and counsel, and sheriffs, and constables are passive
instruments in the hands of God, in which case their proceedings
are ludicrous, the actors being mere puppets, exhibiting all the
appearance of self-determined motion, and yet, like those famous
characters called _Punch_ and _Judy_, acting only as determined
and effected by the wire-worker; or, admitting that they are
free, and executing their own determinations, they too are doing
precisely what God has foreordained; so that, in this respect,
the jury who pronounce the verdict of guilty, and the judge who
pronounces the sentence of death, are upon a level with the
alleged criminal. All have done, and are doing, just the things
which God has decreed they should do, neither more nor less.

19. I cannot but regard this theory as subversive of every
rational idea of a Divine moral government. Moral government
implies precepts or prohibitions, or both, enforced by rewards
and penalties, and addressed authoritatively to beings capable of
either obedience or disobedience. But of what use are precepts or
prohibitions if every act of every individual is fixed beforehand
by the Divine decrees? As well might moral codes be addressed to
steam-engines or to whirlwinds. The only plausible attempt that
can be made to reconcile this theory of predestination with a
Divine moral government, is to apply the term moral government to
a certain class of preordained influences designed to bring about
a certain class of preordained results. But this is moral
government in name merely. The process which the advocates of
this theory call moral government is just as mechanical as that
by which the motions of the planets are controlled. The judiciary
system of the Divine government, with all its solemn pageantry,
is thus reduced to a mere farce. Beings are arraigned, with great
judicial pomp, and condemned, or approved, punished or rewarded
for actions which were decreed innumerable ages before they were
born, and brought to pass by influences beyond their control, for
actions which were devised, decreed, and irresistibly brought to
pass by the judge himself.

20. We are now prepared for another consequence, which hangs like
a millstone around the neck of this theory, and is sufficient, of
itself, to sink it to the depths. It represents God not only as
decreeing one thing and commanding another directly adverse
thereto, but also as decreeing and bringing to pass opposite and
contradictory