For this eternal truth is given;
That God will force no man to heaven.
He'll draw, persuade, direct aright,
And bless with wisdom, love, and light;
In nameless ways be good and kind
But never force the human mind."
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life that thou and thy seed may live. That thou mayst love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayst obey his voice, and that thou mayst cleave with him; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayst dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."[1] It is true, that a child cannot exercise this choice; but it shows that the choice exists, and that it is natural to man, and that, therefore, there is no such thing as predestination to hell. A child is accepted not from the presence of actual good, but because of the absence of actual evil. Nothing but actual sin can exclude from the divine presence, for where it is not, there cannot be any crime, and without crime justice cannot condemn. It may be urged, that if children have not actual
- ↑ 30 Deut. 19, 20.
