his son? Clearly there is not.
Where, then, is the discrepancy between the revealed and the secret wills
of God in this case, which we are required to see? Where is this
discrepancy so plainly manifested, that we absolutely _know_ its
existence, so that it is the height of absurdity to dispute against it?

If there is any contrariety at all in this case, it is between the
_revealed will_ of God in commanding Abraham to offer up his son, and his
subsequently _revealed will_ to desist from the sacrifice. It does not
present even a seeming inconsistency between his secret will and his
command, but between two portions of his revealed will. This seeming
inconsistency between the command of God and his countermand, in relation
to the same external action, has been fully removed by Leibnitz; and if it
had not been, it is just as incumbent on the abettors of Edwards's scheme
to explain it, as it is upon his opponents. If God had commanded Abraham
to do a thing, and yet exerted his secret will to make him violate the
injunction, this would have been a case in point: but there is no such
case to be found in the word of God.

It may not be improper, in this connexion, to quote the following
judicious admonition of Howe: "Take heed," says he, "that we do not oppose
the secret and revealed will of God to one another, or allow ourselves so
much as to imagine an opposition or contrariety between them. And that
ground being once firmly laid and stuck to, as it is impossible that there
can be a will against a will in God, or that he can be divided from
himself, or against himself, or that he should reveal anything to us as
his will that is not his will, (it being a thing inconsistent with his
nature, and impossible to him to lie,) that being, I say, firmly laid, (as
nothing can be firmer or surer than that,) then measure all your
conceptions of the secret will of God by his revealed will, about which
you may be sure. But never measure your conceptions of his revealed by his
secret will; that is, by what you may imagine concerning that. For you can
but imagine while it is secret, and so far as it is unrevealed."(81)

"It properly belongs," says Edwards, "to the supreme absolute Governor of
the universe, to order all important events within his dominions by
wisdom; but the events in the moral world are of the most important kind,
such as the moral actions of intelligent creatures, and the consequences.
These events will be ordered by s