istic lawyers, or lawyers who are members of
Calvinistic churches or congregations. The names of some of these
are appended to a note soliciting for publication Dr. Boardman's
sermons on _Election_. In defending alleged criminals, men of
their profession often tax their ingenuity to the utmost for
arguments. If the insanity of the prisoner can be established,
they expect his acquittal, though he may have perpetrated the
fatal violence. But why do they never offer, in behalf of the
prisoner intrusting his case to them, that he has done nothing
but what God willed and decreed from all eternity he should do?
that, from the beginning to the end of the affair, he was but
executing the counsels of Heaven--counsels which Heaven never
suffers to be frustrated, either as to the end, or the instrument.
Some of them believe the doctrine, and desire that the public
should believe it. Why, then, do they never plead it when pledged
to give their client the benefit of every available argument? Is
it nothing to be able to say for him that he has not swerved a
hair's-breadth from the designs of the great Sovereign of the
universe, at whose judgment-seat all the decisions of human
tribunals will be reviewed? They dare not offer such a plea.
They know that common sense would laugh them out of countenance,
if not out of court. And if all present were believers in the
doctrine, they could not attempt to reduce it to its legitimate
practical application without laughing in each other's faces--
such is its essential absurdity. They may circulate it in
sermons, in which eloquent nonsense is drivelled with impunity,
but they will not venture to propound it in a court, where common
sense and equity bear sway.

24. If this doctrine be true, it is wholly unnecessary for any of
you to impose any restraint upon your passions or wills. Are you
tempted to indulge in sensuality, or to defraud your neighbor,
and even to assassinate him? And does the inquiry arise in your
mind whether the act to which you are tempted is according to the
will of God? You have only to do it, and the result proves that
it is decreed. So says Mr. Barnes: "The result, by whatever means
brought about, expresses the design of God." If the act be not
decreed, you cannot do it, though you try. If you can, it is
decreed _that you should_; and your doing it is as inevitable as
destiny itself. So you may just go forward, and the result will
be right; that is, if God's decrees are