"I
see in one place, God presiding over all in providence; and yet I see and I
cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his
actions to his own will, in a great measure. Now, if I were to declare that man
was so free to act, that there was no precedence of God over his actions, I
should be driven very near to Atheism; and if, on the other hand, I declare
that God so overrules all things, as that man is not free enough to be
responsible, I am driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God
predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They
are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just
the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each
other. If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained,
that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all
his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two
truths can ever contradict each other. These two truths, I do not believe, can
ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in
eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that
shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do
converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God,
whence all truth doth spring ....You ask me to reconcile the two. I answer,
they do not want any reconcilement; I never tried to reconcile them to myself,
because I could never see a discrepancy .... Both are true; no two truths can
be inconsistent with each other; and what you have to do is to believe them
both."
