"Mr. Hume thinks the fact that the earth existed in its present condition before men sinned an insuperable objection to the view that this world was prepared as a place for the discipline of a fallen race. But let us look at the other side, and see if equal objections do not exist. The Creator foresaw the fall of man; is there no objection to the supposition that, knowing that man would sin, God made no provision for it? On the one supposition he foresees the evil and makes no provision; on the other, he foresees it and provides for the catastrophe. The former supposition certainly involves the greater difficulties. "The objector may reply that the plan of God, by embracing the fall of man and including it as one of its essential elements, made that fall necessary. But why should not God embrace in his plan that great event, the fall of man, which he foresaw in the future? Would it have been wiser and better to leave out of account that most stupendous fact in the history of the human race? This same objection, which Mr. Hume and many others have brought forward, lies with equal force against the great central fact of the gospel, the death of Christ. God's plan touching this world included the incarnation and death of his Son. Jesus, the 'Lamb of God,' is spoken of as 'slain from the foundation of the world.' Rev. xiii. 8. But the incarnation and death of Christ presuppose the apostasy of the human race. Did this plan touching Christ make the apostasy of man a necessity? If preparing a world--fallen, so to speak, beforehand--for a race which God foresaw would fall, be inconsistent with his righteousness, it must be equally inconsistent to prepare a Saviour beforehand for that same race. "Again, the divine plan touching the death of his Son included his betrayal by Judas and his crucifixion by the Jews. If Judas had known that God had poised the salvation of man upon the pivot of his treachery, he would doubtless have argued as Mr. Hume and others are accustomed to do. But did God's plan excuse his treason against his Lord? His own conscience, piercing and rending his soul with remorse, drove him to self-destruction, and Christ confirmed the sentence of his conscience and called him the 'son of perdition.' The fact that God weaves the foreseen crimes of men into his plans is no palliation of their guilt.