n
his heart, of the divine conduct, even though God should cast him
off forever; which, however, never implies love of misery, nor
hatred of happiness. For if the law is good, death is due to those
who have broken it. The Judge of all the earth cannot but do
right. It would bring everlasting reproach upon his government to
spare us, considered merely as in ourselves. When this is felt in
our hearts, and not till then, we shall be prepared to look to the
free grace of God, through the redemption which is in Christ, and
to exercise faith in his blood, 'who is set forth to be a
propitiation to declare God's righteousness, that he might be
just, and yet be the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.'

"6. That the infinitely wise and holy God has exerted his
omnipotent power in such a manner as he purposed should be
followed with the existence and entrance of moral evil into the
system. For it must be admitted on all hands, that God has a
perfect knowledge, foresight, and view of all possible existences
and events. If that system and scene of operation, in which moral
evil should never have existed, were actually preferred in the
divine mind, certainly the Deity is infinitely disappointed in the
issue of his own operations. Nothing can be more dishonorable to
God than to imagine that the system which is actually formed by
the divine hand, and which was made for his pleasure and glory, is
yet not the fruit of wise contrivance and design.

"7. That the introduction of sin is, upon the whole, for the
general good. For the wisdom and power of the Deity are displayed
in carrying on designs of the greatest good; and the existence of
moral evil has, undoubtedly, occasioned a more full, perfect, and
glorious discovery of the infinite perfections of the divine
nature, than could otherwise have been made to the view of
creatures. If the extensive manifestations of the pure and holy
nature of God, and his infinite aversion to sin, and all his
inherent perfections, in their genuine fruits and effects, is
either itself the greatest good, or necessarily contains it, it
must necessarily follow that the introduction of sin is for the
greatest good.

"8. That repentance is before faith in Christ. By this is not
intended, that repentance is before a speculative belief of the
being and pe