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At the beginning of the walk, Sanin, as the elder, and so more reflective, turned the conversation on fate and predestination, and the nature and meaning of man's destiny; but the conversation quickly took a less serious turn.
"He knew nothing of predestination," he was wont to say, "whether it was green or whether it was blue. He only knew that his pipe and the Advocate's were not likely to make music together."
These, and other more subtile questions like the nature of angels began to agitate the convent in the ninth century. It was then that the monk Gottschalk revived the question of predestination, which had slumbered since the time of Saint Augustine.
The dispute still continuing with much bitterness, in 1611 the States of Holland ordered the principal Ministers of the two parties to appear before them: Twelve accordingly attended, six Arminians and six Gomarists, and disputed in presence of the States on Predestination, the Death of Christ, the necessity and nature of Grace and Perseverance.
I trust that his Majesty can admit different sentiments on predestination and its consequences, and that in a kingdom where the supreme civil authority defends religion the system of the Puritans will have no foothold."
But neither despair nor blasphemy nor hymn helped in any way. The destruction seemed as irresistible, perfect, and pitiless as Predestination itself. Around Pompey's Amphitheatre stores of hemp caught fire, and ropes used in circuses, arenas, and every kind of machine at the games, and with them the adjoining buildings containing barrels of pitch with which ropes were smeared.
There were many other special instances which, for the sake of brevity, I here omit. Not the least affecting among them were those where there was manifested the eternal predestination which has mercifully provided for many at the hour of death the resource of baptism. Our ministries in behalf of the Spaniards were no less fervent at this time.
For example, God hath created a relation between the sun and the terrestrial globe that the rays of the sun should shine and the soil should yield. These relationships constitute predestination, and the manifestation thereof in the plane of existence is fate. Will is that active force which controlleth these relationships and these incidents.
He then rapidly reviewed the causes which had produced the alienation of which he complained and the melancholy divisions caused by the want of mutual religious toleration in the Provinces; spoke of his efforts to foster a spirit of conciliation on the dread subject of predestination, and referred to the letter of the King of Great Britain deprecating discussion and schism on this subject, and urging that those favourable to the views of the Remonstrants ought not to be persecuted.
On the other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees everything. Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of freewill and predestination."
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