is predetermining to
_permit_ men to abuse their liberty and to commit the evil by the
_unprevented_ exercise of their own voluntary efficiency?"

I reply--there is a very great difference. It is nothing less
than the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism. He is led
to deny his own doctrine, and take refuge in the one he has tried
so hard to refute.

The Rev. Dr. Baker, of Texas, in a tract published by the
Presbyterian Board of Publication, and entitled _The Standards of
the Presbyterian Church a Faithful Mirror of the Bible_, attempts
to establish by Scripture the proposition--"God from all eternity
did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely
and unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to pass." But in
another, published by the same institution, and entitled _The
Sovereignty of God Explained and Vindicated_, the design of which
is to present the doctrine of Divine decrees in such a light as
will obviate the usual objections to the Calvinistic view, he
says: "Certain things God _brings to pass_ by a positive agency.
Others he _simply permits_ to come to pass. And let it be
remarked, permission and approbation do not, by any means, mean
the same thing." Again: "Does any one ask what is the difference
between _bringing_ to pass, and _permitting_ to come to pass? I
answer: God brought to pass the incarnation of his Son. He
permitted to come to pass his crucifixion. The difference is as
wide as the east is from the west."

But if God simply permits some things, why do the creed and the
catechism of the Presbyterian Church assert, so unequivocally,
that he has from all eternity foreordained whatsoever comes to
pass, and that he executes, or brings to pass all his decrees?
The contradiction is manifest.

The Rev. Dr. Fairchild, in his famous _Great Supper_, says:
"Calvinists do not regard the decrees of God as extending to all
events in the same manner. Some things God has determined to
_effect_ by his own agency, and other things he has decreed to
_permit_ or _suffer_ to be."

But, if the Calvinistic doctrine be that his decrees merely
"extend to all events" (a very different thing from his decreeing
all events), and that while he "decrees" and "effects" some he
merely "permits" or "suffers" other events, what must we
understand to be the Arminian doctrine, against which they are
called to contend so earnestly? Are they prepared to acknowledge
that they have abandoned Calvinism and run in