not intend that all should reach the abodes of eternal bliss,
but that some should be ruined and lost forever. Such are some of the
consequences which necessarily flow from the principle, that holiness may
be caused to exist in the breast of every moral agent. This is not all. We
have before us another book, which insists that since the world was
created, the law of God has never been violated, because his will cannot
be resisted. Hence, it is seriously urged, that if theft, or adultery, or
murder, be perpetrated, it must be in accordance with the will of God, and
consequently no sin in his sight. "The whole notion of sinning against
God," this book says, "is perfectly puerile." Now all this vile stuff
proceeds on the supposition, that "the event is the best interpreter of
the divine intention;" and it rests upon that supposition with just as
great security, as does the argument in favour of a limited atonement.
Though we may well give such stuff to the winds, or trample it under foot
with infinite scorn, as an outrage against the moral sentiments of
mankind; yet we cannot meet it on the arena of logic, if we concede that
holiness may be everywhere caused to exist, and universal obedience to the
divine will secured.

The only principle, it clearly seems to us, on which we can reconcile such
glaring discrepancies between the express will of God and the event, is,
that the event is of such a nature that it is not an object of power, or
cannot be caused to exist by the Divine Omnipotence. For his "secret
will," or rather his executive will, is always in perfect harmony with his
revealed will. It is from an inattention to the foregoing principle, that
theologians have not been able to see and vindicate the sincerity of God,
in the offer of salvation to all men. We have examined their efforts to
remove this difficulty, and been constrained to agree with Dr. Dick, that
"we may pronounce these attempts to reconcile the universal call of the
gospel with the sincerity of God, to be a faint struggle to extricate
ourselves from the profundities of theology." But on looking into those
solutions again, in which for some years we found a sort of rest, we could
clearly perceive why theology had struggled in vain to deliver itself from
its profound embarrassments on this subject, as well as on many others.
These solutions admit the very principle which necessarily creates the
difficulty, and renders a satisfactory answer impossible. Disc