19. I cannot but regard this theory as subversive of every rational idea of a Divine moral government. Moral government implies precepts or prohibitions, or both, enforced by rewards and penalties, and addressed authoritatively to beings capable of either obedience or disobedience. But of what use are precepts or prohibitions if every act of every individual is fixed beforehand by the Divine decrees? As well might moral codes be addressed to steam-engines or to whirlwinds. The only plausible attempt that can be made to reconcile this theory of predestination with a Divine moral government, is to apply the term moral government to a certain class of preordained influences designed to bring about a certain class of preordained results. But this is moral government in name merely. The process which the advocates of this theory call moral government is just as mechanical as that by which the motions of the planets are controlled. The judiciary system of the Divine government, with all its solemn pageantry, is thus reduced to a mere farce. Beings are arraigned, with great judicial pomp, and condemned, or approved, punished or rewarded for actions which were decreed innumerable ages before they were born, and brought to pass by influences beyond their control, for actions which were devised, decreed, and irresistibly brought to pass by the judge himself. 20. We are now prepared for another consequence, which hangs like a millstone around the neck of this theory, and is sufficient, of itself, to sink it to the depths. It represents God not only as decreeing one thing and commanding another directly adverse thereto, but also as decreeing and bringing to pass opposite and contradictory events. He ordained that one man should believe the Holy Scriptures, and reverence them, and that another man should, at the same time, deny, and hate, and vilify them. He ordained that men should at one period of their lives preach the gospel, and write in favor of Christianity, and at another period become infidel lecturers and disputants. He decreed that some should believe the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees, and teach it, and that others should, at the same time, regard it as false and oppose it. He has ordained that men shall take opposite sides on all great questions, religious, philosophical, or political. He ordained the fugitive slave law and the recent Nebraska and Kansas enactment, and all the opposition from ministers and laymen, with which these measures have been regarded. He has ordained that one party shall laud them as just and patriotic, and that another party shall condemn and hate them as diabolical. He ordained the arrest of that man on the suspicion of murder, with all the conflicting opinions as to his guilt or innocence, the contradictory testimony of the witnesses, the contrary pleadings of the counsel, the verdict of the jury pronouncing him guilty, the sentence of the judge condemning him to death, and