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e a secret, we would like to know by what authority it is so confidently stated in the _Confession of Faith_ and the _Catechism_. How did they come by the knowledge of God's secret decree? They may claim to be better educated than we are, and more intelligent, to have minds of a superior natural constitution; but we protest against their claiming to be intrusted with the secrets of heaven. 26. This wonderful doctrine makes out the devil and his angels to be faithful servants of God. They have done, throughout the past, and are doing now, precisely what God, in his wise and holy counsel, foreordained they should do. 27. It leads to Universalism. If all beings do as God has decreed, upon what ground can God punish any of them, then, in futurity? You have only to connect with this doctrine the declaration that God is benevolent, or just, and Universalism follows. 28. It leads to rank infidelity. It is to my mind more reasonable to believe that God has made no written revelation of his will, than that he has revealed such a doctrine as this. Let the opinion become prevalent that it is a doctrine of the Bible, and, as the consequence, the Bible will be rejected by thousands, yea, hundreds of thousands. It is impossible for the ablest disputant to maintain a respectable argument against infidelity while standing upon this ground. He must assume the opposite ground, as the basis of his argument, or he will fail signally. The infidel objects to the Bible that it represents God as sanctioning crime, and making favorites of its perpetrators, and hence concludes that it cannot be true. The usual reply is that, so far from having sanctioned vice and its perpetrators, he has solemnly prohibited it; that he holds the perpetrator guilty, condemns him to severe punishment, and will remit that punishment only in view of repentance, and reformation, and an atonement which fully vindicates the Divine government, and most impressively manifests its abhorrence of the course pursued by the transgressor. But what says this doctrine? That God has freely, and from all eternity _willed, decreed, foreordained, whatsoever_ comes to pass. The infidel objects that the Bible contains contradictions, and hence cannot be the word of God. The usual answer admits that God cannot contradict himself, but denies that the Bible is chargeable with self -contradiction. Whereas, this doctrine declares that God has decreed and brought to pass all the
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