Wodrow:

The conference itself stands thus: "At Paris, Agust 2, 1623, in the of Dr. Arbald, physician, in presence of the Rev. Mons. Mestrezat and Drillincourt, ministers of Paris, De Courcelles, and Dr. Arbald, a friendly conference was held betwixt the Rev. and learned Mon. Cameron and Mon. De Courcelles, minister of Ambien, upon severall weighty subjects relating to the saving grace of God in Christ, and its reception. The last defended the opinions of the Remonstrants; and the first, those of the Anti- Remonstrants. They first setled their order and method of proceeding, with the state of the questions to be handled. Curcellaeus, in the first room, asked Mons. Cameron, What he held to be the object of predestination? whether man to be created (creabilem), or created but in puris naturalibus (as they speak), in his pure natural state? or if he held it to be man as a sinner, as having broken the covenant of nature? or, lastly, whether it was man, guilty, indeed, of breaking the covenant of nature, but embracing the covenant of grace, that is, repenting and believing? Mr. Cameron answered, by distinguishing the decrees of God as to man’s salvation, into two decrees, or two members (according to our way of conceving) of the same decrees: the one about the giving of salvation and eternall life; the other about giving of faith, quhich is the condition of the new Covenant. The last decree he termed, our election to Christ, (ad Christum); the first, our election in Christ. The object of the first decree, he said, was man believing and as believing, which Curcellaeus willingly went into; the object of the last, he said, was only man as a sinner. This Curcellaeus granted also, upon the supposition of such a decree. This distinction Cameron proved from Eph. i. 4, 5. The first decree he founded on, chosen in Christ–the second on, our being predestinat to receive the adoption of children; and quhen Curcellaeus objected, that the last expression of the apostle, v. 5, might be exegeticall of the first, Mr. Cameron showed the absurdity of this sense, that it would really be to make Paul to say, as he elected us, quhen he elected us. Mr. Cameron further explained this distinction of the decrees, by asserting that God has a double schesis and relation to man in this matter; one as a just and supreme judge sitting upon a throne of justice, pronouncing sentence from the law and gospel. In this respect he pronounces these and these only just, who, being in themselves sinners, by faith are made members of Christ, the fidejussor or surety. The other is that of the Supreme Rector of the world preparing an object to himself, which he does by effectuall calling us to Christ. In the first schesis, God considers none but as they are members of Christ, that is, believing, and determines they shall be saved. By the second schesis, he decrees to bring severall to the fellowship of Christ by faith; and of this decree its impossible that man believing can be the object. For, said he, the decree of election to Christ, is not in Christ, nor the decree to faith, is not in faith. But of the other decree, man repenting and believing is the object. But lest this condition of faith might seem, both in the decree and its execution, to exclude children, Mr. Cameron restricted it to the adult who only could believe; but then, he added, infants wer saved as appendages (appendices) of their parents, pertaining to the Covenant. And to illustrat this, he cited Aristotle, in his Ethicks, putting the question, whether the children of citizens wer to be reckoned citizens, and enjoy their priviledges, when commonly those are only esteemed citizens who can take an oath of fidelity to the prince, and fill up their duty to ye prince and their fellow-citizens; yet children, by reason of their nonage, are uncnpable of either. . . Curcelleus acquiesced in Mr. Cameron’s opinion, concerning the decree of giving salvation and life; but delayed the approbation of the decree of election to Christ, and to faith, as what would fall in afterwards; and, next, asked Mr. Cameron’s opinion of the object of the decree of reprobation. He ansvered, that followed pretty clearly from what he had said as to the decree of election, to wit, all that are not members of Christ, that is, such as do not believe and repent–quhich generall expressions, he said, comprehended both such as rejected the grace of Christ, offered most clearly in the gospell dispensation; and those who, although they never heard the gospell preached, yet, being invited by a more sparing and darker grace of the Redeemer, to repentance and seeking after God, because of their contempt of the long-suffering, patience, and goodnes of God, richly testifyed to them, will be numbered with the rejecters of the gospell, as unbelieving and impenitent, by Him who, searching their hearts and reins, certainly knows them to be of the very same temper, and that, although the gospell offer had been made to them, they would still have remained impenitent and unbelieving, unless he himself had wrought that in them which he had decreed not to work, and only works in the elect. Robert Wodrow, Collections Upon the Lives of the Reformers and Most Eminent Ministers of the Church of Scotland (Glasow: Edward Khull, Printer to the University, 1845), 2: 183-184, 185. [Spelling original, italics original; and underlining mine.]

[Note: What Cameron says here is identical in sentiment to that of Twisse here. Cameron and Twisse are mirroring the ealier Reformed distinction of predestination to salvation and predestination to faith. The former is a conditional decree, the latter is an absolute decree. At no point in this distinction is Cameron being novel or heretical.]

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