through me, it must become a part of that cross I wish only more submissively to carry a little longer, and for my Great Master's sake, glory in this tribulation also. Should anything more be wanting for my excuse to you on this occasion, place all you yourself would add to my account, willingly becoming your debtor, as I must still remain for many instances of your former friendship, which I hope never to lose sight of, though through a medium Now which makes it to be so little understood why on your part it ever should have existed for me. I am your sincere friend, &c. "S. HUNTINGDON."

Numerous pamphlets now appeared on both sides, and to the arguments contained in them were added the keenest ridicule. and the strongest possible invective. "Farrago double distilled" -"An old Fox tarred and feathered"-" Pope John," &c., were among the titles of these passionate productions. Mr. Rowland Hill excused his severity, by quoting, among other epithets applied by the Messrs. Wesley to the Calvinists, the titles of "Devil factors"-" Satan's synagogue"-" Children of the old roaring hellish murderer who believed his lie"-" Advocates for sin" Witnesses for the Father of lies"-" Blasphemers". "Satan-sent preachers"-" Devils"-Liars"-" Fiends." Was Mr. Wesley's biographer, Watson, aware of these expressions, when be described the pamphlets on Mr. Wesley's side, as "models of temper, and calm but occasionally powerful reproving?" It has been said that the acid was all on one side, but was this so, when Mr. Wesley thus summed up the doctrine of Mr. Toplady's pamphlet on predestination ?" The sum of all this is one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can. Reader, believe this or be damned. Witness my hand,

A. T."

Now, did Lady Huntingdon and her preachers hold any such doctrine as this? Never did persons more freely invite all to come to Christ, than the ministers she employed; nor have any preachers, since the days of the apostles, been more practical in their doctrines or holier in their lives. It is only to be lamented that the combatants did not meet instead of writing. They were inflamed by constant misrepresentations, which lost nothing in passing from one to another. When they did meet, their mutual religion generally awakened a common love towards each other. When Mr. Toplady saw Olivers, one of his most acute antagonists, whom he had ridiculed in verse and attacked in prose, all his anger seemed to cease. "To say the truth (he writes), I am glad I saw Mr. Olivers, for he appears to be a person of stronger sense and better behaviour than I had imagined." Mr. Rowland Hill, with admirable candour, says

of his own writings, "a softer style and spirit would better have become me ;" and this would have undoubtedly been the case, had he met and conversed with his opponents. He also wrote to London and Bristol to forbid the sale of one of his severest publications, part of which, addressed privately to a friend, had been printed without his consent. "Thus (says he) have I done my utmost to prevent the evil that might arise from any wrong touches of the ark of God."

The cause was the Lord's, but the armour in which both parties came into the field was not selected from the panoply of light. They, therefore, turned their weapons against each other, and forgot for a period the effect of such a spectacle on the enemies of their common salvation. Let the case be fairly stated, the faults on both sides be acknowledged, and may the remembrance of them serve as a warning to those who treat upon religious differences! Let us give credit to both parties for integrity of principle; and let Calvinist and Arminian join in one common acknowledgment, that they never should have sought God by nature, had he not first sought them by grace; that the only way to eternal life is through the all-sufficient atonement of a dying Saviour; and the only evidence of our interest in his blood, a heart sanctified by his Spirit and a life dedicated to his glory.*

On a review of this memorable controversy, it is painful to reflect that scarcely ever was so important a subject discussed with such ill success. Both sides discovered towards certain truths feelings which did them honour; the one being jealous for divine sovereignty and grace, with human dependence; the other for infinite justice and holiness, with the moral agency of man. But they seem to have reserved their religion for their friends, and to have thought that any thing was lawful to an enemy. Forgetting that from erring man, the errors, as well as sins, of his brother, demand sorrow rather than anger, they let loose all the furies against their opponent's opinion. With whomsoever the victory might be supposed to rest, acquired by such weapon it could confer no glory.

The author has placed in the hands of the publisher the whole of the voluminous correspendence on the subject of the conference, and the controversy between Lady Huntingdon and Mr. Fletcher, her Ladyship and Lady Glenorchy, and between the Countess and the sixty clergymen then employed by her. There are five letters from William Mason, Esq., of Rotherhithe, one from the Rev. David Edwards, a respectable dissenting minister of Ipswich, one from the Rev. John Brown, of Sheddington, &c.; but it is presumed that the review of the controversy given in the text, precludes the publication of these letters, except at the demand of the public: on the expression of which they may appear either in the form of an Appendix to the Memoirs or as a separate publication.

Where both parties deserve so much censure, with regard to their tempers, the comparative estimate of their delinquency is difficult, and the condemnation of the one implies no praise to the other. The Calvinists, however, were the most guilty; for Mr. Toplady bore away the palm of contempt and bitterness, evil surmises, and provoking speeches. To Mr. Wesley, indeed, must be attributed the guilt of letting loose the dogs of war; he commenced the dispute by publishing Mr. Fletcher's defence of the minutes, after having publicly drawn up and signed a refutation or recantation of the obnoxious principles which they contained; and his horrid appeal to all the devils in hell gave a sort of infernal tone to the controversy. In point of temper, Mr. Fletcher was of all the disputants, at once the best and the worst. Too much under the impression of the approaching judgment to indulge himself with the ribaldry, sneers, and contempt, in which others seemed to glory, he discovered all the seriousness of Saul of Tarsus in his opposition to the Gospel, and, transported by that zeal which is not according to knowledge, he is often very devoutly wicked, and almost blasphemous from a sense of duty. In argument, however, he stood alone on the Arminian side: for though Mr. Wesley was shrewd and perspicuous, excelling in that luminous simplicity of language which controversy demands, he soon turned from disputing with enemies to rule his votaries; and left Fletcher to dazzle with eloquence instead of reasoning, and to substitute tropes for arguments. If the corruscations of passion and ephemeral wit should down to it, posterity would pronounce him too loquacious for a deep reasoner, and too impassioned to investigate duly the most profound and awful themes which can occupy the human understanding.

