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.

"Upon a review of the argument," Mr. Parry writes, "there appear to
be strong reasons for considering the whole of Dr. Williams'
hypothesis, to account for the origin of evil, as highly
objectionable, and worthy of rejection; because it is founded on a
false principle, which identifies physical and moral tendency; is
incompatible with the nature and phenomena of mind; involves the
existence of an antecedent fate or absolute necessity, which
controlled the divine operations; is inconsistent with the natural
and moral perfections of God, and the scriptural account of the
state in which man was created; is expressed in obscure and
inapplicab