1. The first argument is founded on foreknowledge. It is sometimes contended that predestination and foreknowledge are the same. This, however, by the more judicious, is not now insisted on. For it is self-evident, that _to know_, and _to decree_, are distinct operations; and to every one acquainted with the common definition of the terms, they must convey distinct and different ideas. And if these are distinct operations in the _human_ mind, they must be also in the _Divine_ mind, unless it can be shown that these terms, when applied to God, have an entirely different meaning from that by which they are understood among men. And as this cannot be pretended, the more common and plausible argument is, that the foreknowledge of God necessarily _implies_ predestination. "For how," they ask, "can an action that is really to come to pass, be foreseen, if it be not determined? God foreknew every thing from the beginning; but this he could not have known, if he had not so determined it." "God," says Piscator, "foresees nothing but what he has decreed, and his decree precedes his knowledge." And Calvin says, "God therefore foreknows all things that will come to pass, because he has decreed they shall come to pass." But to this idea there are insuperable objections. Prescience is an essential attribute of the Divine nature. But a determination to do this or that, is not essential to the Divine nature. For aught we can see, God might determine to make a particular planet or not to make it, and in either case the perfection of his nature is not affected. But _to know_, is so essential to him, that the moment he ceases to know all that is, or will be, or might be, under any possible contingency, he ceases to be God. Is it not absurd, then, to say the least, to make an essential attribute of Deity depend upon the _exercise_ of his attributes?--the Divine prescience depend upon his decrees and determinations? It would seem, by this argument, that, if not in the order of time, at least, in the order of thought, and in the order of cause and effect, the exercise of an attribute preceded the attribute itself; and, in short, the attribute must be exercised, as a cause, to bring it into existence! To this monstrous conclusion we are led by following out this argument. And connected with it is another, equally monstrous and absurd. If God must predetermine events in order to know them, then, as the cause is in no case dependent on the effect, the decrees of God must be passed and his plan contrived, independently of his knowledge, which only had an existence as the effect of these decrees. What must be the character of that plan, and of those decrees, which were formed and matured without knowledge, we will not stop to examine, for the idea borders too closely upon the ludicrous to be dwelt upon in a serious discourse. And yet I cannot see how this conclusion can be avoided, reasoning from such premises. It seems to us,