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He then led the conversation to the religious controversies in the Netherlands, and in reply to his enquiries was informed that the points in dispute related to predestination and its consequences. "I have studied that subject," said James, "as well as anybody, and have come to the conclusion that nothing certain can be laid down in regard to it.
This impression is strengthened, in a stranger, by the grave and astoundingly patient attention that is given an illiterate or nearly illiterate minister while he holds forth for two or three mortal hours on the beauties of predestination, free-will, foreordination, immersion, foot-washing, or on the delinquencies of "them acorn-fed critters that has gone New Light over in Cope's Cove."
And yet if we allow him these attributes there is no help for us, headlong we go into the dark and fathomless doctrine of predestination, than which no religious doctrine is so consistent or so revolting.
Is it not intolerable to take up three bulky pamphlets against a recent Sect, denounced as most dangerous, and which we all know to be most powerful and of rapid increase, and to find little more than a weak declamatory abuse of certain metaphysical dogmas concerning free will, or free will forfeited, 'de libero vel servo arbitrio' of grace, predestination, and the like; dogmas on which, according to Milton, God and the Logos conversed, as soon as man was in existence, they in heaven, and Adam in paradise, and the devils in hell; dogmas common to all religions, and to all ages and sects of the Christian religion; concerning which Brahmin disputes with Brahmin, Mahometan with Mahometan, and Priestley with Price; and all this to be laid on the shoulders of the Methodists collectively: though it is a notorious fact, that a radical difference on this abstruse subject is the ground of the schism between the Whitfieldite and Wesleyan Methodists; and that the latter coincide in opinion with Erasmus and Arminius, by which latter name they distinguish themselves; and the former with Luther, Calvin, and their great guide, St.
And yet there are some people who laugh to scorn the doctrines of Calvin, and say there is no such thing as predestination. Is there not predestination? Was not I predestined to be born in a gaol and reared in a gutter, educated among swindlers and scoundrels, fed upon stolen victuals, and clad in garments never to be paid for?
"Why do you say that?" said the Philosopher. "We were having a great argument along the road, and if we were to be talking from now to the dav of doom that argument would never be finished." "It must have been a great argument. Was it about predestination or where consciousness comes from?" "It was not; it was which of these two men was to marry me."
"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."
And if it be true that some kind of predestination governs every circumstance of life, it appears to be no less true that such predestination exists in our character only; and to modify character must surely be easy to the man of unfettered will, for is it not constantly changing in the lives of the vast bulk of men?
He had recommended mutual toleration of religious difference until otherwise ordained by the public civil authority, and had declared that neither of the two opinions in regard to predestination was in his opinion far from the truth or inconsistent with Christian faith or the salvation of souls.
In strict logic no doubt the same numbing effect might be alleged about the Christian doctrine of predestination. Even when misfortune has overtaken an educated Hindu, I think I am justified in saying that the more frequent thought with him is now in keeping with the new theistic belief; the misfortune is referred to the will of God.
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