will, and a few years afterwards publicly testified his good will by preaching for it.* I presume the sentiments here expressed pretty nearly coincide with those now entertained by many of its firmest supporters: and the publication of them cannot, I trust, be considered as bearing in any degree an unfriendly aspect towards the society. It refers to the capture of the missionary ship, the Duff; the expul sion of many of the missionaries from what has since been the scene of their most extraordinary success, the Islands of Otaheite; and the spoilation of such as were suffered to remain.

"Chapel Street, September 28, 1799.

I

"I do not think any of the things which have happened to the London Missionary Society will eventually injure the cause of missions. I really foretold, at least foreboded, and privately uttered my forebodings, that such would be the event of their over-sanguine and hasty, though well-meant proceedings. The apostles had no missionary ship, worth so many thousands as to tempt depredators. Armed and rich missionaries, as those at Otaheite were, might expect to be plundered and overpowered, as much as a man in London, unprotected by law, who was loaded with gold and jewels. It must be so without miracles. said they were too rich to be safe, or to have any prospect of safety; and their fire-arms and military exercise were like a declaration of war. The seven that are left behind are exactly in the condition I should have wished them to have been in at first landing; nothing to trust to for protection and provision but the Lord, and under him the favor he may give them with the people. But of almost all places these islands are the last I should have selected.-You may depend upon it that our new societyt is not needlessly losing time. We cast anchor for a while, to avoid running on rocks; but we mean soon to go on: and we would wish not to make more haste than good speed. We mean to begin on a small scale, and afterwards to enlarge it if we can; and we have no fear of not getting money, if the Lord will but form us missionaries. One thing we have done: as soon as we heard that the Duff was taken, we, as individuals of the Committee, sent the Missionary Society

* Life, p. 254.

†The Church Missionary Society.

a hundred guineas, as a token of regard and condolence; which has tended greatly to conciliate them, and to convince them that we are coadjutors and not rivals. The -world is under obligations to that society; but their love and zeal have not been directed by proportionable wisdom. They will profit by their losses, and we shall profit by their mistakes; and I doubt not that the whole will tend to the furtherance of the gospel. Money will be soon found to make up those losses; and wisdom gained by experience is of inestimable value."

Of the contribution towards repairing the Society's loss, I shall beg leave to subjoin a somewhat fuller account, from a memorandum made by a friend shortly after it took place.

"When the London Missionary Society lost the ship Duff, though he had never approved of their having such a vessel, yet, filled with Christian sympathy, and struck with the opportunity of testifying good will to a society with which he and his brethren declined to act, he put off an intended journey to Margate, and, calling together the committee of the Church Missionary Society, (of which he was secretary,) he proposed a subscription from their private purses towards alleviating the loss which the other society had sustained. Here again he was supported by Mr. Venn. The members present subscribed fifty guineas; and, calculating on the concurrence of their absent associates, they ventured to send that night a donation of one hundred guineas, to which about thirty more were afterwards added. The effect was striking in promoting conciliation and good will, and convincing all concerned that they were brethren engaged in the same great object, though pursuing it each in his own line."

LETTERS TO A FRIEND IN SCOTLAND.

1794-1811.

THIS correspondent, in communicating my father's letters to me, says: "I set a high value upon them: they were to me very seasonable and very useful; and, I may add, were of use to many of my friends here, who generally saw my correspondence. I trust I shall always retain a grateful sense of the Lord's kindness towards me in bringing me to an acquaintance with his writings, and to the enjoyment of his correspondence.......That I derived no more benefit from his writings and correspondence is my sin, and what I desire to be humbled for daily before God: but I would acknowledge, to the praise of His name, that any just, scriptural, and judicious views which I have of divine truth, both in matters of faith and practice, I owe, under God, to your father; and particularly in those things which may, in a certain sense, be called his peculiar sentiments-such as relate to man's responsibility, the holy nature and tendency of faith, and the spiritual exercise of genuine godliness. From him I was led to an acquaintance with Fuller's and Ryland's writings, and some of the Americans, particularly Edwards and Bellamy; all of whom, in a great measure, have been taught in the same school. And, the more I read in his Life, and such of his letters as you have already published, the more the beauty and excellence of these sentiments appear. The letters I now send you confirm the same views. In fact he was invariably one and the same: in his Commentary, his other works, his correspondence, and at his own fireside, the same correct uniform sentiments prevail; univer sal holiness of heart and life, arising from a living faith

