not only 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 among 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 be. lieve 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.

and they acted up to their threat. After landing, he was disregarded, nay, deserted by them. Eleven of them, however, it is known, 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 among 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 among 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.

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APPENDIX.

1. 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 dóminion.

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 abso lutely elected to life eternal: nor is the reason why others are deserted and left in the fall, have not Christ bestowed upon them, or, farther, 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 adminis ter 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 ro. jected 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, unicss by an abuse of these blessings they pervert them to their own destruction. But no man whatever is des tined 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 com. mitted 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 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 has 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, with out 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 faith; neither are the trespasses and offences of sinful men forgiven prior to their actually and truly believing in Christ.

4. Those only for whom Christ has died are obliged to believe that Christ has died for them. But those whom they call reprobates, and for whom Christ has not died, can neither be obliged so to believe, nor can they be justly condemned for the contrary unbelief; but if such persons were reprobates, they would be obliged to believe that Christ has not died for them.

III. and IV. On the operation of grace in the conversion of man. 1. Man has not saving faith from and of himself, nor has he it

from the powers of his own free will; because in a state of sin he is able from and of himself to think, will, or do nothing that is good, nothing that is indeed savingly good; of which description, in the first place, is saving faith. But it is necessary that, by God in Christ through his Holy Spirit, he should be regenerated and renewed in his understanding, affections, will, and in all his powers, that he may be capable of rightly understanding, meditating, will. ing, and performing such things as are savingly good.

2. We propound the grace of God to be the beginning, the progress, and the completion of every good thing; so that even the man who is born again is not able without this preceding and pre. venient, this exciting and following, this accompanying and cooperating grace, to think, to will, or to perform any good, or to resist any temptations to evil: so that good works, and the good actions which any one is able to find out by thinking, are to be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ.

3. Yet we do not believe that all the zeal, care, study, and pains, which are employed to obtain salvation, before faith and the Spirit of renovation, are vain and useless; much less do we believe that they are more hurtful to man than profitable. But, on the con. trary, we consider that to hear the word of God, to mourn on ac. count of the commission of sin, and earnestly to seek and desire saving grace and the Spirit of renovation, (none of which is any man capable of doing without Divine grace,) are not only not hurtful and useless, but that they are rather most useful and exceedingly necessary for obtaining faith and the Spirit of rénovation.

-4. The will of man in a lapsed or fallen state, and before the call of God, has not the capability and liberty of willing any good that is of a saving nature, and therefore we deny that the liberty of will. ing as well what is a saving good as what is an evil, is present to the human will in every state or condition.

5. Efficacious grace, by which any man is converted, is not irresistible: and though God so affects the will of man by his word and the inward operation of his Spirit, as to confer upon him a capa. bility of believing, or supernatural power, and actually causes man to believe; yet man is of himself capable to spurn and reject this grace, and not believe; and, therefore, also, to perish through his own culpability.

6. Although, according to the most free and unrestrained will of God, there is very great disparity or inequality of Divine grace, yet the Holy Spirit either bestows, or is ready to bestow, upon all and upon every one to whom the word of faith is preached, as much grace as is sufficient to promote in its gradations the conversion of men; and therefore grace sufficient for faith and conversion is con. ceded not only to those whom God is said to be willing to save according to his decree of absolute election, but likewise to those who are in reality not converted.

7. Man is able, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, to do more good than he actually does, and to omit more evil than he actually omits. Neither do we believe that God absolutely wills that man should do no more good than that which he does, and to omit no more evil than that which he omits; nor do we believe it to have been deter.

minately decreed from all eternity that each of such acts should be so done or omitted.

8. Whomsoever God calls, he calls them seriously, that is, with a sincere and not with a dissembled intention and will of saving them. Neither do we subscribe to the opinion of those persons who assert that God outwardly calls certain men whom he does not will to call inwardly, that is, whom he is unwilling to be truly converted, even prior to their rejection of the grace of calling.

9. There is not in God a secret will of that kind which is so opposed to his will revealed in his word, that according to this same secret will he does not will the conversion and salvation of the greatest part of those whom, by the word of his Gospel, and by his revealed will, he seriously calls and invites to faith and sal.

vation.

10. Neither on this point do we admit of a holy dissimulation, as it is the manner of some men to speak, or of a twofold person in the Deity.

11. It is not true that, through the force and efficacy of the secret will of God or of the Divine decree, not only are all good things necessarily done, but likewise all evil things; so that whosoever commit sin, they are not able, in respect of the Divine decree, to do otherwise than commit sin; and that God wills, decrees, and is the manager of men's sins, and of their insane, foolish, and cruel actions, also of the sacrilegious blasphemy of his own name; that he moves the tongues of men to blaspheme, &c.

12. We also consider it to be a false and horrible dogma, that God by secret means impels men to the commission of those sins which he openly prohibits; that those who sin do not act in opposition to the true will of God, and that which is properly so called; that what is unjust, that is, what is contrary to God's command, is agreeable to his will; nay, farther, that it is a real and capital fault to do the will of God.

V. On the perseverance of true believers in faith, 1. The perseverance of believers in faith is not the effect of that absolute decree of God by which he is said to have elected or chosen particular persons circumscribed with no condition of their obedience.

2. God furnishes true believers with supernatural powers or strength of grace, as much as according to his infinite wisdom he judges to suffice for their perseverance, and for their overcoming the temptations of the devil, the flesh, and the world; and on the part of God stands nothing to hinder them from persevering.

3. It is possible for true believers to fall away from true faith, and to fall into sins of such a description as cannot consist with a true and justifying faith; nor is it only possible for them thus to fall, but such lapses not unfrequently occur.

4. True believers are capable by their own fault of falling into flagrant crimes and atrocious wickedness, to persevere and die in them, and therefore finally to fall away and to perish.

5. Yet though true believers sometimes fall into grievous sins, and such as destroy the conscience, we do not believe that they im. mediately fall away from all hope of repentance; but we acknow