1. This doctrine of predestination makes God the author of sin. Some acknowledge this, and expressly assert, that God is the "_efficient_ cause" of sin. Others affirm it in fact, while they deny it in word. Take for instance the words of Calvin. "I will not scruple to own," he says, "that the will of God lays a necessity on all things, and that every thing he wills, necessarily comes to pass." In accordance with this, Piscator, Dr. Twiss, Peter Martyr and others tell us, that "God procures adultery, cursings, and lyings"--"God is the author of that act, which is evil"--"God, by his working on the hearts of the wicked, binds them and stirs them to do evil." They deny, however, that God is the author of sin, because they say, "God necessitates them to the _act_, and not to the _depravity_ of sin:" or, that "God does not sin when he makes men sin, because _he_ is under no law, and therefore cannot sin." But these are miserable shifts. Has not the _deformity_ of sin come to pass? Then God has decreed this deformity. To deny this, is to give up the doctrine. But to acknowledge it, is to own that God is as much the author of the deformity, as he is of the act. Again, God doubtless decreed that sin should be _sin_, and not _holiness;_ and it came to pass as sin, because it was so decreed. Is he not then the direct procuring cause? A thousand turns of this kind, therefore, are nothing but evasions. The _fiat_ of God brought forth sin as certainly as it made the world. We are often told, when we quote Calvin and his contemporaries, that these are old authors; that modern Calvinists do not hold thus, and that they ought not to be accountable for these writers. But the fact is, we make them accountable only for the logical consequences of their own doctrine. The whole system turns on this hinge, "God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass." For he that, by his will and decree, produces and causes sin, that makes sin a necessary part of his plan, and is the author of the very elements and materials of his own plan, must be the proper and sole cause of sin, or we have yet to learn the definition of common words, and the meaning of plain propositions. The distinction therefore, of _ancient_ and _modern_, of _rigid_ and _moderate_ Calvinists, is more in word, than in reality. And it would add much to the consistency of this system, if all its advocates would acknowledge, what is evidently deducible from the premises, that God is the efficient cause of sin.