The Rev. Dr. Baker, of Texas, in a tract published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, and entitled _The Standards of the Presbyterian Church a Faithful Mirror of the Bible_, attempts to establish by Scripture the proposition--"God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to pass." But in another, published by the same institution, and entitled _The Sovereignty of God Explained and Vindicated_, the design of which is to present the doctrine of Divine decrees in such a light as will obviate the usual objections to the Calvinistic view, he says: "Certain things God _brings to pass_ by a positive agency. Others he _simply permits_ to come to pass. And let it be remarked, permission and approbation do not, by any means, mean the same thing." Again: "Does any one ask what is the difference between _bringing_ to pass, and _permitting_ to come to pass? I answer: God brought to pass the incarnation of his Son. He permitted to come to pass his crucifixion. The difference is as wide as the east is from the west." But if God simply permits some things, why do the creed and the catechism of the Presbyterian Church assert, so unequivocally, that he has from all eternity foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, and that he executes, or brings to pass all his decrees? The contradiction is manifest. The Rev. Dr. Fairchild, in his famous _Great Supper_, says: "Calvinists do not regard the decrees of God as extending to all events in the same manner. Some things God has determined to _effect_ by his own agency, and other things he has decreed to _permit_ or _suffer_ to be." But, if the Calvinistic doctrine be that his decrees merely "extend to all events" (a very different thing from his decreeing all events), and that while he "decrees" and "effects" some he merely "permits" or "suffers" other events, what must we understand to be the Arminian doctrine, against which they are called to contend so earnestly? Are they prepared to acknowledge that they have abandoned Calvinism and run into Arminianism? Do they mean to say that there is no difference between these systems on the point in question? Not at all. How then do they preserve the antagonism of the two creeds? What is the Arminianism against which they are arrayed? Dr. Musgrave thus attempts the solution of this question. "Now, I submit, whether the difficulty, thus confessedly pressing against both systems, is not capable on our principles, of a much more full and satisfactory conclusion. For we not only say, as Wesley does, that 'God knew that it was best, on the whole, not to prevent the first sin of Adam,' but we add, that, knowing this, he determined not only to permit that, but all the sins that he knew would follow from it, and to limit and overrule the whole for his most excellent glory."