But there is still another class of texts, which are supposed to favour the doctrine we are opposing, more than any others, viz. those passages which seem to represent God as bringing about and procuring the wickedness of the wicked. Like the following:--"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he should not let the people go." "Now therefore the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets." "He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts." "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands ye have crucified and slain." On these and similar passages it may be remarked, that God blinds men and hardens their hearts judicially, as a just punishment for their abuse of their agency. And for this act of his, in blinding and hardening them, he does not make them responsible. But he holds them responsible for that degree of wickedness which made it just and necessary to give them over to this hardness of heart and blindness of mind. And since there are wicked men and lying spirits, they become fit instruments in deceiving and tormenting each other; and therefore God gives them power and liberty to go abroad, "deceiving and being deceived." But how does this prove that God hath decreed sin? The idea that God hath made sin and wicked spirits the instruments of hardening and tormenting the incorrigible sinner, and finally of shutting the door of hope against him, has no kind of affinity to the idea, that he decreed the sin which occasioned this hardness, or ordained the wickedness of this lying spirit. As to the passage from the Acts, none of us deny but that Jesus Christ was delivered up to suffer and die, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; but it is most emphatically denied, that this or any other scripture proves, that the taking and slaying of Jesus Christ by wicked hands, was the result of the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. If any think otherwise, let them prove it. Having stated and, as our time would permit, examined the arguments in favour of the sentiment we are opposing, we are prepared to urge against this doctrine, not only that its arguments are unsound and insufficient, but also that the system itself is liable to the most serious and formidable objections.