There is no class of men who dwell with more frequency and apparent reverence, upon the truth, that “secret things belong to God,” and those and those only, “that are revealed to us;” that “none by searching can find out God;” that “as the heavens are high above the earth, so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts;” and that it is the height of presumption in us, to pretend to understand God’s mode of knowing and acting. None are more ready to talk of mysteries in religion than they. Yet, strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that their whole argument, drawn from the Divine foreknowledge, against the doctrine of Liberty, and in favor of that of Necessity, is based entirely upon the assumption that they have found out and fully understand the mode of the Divine prescience of human conduct; that they have so measured and determined the “ways and thoughts” of God, that they know that he cannot foresee any but necessary events; that among many events, all in themselves equally possible, and none of them necessary in distinction from others, he cannot foreknow which, in fact, will arise. We may properly ask the Necessitarian whence he obtained this knowledge, so vast and deep; whence he has thus “found out the Almighty to perfection?” To me, the pretension to such knowledge appears more like presumption than that deep self-distrust and humiliation which becomes the Finite in the presence of the Infinite. This knowledge has not been obtained from revelation. God has never told us that He can foresee none but necessary events. Whether He can or cannot foresee events free as well as necessary, is certainly one of the “secret things” which God has not revealed. If we admit ourselves ignorant of the mode of God’s fore-knowledge of future events (and who will dare deny the existence of such ignorance in his own case?), the entire argument of the Necessitarian, based upon that fore-knowledge, in favor of his doctrine, falls to the ground at once.