We are now concerned with the fact merely, and we hence conclude that he is the author of sin and the only being properly answerable for it. 5. If the advocates of this doctrine should still insist that it does not make God the author of sin; that man is a free agent, and properly responsible for his actions, notwithstanding they are foreordained; I press them with this plain consequence--God is, to say the least, a participant in the sinning. And he is not merely a _coadjutor_, but the _principal_--the principal in _every instance of sinning_. He originates the first conception of the sinning act. He forms the plan. He arranges all the circumstances. He, by his providence, applies the influence by which the result is effectuated. Here, then, is a dilemma from which there is no escape. Either God is, _strictly and properly_, the _author of sin_, or he is a _participant_ therein, and not merely accessory, but _the principal_, the _plotter_, the _prime mover_, the RINGLEADER thereof. 6. Another inevitable consequence of this doctrine is that, admitting the existence of sin, God _prefers sin to holiness_ in every instance in which sin takes place. This consequence is too plain to require much illustration. If God _freely_ ordained whatsoever comes to pass; if he was not under a fatal necessity of ordaining just as he did; if he had it in his power to ordain otherwise, he could have ordained holiness in the place of sin. The fact that he was free and unnecessitated in his decrees, and could ordain the one or the other, according to his good pleasure, is proof substantial that he prefers sin to holiness in every instance in which sin occurs. Had he preferred holiness, he could have decreed it, and it would have come to pass. This consequence has been admitted, and is, by many Calvinists at this day, maintained as a doctrine. In fact, it has been a matter of dispute amongst Calvinists--Dr. Taylor, of Connecticut, taking one side, and Dr. Tyler, of Connecticut, taking the other. But what a shocking conception! (See _Christian Spectator_, vol. iv. p. 465.) 7. Nor can we resist the further conclusion, from these premises, that sin is not a real evil, but, on the contrary, a good, and that in every instance in which it is preferred to holiness, it is worthy of such preference. This reasoning proceeds upon the assumption that God is a being of infinite goodness and wisdom, and, therefore, always prefers good to evil, being, of course, always able to distinguish the one from the other.