maintaining that it was rather the means of releasing the moral Governor of the world from the necessity of inflicting punishment upon the guilty, than the proper or procuring cause of their salvation. Their creed recognises no fœderal relation between the first Adam and his posterity, any more than between succeeding parents and their children, and none between the second Adam and his spiritual seed; of course the imputation of sin, as well as of righteousness, is utterly exploded, and justification is nothing more than an exemption from punishment.

It was affirmed however that this class of theorists was not very numerous, nor had they produced any very serious effects on the American churches; their speculations are too scholastic for general acceptance, too dry and husky for the lovers of genuine piety. Among the congregations generally there is a growing attachment to evangelical principles, or the doctrine taught at the Reformation; and the writings of the elder Puritans are more and more in request. Dr. Mason himself gave the preference to Owen and Howe, the former of which he pronounced the prince of divines; an opinion which Mr. Hall was not at that moment disposed to controvert, though his partiality for Howe is generally understood, and though, when it suited his humour, he has been heard to say that Owen was "a double Dutchman, floundering in the mud." He was besides so much occupied with the luminous statement of

his friend, that he wished not to interrupt the

narrative.

Dr. Mason proceeded to acknowledge that he had been educated in the tenets of Arminianism; that for many years his prejudices against the opposite system were most inveterate, and that perhaps no man had greater difficulties to overcome. On an impartial review he was led to conclude that those prejudices arose from two causes, which he believed to be common to most persons who discovered a violent predilection for such sentiments; namely, a false and distorted view of the Calvinistic system, and a heart secretly disaffected to the government of God. These, he could not help saying, were in his opinion the principal sources of error, and of opposition to the doctrines of grace. Why, said he, do men object to predestination or fore-appointment? Not because the thing itself is objectionable. If a man projects a scheme for effecting some great design, his wisdom is admired in proportion to the magnitude and comprehension of the plan, the time required for its various operations, the number of objects it embraces, and the subserviency to which they are all reduced in accomplishing the ultimate design. Why then should not that Wisdom be the object of our highest admiration, which projected the whole of the moral system, and combined the counteraction of its various parts, so as to produce the greatest and most important of all possible results. Why, of all intelligences, must

the supremely intelligent Agent be the only one to exist and to operate without a plan, without foresight or design. It is not to fore-ordination then that men object; the objection lies only against God's ordination. Every other scheme of fore-appointment may be wise and good but his.

Wishing to put him a little on his defence, Mr. Hall observed that divine foreknowledge implied only the certainty of the events foreknown; it did not imply their necessity, much less was it a necessitating cause; but that the same could hardly be said of divine decrees. The doctor quickly replied that nothing could be foreknown as certain, unless at the same time it was also foreknown that causes either did or would exist which would infallibly lead to such a result; and that as the connection between cause and effect is not only certain but absolutely necessary, so the foreknowledge of these causes implies not only the certainty but the absolute necessity of the effects produced. No effect can exist without a cause; if the cause be foreknown as a matter of certainty, the effect is foreknown as a matter of necessity.

The objection, he continued, does not lie against the abstract doctrine of decrees, but properly speaking, against the execution of those decrees; that is, in other words, against God's actual government of the world. He might propose what he pleased, and his purposes might exist from all eternity; but so long as they existed in the divine mind, they could not possibly furnish any ground

of objection, any more than the purposes of any other being which were never carried into effect. It is therefore the execution, not the existence of divine decrees, that forms the true ground of objection; or it is God's actual government of the world that is the object of man's aversion. For if in doing what pleaseth him in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, he does only what is fit and wise and proper to be done, there can be no objection to its being predetermined, unless it be wrong to determine beforehand to do what is right. Either therefore the supreme Being has no authority to govern the world he has made, or his government is unrighteous and unwise; otherwise there could be no objection to his governing it according to a plan which his sovereign will had before ordained.

Mr. Hall listened to the acute observations of his visitor with evident satisfaction, and the conversation then turned on other subjects. Having asked his opinion of an elaborate treatise by a Scottish professor, which had been highly extolled by an English writer of some distinction, Dr. Mason observed that the book had been sent to him at New York, but he had not read it, for he felt averse from every attempt to establish the abstract doctrines of revelation by reasoning à priori, and was persuaded that such sort of metaphysical discussions could yield no real advantage to the truth. Mr. Hall at the same time was of opinion that the writer had not succeeded in his undertaking; that

his reasoning was in many instances obscure and inconclusive, and that in entering upon the doctrine of the trinity he had ventured on a subject far beyond his ability, and probably altogether beyond the reach of the human faculties. The criticisms towards the close of the volume were allowed to be the better part, but that they possessed very little originality, and were not likely to produce any important result.

Amongst other English authors who became the topic of conversation was the late excellent Samuel Drew, whose metaphysical writings, well known in America, were mentioned with high commendation. Mr. Hall however concurred in opinion with Dr. Mason, that they contain some positions that are liable to strong objections, particularly that which affirms the utter impossibility of the annihilation of matter. Of the two principal performances of this able and original writer, that on the Identity of the Resurrection body was considered as by far the best, and which had been reprinted at New York. The critics both agreed that Drew was deficient in perspicuity, though one of the first writers of the age, while in metaphysical acumen he was not fully equal to President Edwards.

Dr. Mason said that the Commentary of a late eccentric but distinguished writer had been reprinted at New York; but it had produced general disappointment, and was therefore discontinued. It was expected that its voluminous contents would