sort of Utopia, a land of shadow and of fiction, where, wrapt in pleasing vision, credulity reposes on the lap of imposture. This sort of persons are so completely overcome by the inchantments of the present state, so intirely devoted to the wisdom which St. James denominates earthly and sensual, that they are incapable of being impressed with a conviction of the possibility of a higher order of objects, or a more elevated and refined condition of being, than that with which they are conversant, and though they may possess a subtle and penetrating genius, they are not less disqualified for religious inquiries than an idiot or an infant. They mind earthly things.

How far the indisposition to religious controversy, which prevails at present, may be justly described to this Sadducean temper, I shall not pretend to determine. It is certain, however, that in some this indisposition proceeds from a better cause. While the former class of persons think religion not worth disputing about, there are others who conceive it to be a subject too sacred for dispute. They wish to confine it to silent meditation, to sweeten solitude, to inspire devotion, to guide the practice, and purify the heart, and never to appear in public but in the character of the authentic

interpreter of the will of Heaven. They conceive it degraded whenever it is brought forward to combat on the arena. We are fully convinced, that a disputatious humour is unfavourable to piety; and, that controversies in religion have often been unnecessarily multiplied and extended; but how they can be dispensed with altogether, we are at a loss to discover, until some other method is discovered of confuting error, than sound and solid argument. As we no longer live in times (God be thanked !) when coercion can be employed, or when any individual, or any body of men, are invested with that authority which could silence disputes by an oracular decision, there appears no possibility of maintaining the interests of truth, without having recourse to temperate and candid controversy. Perhaps the sober use of this weapon may not be without its advantages, even at the present season. Prone as we are to extremes, may there not be some reason to apprehend, we have passed from that propensity to magnify every difference subsisting amongst christians, to a neglect of just discrimination, to a babit of contemplating the christian system as one in which there is little or nothing remains to be explored? Let us cultivate the most cordial esteem for all that love the Lord Jesus

Christ in sincerity. Let us anxiously guard against that asperity and contempt which have too often mingled with theological debates, but let us aim at the same time, to acquire and retain the most accurate conceptions of religious truth. Every improvement in the knowledge of Christ and the mysteries of his Gospel, will abundantly compensate for the labour and attention necessary to its attainment.

However unhappily controversies have too often been conducted, the assistance they have afforded in the discovery of truth, is not light or inconsiderable. Not to mention the Reformation, which was principally effected by controversy, how many truths have by this means been set in a clearer view; and, while the unhappy passions it has awakened have subsided, the light struck out in the collision has been retained and perpetuated.

As the physical powers are scarcely ever exerted to their utmost extent, but in the order of combat, so intellectual acumen has been displayed to the most advantage, and to the most effect, in the contests of argument. The mind of a controversialist warmed and agitated, is turned to all quarters, and leaves none of its resources unemployed in the invention of arguments, tries every weapon, and explores the hidden recesses of a subject with an

intense vigilance and an ardour which it is next to impossible in a calmer state of mind to command. Disingenuous arts are often resorted to, personalities are mingled, and much irritative matter is introduced; but it is the business of the attentive observer to separate these from the question at issue, and to form an impartial judgment of the whole. In a word, it may be truly affirmed that the evils occasioned by controversy are transient, the good it produces is permanent.

These observations I beg leave to submit to the reader, as an apology for the republication of a treatise which is confessedly controversial. Coinciding with the venerable author in the general aim and drift of the following sheets, I am far from pledging myself to the approbation and support of every position contained in them, nor would I be understood to attach all the importance to some of the points in discussion, which they appear in his estimation to have possessed.

If there be any impression, in the following Treatise, which implies that the questions at issue betwixt the Calvinists and Arminians are of the nature of fundamentals, (of which, however, I am not aware) I beg leave, as far as they are concerned, to express my explicit dissent; being fully satisfied

that upon either system the foundations of human hope remain unshaken, and that there is nothing in the contrariety of views entertained on these subjects, which ought to obstruct the most cordial affection and harmony among christians.

Having no pecuniary interest in this work, I may, perhaps, be allowed with the more freedom to communicate my opinion of its merit. I am much mistaken if the candid reader will not perceive in the author, an impartial love of truth, together with a degree of ingenuity and acuteness in its illustration and defence, not always to be met with in theological discussions.

The sentiments of my honoured father were decidedly Calvinistic. His object, however, in the following Treatise, was not so much to recommend that system in general, as to disengage it from certain excrescences, which he considered as weakening its evidence and impairing its beauty. On reviewing his religious tenets during the latter years of his life, and impartially comparing them with the scriptures, he was led to discard some opinions which he had formerly embraced, and which he afterwards came to consider as having a pernicious tendency.

From the moral impotence which the oracles o