4. “Predestination calmly Considered.” 12mo, 83 pages. We have already seen, that three of the preachers, present at the Irish conference, expressed their belief, that some persons are absolutely elected, but that thousands are saved who are not elected. It was also rumoured, that Charles Wesley inclined to Whitefield’s predestinarian views. Under such circumstances, Wesley’s “Predestination calmly Considered” was a needed and opportune production. He writes (page 6): “There are some who assert the decree of election, and not the decree of reprobation. They assert, that God hath, by a positive, unconditional decree, chosen some to life and salvation; but not that He hath, by any such decree, devoted the rest of mankind to destruction. These are they to whom I would address myself first.” This is one of Wesley’s most cogent and exhaustive pamphlets, written in a most loving spirit, and yet utterly demolishing the Calvinistic theory. He shows conclusively, that no man can consistently hold the doctrine of election without holding the cognate doctrine of reprobation,—a doctrine wholly opposed to the plainest teachings of holy Scripture, dishonouring to God, overthrowing the scriptural doctrines of a future judgment, and of rewards and punishments, and “naturally leading to the chambers of death.” It is difficult to conceive how any one can read Wesley’s treatise, and still remain a Calvinist. None of his Methodistic friends tried to answer it; but Dr. John Gill, the pastor of a Baptist church in Southwark, published, in the same year, the two following pamphlets:—“The Doctrine of the Saints’ Final Perseverance, asserted and vindicated. In answer to a late pamphlet, called Serious Thoughts on that subject.” 8vo, 59 pages. And, “The Doctrine of Predestination stated and set in the Scripture light; in opposition to Mr. Wesley’s Predestination Calmly Considered. With a reply to the exceptions of the said writer to the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints.” 8vo, 52 pages. In the latter production, Dr. Gill says, that Wesley, in noticing his former one, had “contented himself with low, mean, and impertinent exceptions, not attempting to answer one argument, and yet having the assurance, in the public papers, to call this miserable piece of his, chiefly written on another subject, ‘A full answer to Dr. Gill’s pamphlet on Final Perseverance.’” This, on the part of Dr. Gill, was the wincing whine of a defeated man. It was not worthy of him. Dr. Gill was now fifty-five years of age, and a man of vast learning and research. Before his twentieth year, he had read all the Greek and Latin authors that had fallen in his way, and had so studied Hebrew as to be able to read the Old Testament in the original with pleasure. Besides other works, he was the author of “A Body of Divinity,” in three quarto volumes; and of “An Exposition of the Old and New Testament,” in nine volumes, folio. The university of Aberdeen had