them disobey, then would not this be to put a stumbling-block in
their way? Surely such conduct is infinitely the opposite of a good
God.

Another translation of the passage, including verse 7, is this:
--"Unto you, therefore, who believe He is precious; but unto those who
disbelieve, the stone which the builders disallowed has become the
head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.
They, disbelieving the word, stumble--that is, fall or perish,
whereunto also they were appointed." That is, unbelievers are
appointed to perish if they continue unbelievers. Horne says, "Hence
it is evident that 1 Peter ii. 8 is not that God ordained them to
disobedience (for in that case their obedience would have been
impossible, and their disobedience no sin), but that God, the
righteous Judge of all the earth, had appointed or decreed that
destruction and eternal perdition should be the punishment of such
disbelieving persons who willingly reject all the evidences that
Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. The mode of
pointing above adopted is that proposed by Drs. John Taylor,
Doddridge, and Macknight, and recognised by Greisbach in his
_Critical Edition of the New Testament_, and is manifestly required
by the context" (Vol. IV., p. 398). The passage as thus explained
has no difficulty. Blessings come to those believing, evil to those
disbelieving.

FOREORDAINED TO CONDEMNATION.--In Jude, verse 4, it is written thus:
"For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were of old
foreordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of
our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our
Lord Jesus Christ." The passage contains the reason why the apostle
had urged the Christians to contend earnestly for the faith once
delivered to the saints. The term "ordained" in the passage means
"to write before," or "aforetime," "to post up publicly in writing."
Certain men of bad character had got into the church, but the
condemnation of such had been intimated before. Macknight says,
"Jude means that these wicked teachers had their punishment before
written--that is, foretold in what is written concerning the wicked
Sodomites and rebellious Israelites, whose crimes were the same with
theirs." To write regarding certain characters, and intimating their
punishment, is a widely different thing from unconditional
reprobation.

The passages thus examined are the principal ones b