Another passage is Acts iv. 27, 28. It reads thus: "For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel had determined before to be done." But the question is simply this,--what was it that God had determined to be done? We cannot admit that God had fixed unalterably the doings of Herod, Pilate, and their unholy allies, for the simple reason given in explaining Acts ii. 23--viz., that if such were the case, then there is no foothold upon which to condemn those high-handed sinners. They were verily guilty, but we cannot find a shadow of fault with them if they were only doing what they were foreordained to do. What, then, had God determined to be done? He had determined to send His son into the world to make an atonement for sin. But this might have been done without the betrayal, the trial, and the crucifixion. I may determine to go to a distant city without determining the _mode_ of travel. One way may be pleasant, another disagreeable in the highest degree, and yet the latter may be chosen because of certain collateral issues. So Christ's death might have been determined on, but not the _mode_. Atonement might have been made in another way than on the cross. It was not the crucifixion that made the atonement, but its value lay in the death of the Son of God. Had He expired during the sore agony in the garden, would not His death have been meritorious? The adjuncts, the trial and crucifixion, were not therefore necessary to give His death atoning power. But God saw what the Jews would do, --that they would, in the exercise of their free agency, and without any decree, put Christ to death; and yet He sent Him at the time He did. All the glory of grace, therefore, redounds to the praise of the Lord, and the ignominy rests upon the Jews and the Gentiles. As a proof of universal foreordination, the passage proves nothing.