whether my Calvinistic brethren do or not, that a determination in God concerning every thing which comes to pass, implies that his agency is concerned in bringing every thing to pass, even the actions of wicked men. He has not only a counsel about all . things, but he also worketh all things after that counsel. Mr. B. supposes it is not consistent for God to predetermine the actions of any free agents, because it destroys their freedom. But the present objection is this, that it is not consistent for him to predetermine the actions of sinful agents, because it makes him sinful; and especially if his agency be the cause of their sinful actions. Mr. B. reasons thus on the subject: “An unholy effect must have an unholy cause; but sin the effect is unholy, and therefore must proceed from an unholy

cause. Now according to your doctrine, sin originates from God as its efficient cause;' and from this it follows by fair consequence, that God is unholy." p. 26. If by an unholy effect be meant an unholy volition, that is, an unholy exercise of the will, it surely proves that there is an unholy heart from which it proceeds. But I hope Mr. B. did not understand me to say, that sinful volitions flowed out of the heart of Him who is perfect. God is not the cause of sin as a fountain is the cause of its streams. In this sense, evil does not proceed from him. Nor does sin exist any where, before it exists in the heart of the sinner. Here is the only place where it can be found. It is not first formed by the Divine Being, and then thrust into the creature. It exists in the creature alone, and there it exists as a thing of his own choice, and serves to stamp his character in the view of the omniscient God, and of all his intelligent creation.

There is no unholy effect while God is considered as the Agent, or efficient cause; i. e. all his acts are holy acts. The Holy One does not sin. He hardened the heart of Pharaoh; but the hardening act in God, was not hardness, any more than though it had been a softening act. God as Creator made all kinds of animals, the noxious and poisonous, as well as the harmless and useful: But we do not think of inferring thence, that the Creator is possessed of all these different qualities. The scripture represents the Most High as a potter, making moral vessels of perfectly different sorts; some unto honor, and some unto dishonor; and as turning the hearts of good men; and also as turning the hearts of wicked men, even to hate his people. See Psal. CV. But who infers from this, that when God turned the heart of the Egyptians to hate his people, that then God was not himself holy?

25.

A wise being will act wisely; a benevolent being will have a benevolent object in view. In this sense the effect will be like the cause. The infinite wisdom of God leads him to act wisely, even to an infinite degree. He has never done a foolish thing. My antagonist charges me with imputing folly to God, because I speak of him as including the sin of creatures in his plan. It would seem as though he had forgotten what

is said, Psal. lxxvi. 10, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." The wrath of man, though folly in him, is put to the wisest use by Him who is wise in counsel.

In page 49, Mr. B. speaking of sinful actions, says, "Which the scriptures ascribe exclusively to wicked men and devils." The sin of these actions they ascribe exclusively to wicked men and devils, but otherwise they do not ascribe these actions exclusively to them. To this purpose I might quote many passages of scripture. The one just now referred to in the 105th Psalm is to the point-so is Rev. xvii. 17, " For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree to give their kingdom unto the beast, &c." God said concerning the Assyrian monarch, who was his rod, that he would send him against a hypocritical nation. The action of going to Jerusalem, to do mischief and to seek plunder, was exclusively the action of this ambitious. monarch; but his going there as a rod to punish a hypocritical nation, is ascribed to the God of Israel. The Lord carefully marks the difference between his own, conduct, and that of the man whom he used as his rod; "Howbeit he meaneth not so,"-i. e. the design of the man whom the Lord sent, and His design in sending him, were perfectly different.

It is thought by some to be totally inconsistent; that God should be represented as hardening the hearts of meu by any efficient operation, and at the same time be displeased with them for such hardness. But is it not just as difficult to understand how he should create a clean heart in us, by an efficient operation, and still bepleased with this clean heart? This argument will have force with those who believe that divine efficiency is employed in causing holiness to exist in our hearts; for surely the holiness, of which he is the efficient cause, can be no more our holiness, than the sin, of which he is the efficient cause, can be our sin. But in both cases it is as completely ours, so far as to give us a character, and render us amiable or hateful, as it we possessed hos liness and sin, without any cause out of ourselves.

Mr. B. says, p. 54, "For it is impossible he should foreordain that in which he hath no pleasure." It is acknowledged that it would be inconsistent with the

perfection of God, that he should contrive a scheme of creation and providence, which was, on the whole, bad, and in which he could take no pleasure. It would be perfectly inconsistent, to suppose the Holy One should make an intelligent universe, which should be the whole of it, under the dominion of sin;-or to suppose that the God of love should lay a plan, which should ensure misery to all his creatures that are capable of being made happy. But is it not evident, that God has ordained particular things, as parts of his benevolent administrstion, in which he has no delight for their own sake, but only for the good brought about by them? It is appointed unto men once to die; but the Lord has no pleasure in the death, temporal, or eternal, of the children of men. He declares," I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth :" And it is also declared, "For Tophet is ordained of old." Isa. xxx. 33. God takes no pleasure in our troubles, for he doth not afflict willingly yet trouble does not spring out of the ground, but is from the hand of God. The Most High has certainly no pleasure in the persecuting spirit, which wicked men have shown towards his people; and yet his people in solemn prayer are heard to say, "O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment, and O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction." Hab. i. 12. Therefore the argument of our author, That it is impossible God should foreordain that in which he hath no pleasure, loses all its force when brought into the light of revealed truth. He must either say, that God did not ordain these persecutors for judgment, and establish them for correction; or that he took pleasure in their wicked persecuting spirit ;—or else he must give up his argument as unsound. Our opponents can no more get along than we can, without frequently making a distinction between God's taking pleasure in things for their own sake, and taking pleasure in the good which they are the means of effecting. Thus, they' will acknowledge, that the Lord chasteneth his children;

that chastening is his strange work; but that he hath pleasure in the end of this chastening, to wit, the sanc-: tification of his children. In this way we can see, that God determined that wicked hands should be employed in putting to death his well-beloved Son, not because he.