The late Lord Kinloch in his _Circle of Christian Doctrine_, has several judicious remarks on this subject. In his chapter on predestination he says:--"The choice of free agents cannot have been predestinated in any proper sense of the word, that is, cannot have been fixed beforehand so as to fall out in one way, and no other, irrespectively of his own will. To say that it has been so, involves a contradiction in terms, for it is to say that a man chooses and does not choose at one and the same moment. The choice may be foreseen, must indeed in every case be foreseen by God, otherwise the government of the universe could not be conducted. But to foresee and foreordain are essentially different things" (p. 121). He says again, "What God appoints; He, to whom the whole of futurity lies open at a glance, necessarily appoints beforehand. Hence arises the axiomatic distinction which I find the key to the subject. All that God is himself to do He not merely foresees but foreordains. All that He does not do himself, but leaves man to do by the very act of creating him a free agent, the choice, namely, between one course and another, is foreseen but not predestined" (p. 124). The ideas of Lord Kinloch are sound, and we deem them irrefutable. CHAPTER V. PROOF TEXTS FOR CALVINISTIC PREDESTINATION EXAMINED. THE Scriptures are supposed to teach the doctrine that God hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. It were impossible within the compass of this short treatise to consider at large all the passages that have been imported into this controversy. We shall, however, consider a few which seem to favour the dogma. THE SONS OF ELI.--In 1 Sam. ii. 25, it is written regarding the sons of Eli, "Notwithstanding they hearkened not to the voice of their father, _because_ the Lord would slay them." The whole stress of the argument from this passage lies in the word "_because_." They were not able to hearken to their father, because God had determined to slay them. There are two objections to this view, the first critical and the second moral. The Hebrew particle translated because is --_ki_. It is again and again translated by the word "that," and there is no reason in the world why it should not have been so translated in this passage. By substituting "that" for "because," there is no support to predestination. It simply denotes, in such case, that they would not believe their father, which doubtless was the case from their depraved habits. The _moral_ objection is that God had made their return to good impossible, whilst He declares that He is not willing that any should perish. On these grounds we reject the interpretation.