When the freedom of the will is considered in relation to religion, then
it bears a totally different aspect. If the will be not free, religion,
as a personal matter, falls to the ground, for its very essence is man's
voluntary choice of God.

Here too those who deny the freedom of man's will doctrinally yet accept
it as a working fact. Calvin, whose theory of Predestination and
Irresistible Grace seems to exclude man from any co-operation in his own
salvation, yet preached a Gospel not to be distinguished from that of
John Wesley!

For us Christians the freedom of the will is absolutely settled by Him
Who says, "Whosoever will let him come."

If you are sometimes troubled by certain passages in Scripture which
seem to imply that God's predestination overrides man's will, remember,
that whenever we are considering any question which concerns both God's
nature and man's nature, difficulty must arise, from the very fact that
our finite mind can only comprehend, and that but imperfectly, man's
side of the transaction. Things which now seem incompatible, such as
prayer and law; miracle and, what we are pleased to call, nature; God's
foreknowledge and man's free-will in the light of eternity will be seen
as only complementary parts of one divine whole.

Remember too that you must take the general bearing of Scripture; not
isolated passages in which, for the necessity of the argument, one side
is strongly emphasised. The Apostle who, thinking of the boundless power
of God's grace, says, "So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" (Rom. ix. 16) is the one
who says "He willeth that all men should be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4).