tely, and Professor Mosley,--affirm that these doctrines are not only
opposed to free-will, but represent God as arbitrarily dooming a large
part of the human race to future and endless punishment, withholding
from them his grace, by which alone they can turn from their sins,
creating them only to destroy them: not as the potter moulds the clay
for vessels of honor and dishonor, but moulding the clay in order to
destroy the vessels he has made, whether good or bad; which doctrine
they affirm conflicts with the views usually held out in the Scriptures
of God as a God of love, and also conflicts with all natural justice,
and is therefore one-sided and narrow.

The premises from which this doctrine is deduced are those Scripture
texts which have the authority of the Apostle Paul, such as these:
"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the
world;" "For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate;" "Jacob have
I loved and Esau have I hated;" "He hath mercy on whom he will have
mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth;" "Hath not the potter power over
his clay?" No one denies that from these texts the Predestination of
Calvin as well as Augustine--for they both had similar views--is
logically drawn. It has been objected that both of these eminent
theologians overlooked other truths which go in parallel lines, and
which would modify the doctrine,--even as Scripture asserts in one place
the great fact that the will is free, and in another place that the will
is shackled. The Pelagian would push out the doctrine of free-will so as
to ignore the necessity of grace; and the Augustinian would push out the
doctrine of the servitude of the will into downright fatalism. But these
great logicians apparently shrink from the conclusions to which their
logic leads them. Both Augustine and Calvin protest against fatalism,
and both assert that the will is so far free that the sinner acts
without constraint; and consequently the blame of his sins rests upon
himself, and not upon another. The doctrines of Calvin and Augustine
logically pursued would lead to the damnation of infants; yet, as a
matter of fact, neither maintained that to which their logic led. It is
not in human nature to believe such a thing, even if it may be
dogmatically asserted.

And then, in regard to sin: no one has ever disputed the fact that sin
is rampant in this world, and is deserving of punishment. But
theologians of the school of Augustine and