In justice however to the large class of Christians under the despotic and truly lamentable influence of this belief, the Author is bound to admit that they are far more consistent and logical in their notions of Deity than perhaps any other section of Theists, for it cannot properly be denied that the doctrine of an Omnipotent and Prescient God destroys all distinction of virtue and vice, justice and injustice, right and wrong, among men.  Let the omnipotency and prescience of a First Cause be granted, the corollary of ‘whatever is, is right,’ is one of the most obvious that can flow from any proposition:  the distance of any link in the eternal sequence cannot lessen the connection with a First Cause, admitting its Omnipotency and Prescience.

The author of these detestable paragraphs admits both.  He is a rigid Predestinarian, which no one can be who doubts the all powerfulness or foreknowledge of that God whom Christians worship.  Taking Scripture as his guide, the Predestinarian must needs believe some are foredoomed to Hell, and some to Hell, irrespective of all merit; it being manifestly absurd to suppose one man can deserve more or less than another, in a world, where all are compelled to believe, feel, and act, as they do believe, feel, and act.  The disgrace attached to the memory of Judas, supposing him really to have betrayed his Divine Master, has no foundation in human justice, for ‘surely as the Lord liveth,’ he was foredoomed, and therefore compelled to betray him.  Luther saw that truth, and had the good sense to avow it.  No more rational or just are the denunciations of Judas than those so unsparingly heaped upon the Jews for crucifying the Redeemer of the world, when every body must, or at least, should know, that admitting the world’s redemption depended upon the Crucifixion of Christ, if the Jews had not crucified him the world could not have been redeemed.  So far then from blackguarding Judas and the Jews for doing, what in the Gospel they are represented to have done, we should consider them rather as martyrs in the cause of Divine Providence than as villains worthy only of abhorrence and execration.  To the Author of this Apology it seems certain that if there is a God, such as the Christian delighteth to honour, nothing happens, nothing has happened, nothing can happen contrary to His will.  And is it not absurd to say that what He pre-ordains mere mortals can hinder coming to pass?  Even the Devil, believed in by Christians, is a creature—­how then could he be anything else than the Creator thought fit to make him?  Grant he is the Father of Lies, and then he will appear worthy of compassion, if you reflect that he was made so by the Father of Truth.  In the Tract to which such special reference has been made, it is contended that Adam was made not because he chose to be made, but because God chose to make him, and surely the same may be contended on the part of Judas, the Jews, and last, though, assuredly, not