the late Robert Hall, whose character and talents were calculated to exercise a powerful influence upon (others, that when writing to a friend, and adverting to the asperity displayed by Toplady, he says, "I have just been reading Dr. Whitehead's Life of Wesley. It has given me a much more enlarged idea of the virtues and labours of that extraordinary man, than I ever had before. I would not incur the guilt of that virulent abuse which Toplady cast upon him, for points merely speculative, and of very little importance, for ten thousand worlds. When will the Christian world cease disputing about religion, and begin to enter into its spirit, and practise its precepts?" This day we hope is approaching, and the existence of events by which good men are called to meet together on occasions which concern the common Christianity, and dissolve the frigid contractions of suspicion in the glowing ardour of the same element of love and zeal, is rapidly bringing it

near.

The spirit of unity and co-operation found to exist amongst missionaries of different bodies in distant lands, not only

* It is pleasing to know that a very different state of feeling exists now amongst Missionaries to that which existed with those sent out in the ship Duff, in 1797, to the islands of the South Seas. Amongst the persons who accompanied them, was a Methodist, by the name of Jefferies, a blacksmith by trade. This man, zealous to assist in spreading Christianity amongst the heathen, offered to accompany the Missionaries. In doing this, he avowed his sentiments to be Arminian. His manly frankness, and evident piety, won upon the directors, while his being a blacksmith, it was rightly judged by them, would render him a valuable acquisition to the mission; and they accordingly acted up to the principles upon which this institution was professed to be founded, that of uniting with, and receiving aid from Christians of any and every section of the Church. Not so, however, the Missionaries; for after they had embarked, they drew up a creed highly Calvinistic, and insisted upon his subscribing it, threatening to have no further intercourse with him, if he did not comply. His conscience would not permit him to do it, and they acted up to their threat. After landing, he was disregarded, nay deserted by them. Eleven of them, however, it is known,

realizes, so far as regards themselves, the event ardently wished for by Mr. Hall, but the report of it tends to promote a similar state of feeling at home: and, while the mitigated Calvinism of the present day, and the spirit of tolerance that prevails, throw into the shade the rigidness of the Geneva doctrines of the Synod of Dort, and the exclusive spirit that governed many, especially its Dutch members; and the ascendancy obtained by the doctrines of the Remonstrants, with the toleration and unity amongst Christians, is a realization of events for which they so seriously laboured, so the present state of things may be considered indicative of still better days. And though we do not expect to behold the præclarum diem, when men shall see eye to eye, yet we rejoice to believe that that period will ere long arrive, when every section of the Christian Church will have as the grand object of all its labours, the preparing the way for the coming of that day when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea;—and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd, and CHRIST BE ALL, and IN ALL.

soon quitted the island, and went to New South Wales; the rest were discountenanced by the natives; but Jefferies, on account of his trade, was deemed so important a personage by them as to be treated with the utmost consideration. At this time, he acted the part of blacksmith and preacher of the Gospel amongst them; and, by his labours chiefly, under the blessing of God, that work was for some time carried on, which has now so amazingly extended in that part of the globe. His amiable conduct prepared the way for three of these Missionaries to be allowed to join him in his efforts to establish Christianity amongst the natives, before the arrival of others sent out to them in the year 1800, in the Royal Admiral.

This information is from the nephew of Captain Wilson, who commanded the ship Duff, and from a missionary who has laboured in the South Sea Islands.

APPENDIX.

I. ON PREDESTINATION.

1. God never decreed to elect any man to eternal life or to reprobate him from it, by his mere will and pleasure, without any regard to his foreseen obedience or disobedience, in order to demonstrate the glory of his mercy and justice, or of his power or absolute dominion.

2. As the decree of God concerning both the salvation and the destruction of every man is not the decree of an end absolutely fixed, it follows that neither are such means subordinated to that decree as through them both the elect and the reprobate may efficaciously and inevitably be brought to the destined end.

3. Wherefore, neither did God with this design in one man, Adam, create all men in an upright condition, nor did he ordain the fall or even its permission, nor did he withdraw from Adam necessary and sufficient grace, nor does he now cause the Gospel to be preached and men to be outwardly called, nor does he confer on them the gifts of the Holy Spirit,-[he has done none of these things with the design] that they should be means by which he might bring some of mankind to life everlasting, and leave others of them destitute of eternal life. Christ the Mediator is not only the executor of election, but also the foundation of the very decree of election itself. The reason why some men are efficaciously called, justified, persevere in faith, and are glorified, is not because they are absolutely elected to life eternal: nor is the reason why others are deserted and left in the fall, have not Christ bestowed upon them, or, further, why they are inefficaciously called, are hardened and damned, because these men are absolutely reprobated from eternal life.

4. God has not decreed, without the intervening of actual sins, to leave by far the greater part of mankind in the fall, and excluded from all hope of salvation.

5. God has ordained that Christ shall be the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world; and, in virtue of this decree, he has determined to justify and save those who believe in him, and to administer to men the means which are necessary and sufficient for faith, in such a manner as he knows to be befitting his wisdom and justice. But he has not in any wise determined, in virtue of an absolute decree, to give Christ as a Mediator for the

elect only, and to endow them alone with faith through an effectual call, to justify them, to preserve them in the faith, and to glorify them.

6. Neither is any man by some absolute antecedent decree rejected from life eternal, nor from means sufficient to attain it: so that the merits of Christ, calling, and all the gifts of the Spirit, are capable of profiting all men for their salvation, and are in reality profitable to all men, unless by an abuse of these blessings they pervert them to their own destruction. But no man whatever is destined to unbelief, impiety, or the commission of sin, as the means and causes of his damnation.

7. The election of particular persons is absolute, from consideration of their faith in Jesus Christ and their perseverance, but not without consideration of their faith and of their perseverance in true faith as a prerequisite condition in electing them.

8. Reprobation from eternal life is made according to the consideration of preceding unbelief and perseverance in the same, but not without consideration of preceding unbelief or perseverance in it.

9. All the children of believers are sanctified in Christ; so that not one of them perishes who departs out of this life prior to the use of reason, But no children of believers who depart out of this life in their infancy, and before they have in their own persons committed any sin, are on any account to be reckoned in the number of the reprobate: so as that neither the sacred laver of baptism is, nor are the prayers of the church, by any means capable of profiting them to salvation.

10. No children of believers who have been baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Ghost, and while in a the state of infancy, are by an absolute decree numbered among the reprobate.

II. On the universality of the merit of Christ. 1. The price of redemption which Christ offered to his Father is in and of itself not only sufficient for the redemption of the whole human race, but it is also, through the decree, the will, and the grace of God the Father, been paid for all men and every man; and therefore no one is by an absolute and antecedent decree of God positively excluded from all participation in the fruits of the death of Christ.

2. Christ, by the merit of his death, has thus far reconciled God the Father to the whole of mankind,-that he can and will, without injury to his justice and truth, enter into and establish a new covenant of grace with sinners and men obnoxious to damnation.

3. Though Christ has merited for all men and for every man reconciliation with God and forgiveness of sins, yet, according to the tenor or terms of the new and gracious covenant, no man is in reality made a partaker of the benefits procured by the death of Christ in any other way than through neither are the trespasses and offences of sinful men forgiven prior

faith;