“I repeat, father Grimshaw,” continued the elder, “no man is punished on account of predestination, but on account of his sins. Show me a man who feels that he must be lost by reason of the eternal decrees, and I promise to give up the doctrine.”
“I can’t for my life,” said father Grimshaw, “understand why some are chosen, and others are passed by.”
“No,” replied the elder, “if we understood that, Peter never would have said that Paul ‘wrote things hard to be understood.’ If we only knew what God’s reasons are, there would be no difficulty and no mystery in the doctrine of predestination. But we are told that the secret things belong unto the Lord, and those which are revealed are for us and our children.”
“Well, you Presbyterians,” said father Grimshaw, “have a way of getting around things so that it is hard to keep up with you. I cannot argue the point, but the doctrine looks strange to me—don’t look right somehow.”
“No,” replied the elder, “that is what people said in Paul’s day. It did not look right to some of the disciples of Christ, and they went back, and ‘walked with Him no more.’ People always have found fault with this doctrine, and I suppose will do so till the end of the world.”
“I must say,” spoke up a man by the name of Wallerton, “that Mr. Edgefield made it plain to my mind. I never knew before what Presbyterians do believe.”
“What!” exclaimed father Grimshaw, “are you going to turn Presbyterian?”
“Well,” answered Wallerton, “I fully endorse what Mr. Edgefield said yesterday. If that makes me a Presbyterian, I am one.”
“All may believe that please,” cried father Grimshaw, “but I never will. You may out-argue me, but you are not going to make me believe that predestination is right, no sir—never.”