In order that God shall be the Ruler of the world, and its providence, he must know the course of events, and determine them. In order that man shall be responsible, and a moral being, he must be free to choose, at every moment, between right and wrong, good and evil. In part of his nature and life, man is a creature of destiny; in part, he is the creator of destiny. Every man’s character is the result of three factors—organization, education, and freedom. The character he has now has come to him, partly from the organization with which he was born, partly from the influences by which he has been educated, and partly from what he has done or omitted to do at every moment of his life. Now, the two first of these factors are out of his power. A man born in Africa, or descended from Chinese parents, cannot, by any choice or effort, become what a man born of French or German parents may become. A man born among the Turks or Arabs, and educated by the circumstances surrounding him there, _must_ be a wholly different man from one born in New England. Man’s freedom, therefore, may be likened to the power of the helmsman to direct a vessel. He cannot determine what sort of a vessel he shall be in, nor what sort of weather or currents shall come: all he can do at any moment is to steer it to the right or left. If, now, in steering, he guides himself by a compass turning to a fixed point, and by a chart giving the true position of continents and islands, then this power enables him, in spite of storms and calms, to take the vessel round the world, to the harbor he seeks. But if he has no chart and compass, but steers as he chooses from moment to moment, he goes nowhere. His vessel will then drift before the steady winds and constant currents. So is human freedom a great power when it guides itself by eternal truths and fixed laws. But if it does not, then it is not freedom, but only wilfulness, and it accomplishes nothing. Man’s freedom is thus surrounded by divine providence. God determines the original organization of every human being; God determines the circumstances which educate him; and God has fixed the laws by which he must guide himself in order to become really free. He cannot therefore resist the divine will, except temporarily. He can postpone the _time_ when God’s kingdom shall come, and his will be done; but that is all. § 4. History of the Doctrine of Election and Predestination. Before Augustine, all the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church taught the concurrence of free will and grace in human conversion. They taught that man must begin the work, and that God would aid him. God and man must work together.