pirit. "Ye
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always
resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts vii.
51). Because they resisted him, would it be right to say that they
were physically stronger than God? We replied to the clergyman that
we supposed that the person who used the expression meant that God
did not get people to do what He wished. The reply was that we were
equally wrong. We then asked, "Do you think that God wishes people
to keep His law?" He refused to answer the question. But why would
he not? Aye, why? He was in this dilemma: If he said that He did
wish them to keep His law, he would have been met by the question,
Why then does He not make them do so? Everywhere the law is broken.
If he said that God did not wish them to keep His law, would not
this have been to put the Holy One on a level with the great enemy
of man? This brings out the idea that whilst God is possessed of
infinite power, in the exercise of that power He has respect to the
constitution of man in the production of virtue. He does not
override the constitution, and treat it as if it were a nullity. To
do so would be absurd, for forced virtue is not virtue at all. God
is all-powerful, but He is also ALL-WISE.

CHAPTER IV.

PREDESTINATION CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE.

THE FOREKNOWLEDGE of God is held as evidence that He has
foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. He foreknows, so it is
argued, but He does so because He has foreordained. Calvin says,
"Since He (God) doth not otherwise foresee the things that shall
come to pass than because He hath decreed that they should so come
to pass, it is vain to move a controversy about foreknowledge, when
it is certain that all things do happen rather by ordinance and
commandment" (B. iii.) Toplady says "that God foreknows futurities,
because by His predestination He hath rendered their futurition
certain and inevitable." Bonar says, "God foreknows everything that
takes place, because he Has fixed it" (_Truth and Error_, p. 50).
The same doctrine is held by the younger Hodge--that foreknowledge
involves foreordination.

There have been some who have denied the infinitude of God's
knowledge, notably Dr. Adam Clarke. He held that God, although
possessed of omnipotence, yet as He chooses not to do all things, so
also although He possesses the power of knowing all things, yet He
chooses to be ignorant of some things. In refuting this n