ings
in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth." And,
finally, it is decreed that while the righteous shall have life
eternal, the wicked, the finally impenitent, and unbelieving, and
unholy, shall go away into everlasting punishment--shall be
imprisoned in a place originally prepared for the first rebels
against the Divine government--the devil and his angels.

Such, as I understand it, is the Methodistic, or Arminian,
doctrine of the Divine decrees. There is no difficulty in
sustaining this doctrine by Scripture. It is not liable to any of
the objections which menace fatally the Calvinistic scheme. There
is no difficulty in perceiving its harmony with man's free agency
and moral accountability. It does not give the slightest occasion
for the question whether God is the author of sin. He has issued
decrees respecting it; but they are all condemnatory. None of
them preordain it. It does not admit the supposition of his being
a participant in any unholy deed or device. The question never
came up among Methodist divines, whether God prefers, in any
instance, sin to holiness? They would not, could not, consider it
a debatable question. Nor that other question--Is sin the
necessary means of the greatest good? Calvinism is justly
entitled to the honor of originating such questions as these. No
one would ever think of affirming upon Arminian principles that
whatever is is right. Arminianism lays a firm basis for Divine
moral government, and also for civil government--for rewards and
punishments. It not only relieves the Divine attributes from the
fearful suspicions and imputations with which Calvinism dishonors
them, but surrounds them with a transcendent glory. It protects
the morality of the Bible from the devastating incursions to
which Calvinism exposes it, and presents the most powerful
incentives to piety. It does not throw the protecting shield of
the Divine decrees over every form of error and outrage with
which earth is filled, or represent God as having two hostile
wills. It forms no entangling alliances with heathen fatalism. We
are not under the necessity of warning inquirers against
committing themselves to the practical influence of the Arminian
doctrine of Divine decrees, by saying, with Dr. Boardman, that
"These decrees are not the rule of our duty. We are not held
responsible for not conforming to them. We are not bound to act
with the least reference to them."

The practical bearing of