He admits in this very attempt, “that the universal, continued rectitude of all intelligent creatures had, we may be sure, been willed with a peremptory, efficacious will, if it had been best.” He expressly says, that God might have prevented sin from raising its head in his dominions, if he had chosen to do so. “Nor was it less easy,” says he, “by a mighty, irresistible hand, universally to expel sin, than to prevent it.” Now, having made this concession, was it possible for him to vindicate the sincerity and wisdom of God in the use of means to prevent sin, which he foresaw must fail to a very great extent? After having made such an admission, or rather after having assumed such a position, we think it may be clearly shown that the author was doomed to fail; and that he has deceived himself by false analogies in his gigantic efforts to vindicate the character of God. He says, for example: “We will, for discourse’s sake, suppose a prince endowed with the gift or spirit of prophecy. This most will acknowledge a great perfection, added to whatsoever other of his accomplishments. And suppose this his prophetic ability to be so large as to extend to most events which fall out in his dominions. Is it hereby become unfit for him to govern his subjects by laws, or any way admonish them of their duty? Hath this perfection so much diminished him as to depose him from his government? It is not, indeed, to be dissembled, that it were a difficulty to determine, whether such foresight were, for himself, better or worse. Boundless knowledge seems only in a fit conjunction with an unbounded power. But it is altogether unimaginable that it should destroy his relation to his subjects; as what of it were left, if it should despoil him of his legislative power and capacity of governing according to laws made by it? And to bring back the matter to the Supreme Ruler: let it for the present be supposed only, that the blessed God hath, belonging to his nature, the universal prescience whereof we are discoursing; we will surely, upon that supposition, acknowledge it to belong to him as a perfection. And were it reasonable to affirm, that by a perfection he is disabled from government? or were it a good consequence, ‘He foreknows all things—he is therefore unfit to govern the world?’ ”