Gentlemen Moderators, Brethren and Sisters:

     I am before you again this morning to resume my affirmative argument. I believe I will first notice concerning the things said on yesterday afternoon: Some things that He fixed and not the cause of what He fixed. I would like to ask Elder West a short brief question on that: Would there have been anything here if there had been no God? That is the sense in which I believe that God is the first cause of all causes.

     Next, I will call to your attention one argument that I have already made which he referred to yesterday, briefly, concerning the king of Assyria. The tenth chapter, beginning with the fifth verse in Isaiah: "0 Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few. For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed His whole work."

     I want to pause briefly with the reading: "When the Lord hath performed His work." What work? When He performed the work of the correction of the children of Israel through the wickedness of their king: "upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man." I now want to read the fifteenth verse of the same chapter: "Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Thus, reads to the fourteenth verse and skipping to the fifteenth verse after beginning with verse 5. Now, beloved friends, I want to say that this old king thought that he was the only one that had anything to do with it. He was doing it according to his own will. He was doing it because he wanted to rob their treasures and wanted to tread them down as the mire of the streets. But I want to say, beloved friends, that back of all that, Almighty God has declared, ''I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge," and He said, "shall the axe boast against him that heweth therewith?" God is the one hewing with this axe. God is the one, and every stroke against the wickedness of this king of Assyria was a stroke of justice of Almighty God in correcting His people. And yet, at the same time, it was wickedness in the heart of the king of Assyria. That is the point I want to get before you.

     Now, yesterday my opponent brought up something about the fact that they hated Him without a cause. He said they hated Him without a cause. I want to give him another example of something that was done without a cause, and I want him to charge the same thing relative to that. We find, beloved friends, that Satan moved the Lord to destroy Job without cause. I will give you the citation later. I will withhold that argument until I find the Scripture. I had it here somewhere but I have misplaced it in my notes.

     How about God repenting, grieving in His heart? He made a big play on that. I wonder if that is his conception of the sovereign, the eternal and glorious God. That is like the little boy who started out to do something big. He started out to do something great and wonderful, but he stumped his toe and fell down and knocked his playhouse from underneath him. He sat down and he pulled his hair and acknowledged what a failure he had always been. "I don't have the power that I thought I had." That is what it means, in essence, if that is his application. I want to say, beloved friends, that Almighty God has all power in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places. If He wants to make a world be different, He would have had the power to make it that way; my opponent, if he wanted to make a chicken coop and had the power to make it and the material to make it from and knew how to make it, and had everything necessary for the completion of that coop, what would he be if he didn't make it like he wanted to? I want to say that I believe, and will continue to affirm, that He made the Antedeluvian world just exactly like He wanted it. And all the bounds and habitation of the people of the Antedeluvian world were set in that chapter there, "For yet man's days upon the earth shall be an hundred and twenty years." How many of that generation do you think lived 120 years? Now, I want to say, briefly, in connection with this proposition that he just mentioned, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Son of God, He being verily God and verily man, that He was the one that grieved and repented, and the only one that had a heart; predestinating the time when the Lord should come, when Jesus should die on Calvary's cross. In another place, he says, "I am God and not man that I should repent." And so, brethren and sisters, I want to say that if he thinks that God made the same kind of failure as he does and as I do, and as everyone else does, we might just as well turn around and make us one of wood or stone.

     The Scripture I was searching for a while ago was Job ii. 3. He said that Satan moved Him to destroy Job without a cause. Did God ever do anything without a cause? I think it is readily understood by all intelligent people that it was because He had previously stated in His conversation to Satan. He said, "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in all the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?" And so Satan moved him without any cause of iniquity in Job to destroy him. So, there is his argument.

     Now, I want to make an argument on Hebrews ii. 10; Romans xi. 36, and Colossians i. 17.

     ELDER WEST: Will you please quote them separately?

     ELDER RHODES: Hebrews ii. 10. I want you to get the force of this argument: "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." That is the reading from Hebrews. Next, I will cite Romans xi. 36. I think I can quote it but I will read it: "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen." Now Colossians i. 17: "And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." The question with me, interpreting this argument, my worthy opponent, is this: How can all things be by Him, and for Him, and of Him, and to Him, and before Him, and by Him all things consist, and yet God not predestinate any of it? All things are of Him, and to Him, and by Him and before Him. All things. It means all things.

     Now, yesterday he said that I had not used the Scriptures that had predestination in it. Everyone that I have used had predestination in it. I understand the sense in which he meant that.

