The passage in Isaiah xlv. 7, "I make peace and create evil," has obviously the same meaning, as it stands in contrast to "peace." "Peace" is representative of blessings; "evil" is the synonym of distress and sorrow. The prophet is supposed to allude to the Persian religion, according to which there were two great beings in the universe--viz., Oromasden, from whom comes good, and Ahriman, from whom comes evil. It is very doubtful whether the prophet had any such reference. Barnes says,--"The main object here is, the prosperity which should attend the arms of Cyrus, the consequent reverses and calamities of the nations whom he would subdue, and the proof thence furnished that JEHOVAH was the true God; and the passage should be limited in the interpretation to this design. The statement, then, is that all this was under His direction." PREDESTINATION AND THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST.--Acts ii. 23 is appealed to. It reads thus: "Having been delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." But how can these words prove universal foreordination? It might be said, that if God foreordained the bad deeds of the crucifiers, the principle is established. True; but did He foreordain them? The words simply declare that God had given up Christ, and that in so doing He had acted in harmony with a settled plan, and that the Jews had wickedly taken the Saviour and slain Him. From the throne of His excellency God saw the character of the people that lived in A.D. 33; that they stood upon religious punctilio, and "as having the form of godliness whilst destitute of its power," that they would do as the Scriptures foretold; and yet He determined to send His son into their very midst, and when He came, they took Him and crucified Him. In all that they did they acted freely. Had it not been so, had they been acting under an iron necessity, then the apostle could not have brought against them the charge of having done what they did with "wicked hands." That charge, that homethrust, explodes the Calvinistic argument, as far as the verse is concerned.