go

It is as painful as it is remarkable, that the true point on which the whole controversy turns was never brought to view. This could not be expected from the Arminians, whose cause it would have injured. But the Calvinists, by this neglect, betrayed a want of insight into their own system. The contest, concerning what God designed from eternity, must at last be decided by what he effects in time; for his actions are the annunciations of his decrees. As Mr. Wesley professed to admit that God was the author of conversion, that he gave the will its right direction, and sustained the religion which he first produced; when this admission is pursued to all its consequences, it proves all that Calvinisin requires. Instead, however, of discussing this interesting question which lay within their reach, and tended to edification as it led them to look into their own hearts, the combatants pushed each other back into the ages of

eternity, to speculate upon the order of the thoughts which passed in the Infinite Mind.

Another singularity of this contest was, the difference of the tribunals to which the litigants appealed. The Arminians seem to have felt as gladiators exhibiting before the world, which must have been much confirmed in its native enmity to divine sovereignty and grace, by the misrepresentations of Mr. Wesley and Mr. Fletcher. The Church of Christ was the theatre in which the Calvinists sought applause; but they seemed not sufficiently solicitous whether that applause proceeded from the best or the worst part of the professors of religion. The Arminians gloried in the patronage of the Monthly Review, and Mr. Fletcher reproached Mr. Hill for appealing to the children of God. That was indeed more likely to be true which commended itself to those "who had tasted that the Lord is gracious," than that which suits the taste of "the carnal mind which is enmity against God;" but in appealing to the people of God, we should not forget that those who lay claim to this title without right are often the worst judges of truth and holiness.

The effect of the controversy was most pernicious. Without eliciting truth, or illustrating difficult texts, the combatants inflamed the spirit of party, and rendered the two bodies of Methodists, for several succeeding years, more hostile to each other than almost any other differing sects. Both parties were driven to extremes. The Calvanists not only shocked their opponents by saying things as strong, rather than as true, as possible, against Aminians; but they actually went to lengths which some of them afterwards condemned as the perversion of Calvinism; though others unhappily gloried in these extravagancies as the perfection of the Gospel: so that real Antinominianism became the pest of many Churches, and the scarecrow of the Arminians. These, in their turn, fled from Calvinism, with such haste, that they almost rushed into the arms of a mystical deism; for though Mr. Fletcher, as he advanced towards the close of the controversy, felt as a Christian on the verge of eternity, and dropped some healing antidotes to the controversial venom, Mr. Wesley seemed only intent on following up his position, that "we are going too far towards Calvinism."

CHAPTER XL.

American Affairs-Rev. Cornelius Winter-Refused Ordination for the Orphan House Rev. John Zubley-Governor Wright-Bishop of London-Letters from the Hon. Mr. Habersham-Mr. Whitefield's Will-Great Meeting in Wales-Mission to America Circular Notice from Lady Huntingdon-Letters to the Hon. James Habersham, from Lady Huntingdon-Letter to Mr. Wright and Mr. Crane-Services at Trevecca-Designation of the Missionaries in London Mr. Piercy preaches on Tower-hill-Rev. Charles Stuart Eccles-Arrival of the Missionaries at the Orphan House.

LADY HUNTINGDON now stood in a very high and responsible situation. By the will of Mr. Whitefield she became the sole proprietor of very considerable possessions in America, which, with the numerous chapels erected in various parts of the kingdom, and the College that her boundless liberality had reared, greatly increased her labours and her cares. Impressed with the necessity of depending more simply and entirely upon the revelation of "the arm of the Lord," she recommended to the several congregations under her patronage to unite, both in public and private, in earnestly supplicating the Great Head of the Church for a copious outpouring of his Spirit upon ministers and people. Tuesday the first, and Tuesday the fifteenth of January, 1771, were appointed for the solemn purpose, and were observed with great strictness throughout her Ladyship's

connexion.

The late Rev. Cornelius Winter had now returned from America with Mr. Whitefield's will,* and was the bearer of

The respect showed to the memory of Mr. Whitefield by the inhabitants of the province of Georgia, was very great, and gratifying to the feelings of Mr. Winter, who had accompanied him thither in order to instruct the poor negroes in the settlement. All the black cloth in the stores was bought up; the pulpit and desks of the church, the branches, the organ-loft, the pews of the governor and council were covered with black. The governor and council in deep mourning, convened at the state-house, and went in procession to church, and were received by the organ playing a funeral dirge. The funeral sermons were preached, one by Mr. Ellington, and the other by the Rev. John Joachim Zubley, first minister of the Presbyterian Church at Savannah. He originally came from Switzerland, and took the charge of this church in 1760. He preached to an English and German congregation, and sometimes also he preached in French. He was a member of the provincial congress, in 1775, but, as he differed in opinion from his fellow-citizens with respect to the independence of the United States, he incurred their displeasure, and his subsequent days were embittered. He was a man of great learning, of a vigorous and penetrating mind, and of a heart moulded into the Christian spirit. He published a sermon