     Ephesians i. 4 to 12: "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

     "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus"-from where and to where? "Unto the adoption of children" from sin and wickedness and degradation. "'Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to. the good pleasure of His will." Do you reckon predestination comes anywhere within 100 miles of where these children were? How could He predestinate to adopt them from sin and wickedness and into God's heavenly family if he did not predestinate the condition which they were in, and that condition was made manifest through the eating of the forbidden fruit, that we have already discussed? I say, emphatically, beloved friends, that the word predestination here-that he cannot escape it by any reasonable consequences, that He came in direct contact, and is co-extensive with that period of adoption. He cannot escape it. “To the praise of the glory of His grace, where in He has made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches of His grace; wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in Him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will:" Who worketh? Not only is it predestinated, my friends, but God's sovereign manipulation, and through His wisdom and in His power, He works all things after the counsel of His will-after the counsel of His own will.

     ELDER WEST: Hold his time. If, when I go into the negative of this proposition which he is affirming, and I say that he has said that God works everything, will that be charging consequences?

     ELDER RHODES: In our belief, it would be, Elder West.

     ELDER WEST: You have said that?

     ELDER RHODES: I certainly said that, and mean it.

     ELDER WEST: Is that charging consequences?

     MODERATOR SMITH: That is not regardless of predestination or foreknowledge. You are now violating the rules which we agreed upon to be governed by.

     ELDER WEST: I am rising to a point of order and not interrupting or heckling. You are holding his time. I am not heckling him at all. I am asking the question. I am asking the moderator, sir, the question if when I get up there and state that he has said that God works everything, if that is charging consequences? Am I violating the rules?

     MODERATOR SMITH: You are, unless you make the explanation made in the third chapter of the London Confession, "Nor is violence offered to the will of the creature."

     ELDER RHODES: Romans xi. 7, 8,9 and 10: "What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a srumblingblock, and a recompense unto them; let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway." Here we find that he is referring what was referred to in Psalm i, and repeated again in Romans, that God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear. First Peter ii. 8: "And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed." Here, my brethren, the Scripture says that their disobedience was appointed, and yet, my friends, I believe that the devil was the one that prompts every spirit of disobedience. That is the plain, simple Word of God. I will let him give me a reason as to why that is not so.

     Matthew xxvii. 34 to 36: “They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink. And they crucified Him and parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." This took place, my friends, long after the prophet wrote it, and they did these things that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. I say, that if they had failed to have done this, and yet they did it with every evil intention, as if God had no word of prophecy behind it-they did it freely, because they were wicked. They wanted to torture Him. They wanted to slay Him, and yet, the Scripture had gone before and said that it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. I have already presented that argument. It pleased the Lord. "Thou canst have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above" I have already made that argument.

     Now, I want to say, right here, that my opponent reminds me of a little schoolboy once who deserved my sympathy, and he had it. He had a poor mind, if my opponent will allow me to be that liberal in my statement. This little boy and I were going to school together to my older sister who was a teacher. He has been trying and trying to hold my speech just to the pure, unadulterated word "predestination," He doesn't want me to use any definition from the dictionary. I have already given him more of that word in this speech than he needs. But he wants to hold me down to that word. I read the definition. They have been given in this debate. So, I think my opponent falls out with Webster when he says that it is the unchangeable purpose of an unchangeable God, as I recited it to him yesterday. “Why,” he says, "now, Webster, just predestination; just predestination; just predestination. It just means predestination." My sister was teaching the primary arithmetic or mathematics grade, and there were several very bright and snappy children, and then, she came to this little fellow and she said, "How much are 2 and 1?" Instead of solving the problem and giving the answer, he said, "2 and I." My opponent reminds me of that little boy in the definition of the proposition here.

     Now, I want to give him some more of that "all things." "All things under heaven; everything that is done under heaven," I wonder if that means all things. Ecclesiastes i. 12 and 15: "And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven," We are not considering anything else, are we, Elder West? “This sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith," I have already given him that argument, and I want to say, my friends, that it means all things done under heaven. "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun: and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered." So, you see, it has reference to all things done under heaven. How can they be exercised thereby if they do not do them? Do you believe you can do them and fail to be exercised thereby?

     Ecclesiastes i. 9 and 10. “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us." How was it in old times before us? It was in the foreknowledge, the counsel, or purpose, or predestination of Almighty God, That is how it was, my friends, and my opponent cannot get around it.

     Ecclesiastes iii. 1 to 17: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to breakdown, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to laugh, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth?" I say, my friends, there is a time for every purpose under heaven and not only a time, but a season for that purpose, and when the time comes, for war, no matter what the peace discussions have been, no matter what treaties have been signed, when the time comes for war, it is a time for war.

Time expired.