The advocates of Calvinism differ remarkably from each other in the tone and spirit of their writings, as their habits of thought and feeling are modified by circumstances. The American divines of the school of Edwards have carried out his principles with unflinching consistency, not hesitating to impute to the Deity, in unqualified terms, the eternal decrees which fix the weal or woe of the human race for ever. The cold and heartless manner in which these men treat the subject, and the stoical apathy with which they contemplate the result of their hard metaphysics, are extremely remote from our usual conceptions of piety and humanity. Well might that superlative woman, Mrs. Susanna Wesley, say, "The doctrine of _predestination_, as maintained by rigid Calvinists, is very shocking, and ought utterly to be abhorred." The dark spirit of inflexible wrath which the American Calvinists have imputed to the Deity, together with their coarse caricatures of the Gospel, may account for, but cannot justify, the terms in which Dr. Chancing has thought fit to assail _the orthodox faith_, confounding on all occasions scriptural Christianity, as held by the Catholic Church, with the dogmas of an extravagant creed. To understand his eloquent and indignant declamations, we must read the transatlantic expounders of the Calvinistic theology. In general, the English writers of any name, are more guarded and less unfeeling. They do not at once and directly charge God with being the author of sin. The late Dr. Williams of Rotherham composed a voluminous work on the subject, entitled "equity and sovereignty," in which he gives, what he considers, a new theory of the origin of moral evil. To redeem the divine character from the imputation of harshness in the decree of reprobation, he supposes mankind under a _necessary tendency to moral defection_, as dependent and created beings; and that it was in mere _equity_, that the wicked were _left_, not decreed, to perdition. The hypothesis of Dr. Williams is already exploded. It was examined and refuted by the Rev. William Parry, of Wymondly, in a piece entitled "Strictures on the Origin of Moral Evil." For reasoning, acute, profound, and perspicuous, both metaphysical and moral, this work has seldom been surpassed. And the devout and courteous spirit in which it is written, presents an example, beautiful and instructive, of dispassionate controversy.