his own understanding; and that it seemed fit to the
Divine Wisdom to _permit_ its introduction into the world, is
equally beyond contradiction, unless we limit the divine power, and
suppose that, by a necessity antecedent to the divine will, and
controlling the divine conduct, the Deity himself acts, not
spontaneously but from coercion. That sin, with its awful
consequences, should even exist by _permission_, under the
administration of infinite benevolence, has been regarded by
theologians as one of the most perplexing mysteries of "the deep
things of God."

But Calvinism leads to the direct and inevitable conclusion, not
only that God has permitted the fall of angels and of men, but that
He is himself the original _author_ of their defection, and of the
guilt and suffering which have been incurred by disobedience. No
subtlety of argument, no special refinements or metaphysical
distinctions, no ingenious evasions can rescue from this fatal
conclusion the Calvinistic exposition of the divine decrees. If the
Creator in the construction of the human mind rendered it naturally,
morally, absolutely impossible, that man should maintain his
obedience to the divine law under the circumstances in which he was
placed--the act of transgression, be it what it may, must be traced
to the will and intention of the Deity--the _effect_, sin, guilt,
condemnation, undefinable misery, diffused over the face of the
creation, and coextensive with the numberless generations of the
family of man--the _cause_, God; that Being who is perfect reason,
perfect goodness, light without darkness, love without malevolence;
who cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man; with
whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning! Contrasted with
this monstrous compound of impiety and absurdity, which makes
infinite goodness the eternal source of infinite misery, there is
wisdom in the Manichaean doctrine of two conflicting principles,
holding a divided dominion over the universe, and contending, one
for the production of the universal degradation and wretchedness,
the other, for the purity and bliss of all intellectual and moral
beings!

The advocates of scriptural truth have not failed to expose, with
holy indignation and eloquent remonstrance, the inconsistency of
these views of the divine government with the entire scope and
spirit of the evangelic economy of grace. While the love of God to a
fallen world is the great theme of the ap