ony with a settled plan, and that the Jews had wickedly
taken the Saviour and slain Him. From the throne of His excellency
God saw the character of the people that lived in A.D. 33; that they
stood upon religious punctilio, and "as having the form of godliness
whilst destitute of its power," that they would do as the Scriptures
foretold; and yet He determined to send His son into their very
midst, and when He came, they took Him and crucified Him. In all
that they did they acted freely. Had it not been so, had they been
acting under an iron necessity, then the apostle could not have
brought against them the charge of having done what they did with
"wicked hands." That charge, that homethrust, explodes the
Calvinistic argument, as far as the verse is concerned.

Another passage is Acts iv. 27, 28. It reads thus: "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 had determined before to be done." But the question is
simply this,--what was it that God had determined to be done? We
cannot admit that God had fixed unalterably the doings of Herod,
Pilate, and their unholy allies, for the simple reason given in
explaining Acts ii. 23--viz., that if such were the case, then there
is no foothold upon which to condemn those high-handed sinners. They
were verily guilty, but we cannot find a shadow of fault with them
if they were only doing what they were foreordained to do. What,
then, had God determined to be done? He had determined to send His
son into the world to make an atonement for sin. But this might have
been done without the betrayal, the trial, and the crucifixion. I
may determine to go to a distant city without determining the _mode_
of travel. One way may be pleasant, another disagreeable in the
highest degree, and yet the latter may be chosen because of certain
collateral issues.

So Christ's death might have been determined on, but not the _mode_.
Atonement might have been made in another way than on the cross. It
was not the crucifixion that made the atonement, but its value lay
in the death of the Son of God. Had He expired during the sore agony
in the garden, would not His death have been meritorious? The
adjuncts, the trial and crucifixion, were not therefore necessary to
give His death atoning power. But God saw what the Jews would do,
--that t