This is precisely the application made of this doctrine by an intelligent Calvinistic lady of New England, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, daughter of the late Prof. Stuart, of Andover, and authoress of certain very popular works. In the memorial of her, prefixed to _The Last Leaf of Sunny Side_, she is quoted as saying in her diary: "I never _could_ understand or divine before, my claim upon the Deity's overruling care. Now I do get a glimpse of it--enough to make me feel like an infant in its mother's arms. Every event, of every day, of every hour, is unalterably fixed. Each day is but the turning over a new leaf of my history, already written by the finger of God--every letter of it. Should I wish to re-write--to alter--one? Oh, no! no!! no!!!" Here, you perceive, is no ground for repentance. It is repudiated. She would not alter an event of her life, a letter of her history. She carries this acquiescence in the Divine decrees so far as to say in another place: "I have no hope but in my Saviour and if He has not saved me, then this too, I know, is just, and God's decrees I would not change." 10. Nor can prayer be more reasonable than repentance. For what shall we pray? That God would reverse his eternal decrees? This would be to reflect upon his attributes. Are his decrees wrong? Besides, the doctrine in question affirms them to be unchangeable. Shall we pray that God may accomplish them? This can add nothing to the certainty of their accomplishment; for they cannot be defeated. So we are distinctly assured by the advocates of this theory. The only apology that can be offered for prayer, on the part of those who believe this doctrine, is that it is decreed they shall pray. But a prayer offered in strict logical accordance with this theory would be a manifest absurdity. 11. Another legitimate consequence of this doctrine is that man is not in a state of probation. There is a flat contradiction between the idea that man is in a state of probation and the affirmation that the whole series of volitions, states, actions, and events of his life is fixed, unchangeably, by the Divine decree, before he comes into existence. I have long regarded this as an inevitable deduction from the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees, but it was not until lately that I found it actually advanced as a doctrine by a Calvinistic writer. On page 77 of _Fisher's Catechism_, the following occurs:-- "_Q_. Is there any danger in asserting that man is not now in a state of probation, as Adam was?--_Ans_. No." "_Q_. What, then, is the dangerous consequence of asserting that fallen man is still in a state of probation?--_Ans_. This dangerous consequence would follow, that mankind are hereby supposed to be still under a covenant of works that can justify the doer!" I do not mean to be understood that this dogma is held by all Calvinists, but, whether held or not, it is a legitimate inference.