contradictions that were ever
uttered. Can it be that God is the author of a book which
represents him as ordaining and bringing to pass all the acts of
crime and folly that were ever committed, including all the lies
that were ever uttered, as having two hostile wills in relation
to the same event, as decreeing that his creatures should pursue
a certain course, and yet commanding them to pursue a contrary
course, and then, damning them, thousands upon thousands, for
doing what he decreed they should do? It is impossible for the
infidel to frame a stronger argument than this doctrine supplies
him with.

I have shown, unanswerably, I think, that this doctrine leads, by
obvious deduction, to the doctrine that God prefers sin to
holiness in every instance in which sin takes place, and that sin
is the necessary means of the greatest good. I will now quote an
eminent Calvinistic minister upon the tendencies of this
doctrine. He is commenting upon what he calls "the third
solution" of the question, "For what reason has God permitted sin
to enter the universe?" which he states to be that "God chose
that sin should enter the universe as the necessary means of the
greatest possible good. Wherever it exists, therefore, it is, in
the whole, better than holiness would be in its place"--the very
doctrine which we are told by high Calvinistic authority, has
been a "common sentiment among New England divines since the days
of Edwards." He says:--

"The third solution has been extensively adopted by philosophers,
especially on the continent of Europe; and its ultimate reaction
on the public mind had no small share, we believe, in creating
that universal skepticism which at last broke forth upon Europe,
in all the horrors of the French Revolution. While the profoundest
minds were speculating themselves into the belief that sin was the
necessary means of the greatest good, better on the _whole_, in
each instance, than holiness would have been in its place--common
men were pressing the inquiry, 'Why, then, ought it to be punished?'
Voltaire laid hold of this state of things, and assuming the
principle in question to be true, carried round its application to
the breast of millions. In his _Candide_, one of the most amusing
tales that was ever written, he introduces a young man of strong
passions and weak understanding, who had been taught this doctrine
by a metaphysical tutor. They go out into the world, to 'promote the
greatest good