less millions of human-beings are doomed to
eternal misery for the non-observance of a law which they never had it in
their power to obey. This is to judge them, not according to what they
receive, but according to what they receive not, and cannot obtain. It is
to call them to give an account of talents never committed to their
charge. The difference between the two cases is, indeed, precisely that
between the conduct of a munificent prince who bestows his favours
unequally, but without making unreasonable demands, and the proceeding of
a capricious tyrant who, while he confers the most exalted privileges and
honours on one portion of his subjects, consigns all the rest, not more
undeserving than they, to hopeless and remediless destruction; and that,
too, for the non-performance of an impossible condition. Is it not
wonderful that two cases so widely and so glaringly different, should have
been so long and so obstinately confounded by serious inquirers after
truth?

The Calvinistic scheme of predestination, it is pretended, derives support
from revelation. The ninth chapter of Romans which, from the time of
Augustine down to the present day, has been so confidently appealed to in
its support, has, as we have seen, no relation to the subject. It relates,
not to the election of individuals to eternal life, but of a nation to the
enjoyment of external privileges and advantages. This is so plain, that
Dr. Macknight, though an advocate of the Calvinistic dogma of
predestination, refuses to employ that portion of Scripture in support of
his doctrine.

Nor does the celebrated passage of the eighth chapter of the same epistle
touch the point in controversy. We might well call in question the
Calvinistic interpretation of that passage, if this were necessary; but we
take it in their own sense, and show that it lends no support to their
views. The Calvinists themselves being the interpreters, that passage
teaches that God, according to his eternal purpose, chose or selected a
certain portion out of the great mass of mankind as the heirs of eternal
life. Granted, then, that a certain portion of the human race were thus
made the objects of a peculiar favour, and prospectively endowed with the
greatest of all conceivable blessings. But _who_ were thus chosen, or
selected? and on _what principle_ was the election made? In regard to this
point, it is not pretended by them that the passage in question utters a
single syllable. They