b Isai. xlix. 7. c Ps. cxxix. 3. d John xix. 36, 37.
e Ps. ii. 2, 3. with ver. 2.5, 20.
independent part, as occasion called for it, and as his situation enabled him to act : and thus was there as complete an agree- ment between the predictions and events, as between a seal with ten thousand lines and the impression taken from it.]
Their assertion being thus confirmed, I will pro- ceed to,
II. Shew the proper and legitimate consequences to be deduced from it —
If we mark only the expressions in my text, we shall be ready to draw from them very erroneous in- ferences and deductions. We shall be ready to say, ' If what these people did was only " what God's hand and counsel had determined before to be done," we must not condemn them : they were only instru- ments in the hand of a superior power : and if there be any evil in what they did, it must be traced to Jehovah himself, whose counsel had decreed it, and who, by his power, stimulated them to the commission of it.' But all this is quite erroneous. Though God had ordained these things, he never instigated any man to the commission of them ; he only elevated men to situations, where, if they were so disposed, they might execute all the evil that was in their hearts, and left them at liberty to follow their own will. It was thus that he elevated Pharaoh to the throne of Egypt, and gave him up to the hardness of his own heart: and Pharaoh, of his own mind and will, per- sisted in his opposition, till the Jews were irrecoverably delivered, and he with all his army were destroyed. Thus St. Peter told the Jews, that though Jesus had been " delivered according to the determinate counsel of God, they with wicked hands had crucified and slain himf." " As for God, he cannot be tempted of evil; neither tempteth he any mans." In all that those murderers did, they were voluntary agents, and put forth only the evil that was in their own hearts. Therefore to them, and to them alone, must be im- puted all the evil which they respectively committed.
But if we look to the facts, they will afford very
f Acts ii. 23. 8 James i. 13.