CAMERON, JOHN (c. 1579-1625), Scottish theologian, born at Glasgow about 1579, received his early education in his native city. After having taught Greek in the university for 12 months, he went to France, where he lectured at Bordeaux and Sedan. He then travelled in Germany and Switzerland with the sons of Calignon, chancellor of Navarre, and in 1618, was ap pointed professor of divinity at Saumur, the principal seminary of the French Protestants.
In 1620 the civil troubles in France drove Cameron to England. In 1622 the king appointed him principal of the University of Glasgow in the room of Robert Boyd. Cameron was prepared to accept Episcopacy, and was cordially disliked for his adherence to the doctrine of passive obedience. He resigned his office in less than a year.
He returned to France, and there again made many enemies by his doctrine of passive obedience. He was stabbed in the street at Montauban in 1625, and died of the wound. His collected works, which were written some in French, some in Latin, were collected (in Latin) and published at Geneva in 1642, with a memoir by Cappel.
Cameron has a distinct place in the development of Calvinistic theology. He and his followers maintained that the will of man is determined by the practical judgment of the mind; that the cause of men's doing good or evil proceeds from the knowledge which God infuses into them ; and that God does not move the will physically, but only morally, by virtue of its dependence on the judgment of the mind. This peculiar doctrine of grace and free-will was adopted by Amyraut, Cappel, Bochart, Daille and others of the more learned among the Reformed ministers, who dissented from Calvin's. The Cameronites (not to be confused with the Scottish sect called Cameronians) are moderate Calvin ists, and approach to the opinion of the Arminians. They are also called Universalists, as holding the universal reference of Christ's death ; and sometimes Amyraldists.