It is the design of the present chapter to consider the doctrine of necessity under its other aspect, and to demonstrate that it makes God the author of sin. If this can be shown, it may justly lead us to suspect that the scheme contains within its bosom some dark fallacy, which should be dragged from its hiding-place into the open light of day, and exposed to the abhorrence and detestation of mankind. In discussing this branch of our subject, we shall pursue the course adopted in relation to the first; for if the doctrine of necessity does not make God the author of sin, we may conclude that this has been shown by some one of its most profound and enlightened advocates. If the attempts of a Calvin, and an Edwards, and a Leibnitz, to maintain such a doctrine, and yet vindicate the purity of God may be shown to be signal failures, we may well doubt whether there is a real agreement between these tenets as maintained by them. Nay, if in order to vindicate their system from so great a reproach, they have been compelled to adopt positions which are clearly inconsistent with the divine holiness, and thus to increase rather than to diminish the reproach; surely their system itself should be more than suspected of error. We shall proceed, then, with this view, to examine their speculations in regard to the agency of God in its connexion with the origin and existence of moral evil. Section I. The attempts of Calvin and other reformers to show that the system of necessity does not make God the author of sin.