. Should I wish to re-write--to alter--one? Oh, no! no!! no!!!"
Here, you perceive, is no ground for repentance. It is repudiated.
She would not alter an event of her life, a letter of her history.
She carries this acquiescence in the Divine decrees so far as to
say in another place: "I have no hope but in my Saviour and if He
has not saved me, then this too, I know, is just, and God's
decrees I would not change."

10. Nor can prayer be more reasonable than repentance. For what
shall we pray? That God would reverse his eternal decrees? This
would be to reflect upon his attributes. Are his decrees wrong?
Besides, the doctrine in question affirms them to be unchangeable.
Shall we pray that God may accomplish them? This can add nothing
to the certainty of their accomplishment; for they cannot be
defeated. So we are distinctly assured by the advocates of this
theory. The only apology that can be offered for prayer, on the
part of those who believe this doctrine, is that it is decreed
they shall pray. But a prayer offered in strict logical accordance
with this theory would be a manifest absurdity.

11. Another legitimate consequence of this doctrine is that man
is not in a state of probation. There is a flat contradiction
between the idea that man is in a state of probation and the
affirmation that the whole series of volitions, states, actions,
and events of his life is fixed, unchangeably, by the Divine
decree, before he comes into existence. I have long regarded this
as an inevitable deduction from the Calvinistic doctrine of
decrees, but it was not until lately that I found it actually
advanced as a doctrine by a Calvinistic writer. On page 77 of
_Fisher's Catechism_, the following occurs:--

"_Q_. Is there any danger in asserting that man is not now in a
state of probation, as Adam was?--_Ans_. No."

"_Q_. What, then, is the dangerous consequence of asserting that
fallen man is still in a state of probation?--_Ans_. This
dangerous consequence would follow, that mankind are hereby
supposed to be still under a covenant of works that can justify
the doer!"

I do not mean to be understood that this dogma is held by all
Calvinists, but, whether held or not, it is a legitimate
inference.

12. Let us now notice the bearing of this strange tenet upon some
of the leading doctrines and facts of Christianity. Take the
doctrine of the Fall--which is understood to be that God made man
in his own image--holy; righteous, cap