This indeed, is an easy method to solve any difficulties in human conduct, by saying God decreed they should be so, and so here is an end of the matter. It also completely absolves every man from blame, however wicked he may be, and makes God the only responsible agent in the universe.

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2. You also quote Acts ii. 23. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, and then add, "That the crucifixion of Christ by the wicked Jews, was according to the determinate counsel or fixed purpose of God," p. 14. That this, and other similar passages of scripture may be satisfactorily explained, it is important to notice the principle on which your mistaken application of them, is founded. According to your statement, the events spoken of respecting the wickedness of the Jews, and others, in the crucifixion of Jesus, were the result solely of the predetermination of God-this preordination is the cause, and the events the effect. Likewise that the predictions respecting those events, are predicated, not of God's prescience, but of his foreordination. But according to the scriptural representation of this subject, these wicked events, or actions, were the result of freeagency abused-and the predictions of the Jewish prophets respecting them, were predicated, not of a predetermination of God that they should be so, but of his infinite prescience which saw that they would be so-so that neither the prescience of God, nor the predictions of the prophets were the cause of such

wicked actions. God, foreseeing that there would be such a traitorous man as Judas, and such persons, as were Pilate and the Jews, might determine, not that they should possess these evil dispositions, nor that they should be directed in that identical channel, but to overrule them when so possessed and directed, for the manifestation of his own infinite glory. To illustrate this by a comparisonGeneral Washington, previous to his death, foretold that factions would arise in the United States, which would disturb the tranquility of the unionbut it does not follow from thence, that either he himself, or his predictions, were the cause of the rise of such factions. So God predicted that there would be such a person as Judas, and such persons. as were the Jews, who by abusing their moral agency, would do thus and so wickedly; but from thence it does not follow, that either he himself, or his predictions were the cause of their wickedness. This distinction being kept in mind, it is easy to explain the text under consideration, without supposing God from all eternity, ordained the wickedness of the Jews, and the treachery of Judas. Him, being delivered, according the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, &c. From the infinite knowledge of God, he saw that man would sin, and involve himself and his posterity in misery; according to this knowledge, his wise counsel led him to determine to deliver his Son to die for the transgressors; and hence it was said by Paul, He was delivered for our offences. As the penalty of the

law which Adam disobeyed, was death, and as Christ came to bear that penalty, it was necessary he should die; but it does not follow that it was necessary, any farther than their own voluntary conduct made it necessary, that Judas should betray him with a kiss, and that the Jews should smite him with wicked hands. The determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God therefore, do not refer to his being crucified and slain with wicked hands, but to his being delivered up as a sacrifice for sin. If you say the atonement could not have been completed without the aid of the wicked hands of the Jews, you thereby transfer a part of the merit of Christ's death to them, to whom it does not belong, and thus rob Christ of his deserved honour. That God so overruled their wickedness, as to make it subservient to his benevolent purposes to mankind, is admitted; but it should be noted, that there is a vast difference between overruling the wickedness of the wicked, and between producing and causing efficiently, as you assert he does, such wickedness.This will also explain what is meant by God's meaning it for good, that Joseph's brethren should sell him into Egypt. He did not produce nor cause, the wicked, and murderous dispositions, in these brethren; but he checked, restrained, and overruled them, according to his good pleasure, and thus made them subserve his purposes of future good to mankind.

3. If you still insist that the crucifixion of Christ was the cause of his death, and that all the circumstances of it were absolutely necessary, it will fol

low that they forcibly took his life away from him--and this is expressly contradictory to the solemn declaration of Christ himself, John x. 17, 18. Because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. In these words the Lord Jesus claims the peculiar prerogative of laying down his life, and of taking it up again. And you might as well say, that the soldiers who were placed to guard the sepulchre, and all the accompanying conduct of the rulers were necessary to raise Christ from the dead, as to say their wickedness was necessary to bring about his death. The one is mentioned with as much minuteness and precision as the other.But say you, "all these things were predicted." Granted.—But these predictions were predicated not of the necessity of the events, but of the infinite prescience of God, which saw that his only Son would meet with such inhuman and barbarous treatment from his kinsmen according to the flesh. All those scenes of love and mercy, of forbearance and kindness on the one hand, and of malice and hatred, of malevolence and cruelty on the other, were pourtrayed, as it were, on the infinite mind; and also, by the eternal spirit, painted upon the imagination of the inspired Prophets who foretold them; but it was seen at the same time, the causes of these evils originated in the hearts of the people, and not in a predetermination of God; and that the

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meritorious death of Christ was a voluntary sacrifice, originating from the unbounded love of God to sinful man. To say that God delivered Christ into the hands of Pilate, is to say that he, God, was a greater sinner than were the Jews, agreeably to the words of Christ, He that delivered me unto thee, hath the greater sin.

4. You next quote from chap. iv. 27, 28. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. On this you observe, "The whole which was done by the murderers of Christ, Jews and Gentiles, kings and people, is said to be the same which the divine hand and counsel determined before to be done." p. 14. Is it not truly surprising that in any passage where good and evil are spoken of as having been done, that any one should without hesitation, refer the evil especially, immediately to God, as though there were no other agent in the universe who could do it? By a little transposition of the above passage, we have a scriptural and rational sense, without being under the disagreeable necessity of attributing all the wickedness of the murderers of our Lord Jesus to God, out of whose mouth proceedeth not evil and good.

For of a truth, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together against thy holy child Jesus, whom