The Synod of Dort, held at Dort in 1618 and 1619, and consisting of thirty-eight Dutch and Walloon divines, five professors of the Dutch Universities, and twenty-one Lay-elders; besides twenty-eight foreign divines, from England and other countries. At this celebrated Synod, the five points of difference between the Calvinists and Arminians were decided in favour of the former. Sellon, in his able book, controverts this decision, at all events so far as the doctrine of predestination is concerned. Footnote 194: Fletcher’s Works, vol. viii., p. 205. This episode respecting Walter Sellon is not irrelevant, and is of considerable importance, inasmuch as it relates, in part, to the rise of the great Calvinian controversy of the last century, in which Fletcher became one of the chief actors. Sellon’s book, in favour of the doctrine of “General Redemption,” was the first published by Wesley’s adherents, and is exceedingly able; but this is not the place to analyse and give an account of it. Seventeen years had elapsed since Fletcher left his father’s house in Switzerland. He had now decided to pay a visit to the place of his nativity, and to travel as far as the south of France with his generous friend, Mr. Ireland, of Brislington, Bristol. The following letter to Mr. Ireland refers to this contemplated visit, and to another matter, which must be noticed:— “MADELEY, _December 30, 1769_. “MY DEAR FRIEND,—Last night, I received your obliging letter, and am ready to accompany you to Montpelier, provided you will go with me to Nyon. I shall raise about twenty guineas, and, with that sum, a gracious Providence, and your purse, I hope we shall want for nothing. If the Lord sends me, I should want nothing, though I had nothing, and though my fellow-traveller were no richer than myself. “I hope to be at Bristol soon, to offer you my services to pack up. You desired to have a Swiss servant, and I offer myself to you in that capacity; for I shall be no more ashamed of serving you, as far as I am capable of doing, than I am of wearing your livery. “Two reasons (to say nothing of the pleasure of your company) engage me to go with you to Montpelier,—a desire to visit some poor Huguenots in the south of France, and the need I have to recover a little French before I go to converse with my compatriots.