the doctrines of free grace, received by divine teaching. You will observe many things about our transactions in books that will have to be left out.......We did a good deal of business together in the way of selling his various publications; and I reckon it one of the happiest circumstances of my life, that I was the means of first introducing his works, in any general way, among the middling and lower classes of people in this north country. His great disinterestedness you will perceive very prominent in all he wrote to me on matters of business. Our correspondence gradually dropped away about the years 1811, 1812, which I exceedingly regret. It arose chiefly from his declining years and numerous engagements preventing his corresponding so fully on general subjects: and also from my being able to do much less in the way of disposing of his works-the booksellers finding it their interest to keep them on hand as they came into notice."

"SIR,

ON THE DIVINE DECREES.

"Chapel Street, December 24th, 1794.

"I MIGHT be surprised, but could not perceive the least cause of being offended, by your very frank and respectful address, which surely was more suited to please than to displease any man of tolerable candor. I desire to be thankful if any human being derive advantage from what the Lord enables me to attempt; and, as far as my many engagements will allow of it, I would be willing to take up the stumbling blocks out of the way of Zion's travellers, by private and particular counsel, as well as by more public and general instructions.

*

"In respect of the deep points on which you desire my opinion, I shall be glad to give you any satisfaction: but a thinking mind will always be impeded by difficulties about them, till increasing acquaintance with the human heart, and the state of the world, gradually dissipate the darkness: and I should judge from the style of your letter, that you are seeking in the right way to him who makes dark things light, and crooked things straight, before his people. I have long been very decided in my judgment in respect of the truth and reasonableness of these doctrines, which

* Isa. Ivii, 14.

I once quarrelled with even to blasphemy: yet I hold them in such a way, and assign them in so moderate a proportion to other parts of revelation, that the vehement Calvinists own me not as staunch to their party: but, though I am by no means disposed to consider the belief of them as essential to salvation, I find myself not more approved by the zealous Arminians: for I always insist upon it, that, if men cannot receive them, they ought not to venture a single word, which, in case they should be true, would prove to be derogatory to the honor of the divine character and government.

"I consider the doctrine of the divine decrees as inseparable from that of the prescience or omniscience of God; and I cannot conceive it possible for any man to answer the reasonings of a competent logician in proof of this philosophical position. Mr. Locke, though no friend to Calvinism, has made extraordinary concessions in this respect. But then, I do not think myself allowed to mix the philosophy of the doctrine with the divinity of it; but bound to confine myself, as a preacher, to the word of God, without tracing revealed truths to unrevealed causes and consequences; by which some reasoning Calvinists have clogged the doctrine with difficulties, and exposed it to objections, which have nothing to do with the scriptural statement of it.-The sovereignty of God is, I apprehend, a very different thing from arbitrary power: it is the sovereignty of infinite wisdom, knowledge, justice, truth, goodness, and mercy; and, therefore, nothing can be decreed by it, which is not the best possible, all things considered. Now, if the best plan possible be selected and executed, what does it signify whether it was formed, in every part, from eternity, or whether it was formed at the moment, as circumstances required?-God does nothing without the best possible reasons, but he does not gratify the pride and curiosity of fallen rebels, by assigning his reasons to them. He doubtless has reasons for choosing a sinner to salvation: but the sinner's merit, or inferior degree of criminality, or more docile disposition, or natural voluntary concurrence with his grace, is not of the number of these reasons: but the desert of those that perish is the assigned and proper reason why he punishes them. "The decrees of God respecting man do not relate to him merely as a rational creature, but as a fallen reb God sees the whole human race in the ruins of the