f
that can; and if they cannot, let them renounce so unscriptural, so
absurd a scheme, which fathers such broad blasphemies upon the
Father of mercies, and the God of truth.

VIII. It has a tendency to licentiousness.[4]--It is well known that
the human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked; that it is prone to every vice, and is glad to catch at
anything to keep itself in countenance. But can anything be better
calculated to cause a poor fallen creature to sing to his lusts, and
sound a requiem to his sensual soul, than a doctrine which informs
him, that "all things are ordained from eternity," and he must sit
still, and, if he is a chosen vessel, he will some time or another
be called upon; and, if otherwise, all his striving or seeking will
avail nothing at all. Besides, if he feels propensities to any
sensual appetites, like a true free-thinker, he may say, "What are
these passions or appetites for, but that I may gratify them? Or,
why should I endeavour to deny myself, seeing I cannot alter what
God has decreed? I may eat, drink, dance, sing, swear, live in
uncleanness, just as my inclinations lead me. To stem the torrent is
in vain, seeing it is fixed, unalterably fixed, nor is it in my
power to reverse the same." Nor do there want instances in history
of such as have died under the grossest delusions, affirming, if
they were deceived, it was God who had deceived them. All the calls
to repentance, all the invitations to Christ, all the exhortations
to holiness, self-denial, and mortification, plainly imply a
capacity to prevent them in the parties addressed, or their labour
is absurd; but absolute predestination supposes no such thing, any
more than if the stones in the street were exhorted to arise and
run, or the sign-posts were exhorted to take up arms and defend the
city.

IX. It makes the God of all grace and goodness worse than the
devil.--One of the names given to satan is Apollyon, that is, "a
destroyer;" but then he is not destroying his own work, he is
seeking to destroy the works of God, whose daring enemy he is, and
thereby acts consistently with himself. But this gloomy scheme
represents God bringing innumerable beings into existence, not
barely to destroy them, but to torment them for ever. Can anything
be greater blasphemy? But be it what it will, it is the natural
consequence of all things being ordained from eternity, which are to
come to pass in time. What a dismal pictu