6

Mr. G., how is that? Why, do you know Messrs. T. & R. P's." 'I do, very well; they are Unitarians, I believe.' They are. Do you remember,' continued the stranger, making a speech at a public meeting so many months ago.' 'I do,' replied Mr. G. Well,' added the stranger, they have sent you £5 as an acknowledgment for that speech. Had it not been for forgetfulness you would have had it sooner, for they say you richly deserve it. One of them wanted to send you £10, but they at last fixed upon £5; and if you require any more you are to have it.' 'No, no,' said Mr. G., ‘£5 is all I need at present; the Lord knew all about it. He then desired the stranger to thank the donors, and got home as soon as he could to pour out his gratitude to his God."

We could easily multiply incidents, grave and gay, out of the book before us; but space forbids. We desire to refer now to the truly apostolic labours of this singular man. Whatever may be the practical effect of high Calvinian notions in other respects, they do not, it would seem, foster an indolent spirit. Some of the hardest workers in the Mission field were men who held the "five points" in their right hand. Indeed, when a man has got through the clouds of doubt and anxiety which "particular redemption naturally enough creates, into the belief and persuasion that Christ loved him and gave himself for him, and then comes to regard himself as one of the few who were chosen before the foundation of the world, the natural consequence of this conviction is, that it leads its possessor to labour for God with the greatest ardour and to suffer with the greatest patience.

Besides preaching four times a week to his own people in Manchester he for years preached four or five other sermons during the week, and every week. After preaching at home three times on the Lord's-day he would walk on the Monday morning eleven miles to Rochdale. Dining there, he would walk two or three miles further to preach in the afternoon; then return to Rochdale, where he would preach in the evening. On the Tuesday he would walk to Manchester, and preach to his own people at night. On the Wednesday he would go on foot to some other neighbouring place and preach at might; repeat the act on Thursday, and come home on Friday morning. The second week would find him doing the same amount of work in another direction. The third week was spent in Yorkshire in a similar way, whilst a fourth week would be devoted to parts of Cheshire and Derbyshire. In these four counties nearly forty places of worship, most of them chapels, were opened through his instrumentality, and hundreds of sinners were brought out of darkness into light.

Mr. Gadsby seems to have been a man of singular pulpit power, as wherever he went multitudes flocked to hear him. It does not seem that they were drawn after him by anything odd or clownish

in his manner, for, although when he began to preach he seems to have had a method which was far from being pleasant, even to the uneducated, he soon became one of whom the polished and fastidious were not ashamed. It was the earnestness of the man which charmed the public. His outspokenness also added to his fame. Mr. Fuller's writings had led to a material alteration in the pulpit phraseology of the Calvinists. Many of them had begun to use terms which could scarcely be distinguished from those of the "free-willers." They had also begun to lay down such interpretations of the "five points" as to render it doubtful whether they were followers of the Genevan reformer or of John Wesley. Hundreds of the "Lord's dear people," as Gadsby styles those who flocked to hear him preach, were sorely distressed at this defection. Hence, when Gadsby came within an hour's walk of where they lived neither an ordinary cold nor a boisterous state of the weather kept them at home, for they were sure to get from him a spiritual meal such as their souls rejoiced in, savoury with the "five points" and seasoned with unmeasured invective against the miserable Arminian dupes with which the religious world abounded.

But the want of charity which Mr. Gadsby's works display is an ugly blotch upon their fair face. To us it is a cause of grief, for somehow we like the man. It seems, from several passages in the volumes before us, that he regarded a belief in the "five points," as put by Calvin, essential to salvation. He more than hints at the damnation of the founder of Methodism. He often speaks of the great bulk of the professing church of his day as being the victims of delusion. He regards it as certain that all who arrive at a knowledge of salvation by the remission of their sins arrrive also at a knowledge of the Calvinistic creed; thus, limiting eternal life to those who utter the Shibboleth of his party. We are amazed that a man so obviously strong-minded and kind-hearted as he was, and who enjoyed, as he certainly did, a high-toned spirituality, should have been so "cribbed, cabbined, and confined," in his charities, and to have had views so opposed to the plainest teachings of the New Testament as well as to the experience of God's people. We wonder he did not see that the thief on the cross must have been as ignorant as a heathen of the "five points" when he received the assurance of salvation, yea, even when he entered paradise; and we wonder, also, he did not remember that at the time he himself rejoiced in the manifested love of his "precious Christ, (a designation Gadsby was fond of using,) he did not know the meaning of the abstract term "imputed," to say nothing of its meaning when used in connection with systematic theology; and would Gadsby, or any other hyper-Calvinist, say, that had he been led to embrace Arminianism, instead of Calvinism, as he might have done, his

name would have been blotted out of the book of life for so doing? We think not.

The fact is, there are but two points, instead of "five," which seem to us to be essential to salvation. The first is a knowledge of our lost condition, and the second is a knowledge or belief that Christ loved us and gave himself for us. This is all that thousands know when they first come to the Saviour; and it is as much as the limited intellectual powers of many ever enable them to realize. If I believe that the Saviour's love has adopted me into the heavenly family, can it endanger the reality of that relationship if I hold the notion that that love became my portion when I ceased to do evil, instead of believing, as do the Calvanists, that it existed towards me before I had a being, yea, even before the earth in which I live was formed? This question needs no formal answer. The Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Phillipians sweeps the "five points" away, as a creed essential to salvation, when he says-"We are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." What will the particular redemptionists, or those who regard the "five points" as the cherished creed of all the truly saved, say of this inspired declaration? At most, we have but three points in this confession of faith, as we may term it, of the circumcision, or the true church; and although knowledge, or a belief in facts, is at the basis of the experience and practice described in the passage above quoted, yet it is the practical result of that knowledge, rather than the knowledge itself, that the apostle makes essential to salvation. With this passage before us we can give the hand of fellowship to men of every sect and party. We can say to our fellow-man, whether he be an Episcopalian or a Dissenter, a Calvinist or an Arminian, a Baptist by immersion or by sprinkling, a Congregationalist or a Connexionalist, "you are a claimant of my confidence and love, a true christian, an heir of glory, if you have seen the vileness of your own nature so as to abandon all reliance upon your doings as the means of salvation; if you have discovered the relationship of Jesus unto you so as to rejoice in him; and if, as the result of all this, you can say "Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name." We much regret that Mr. Gadsby had not similar views. We regret too that his creed should have led to the bitter exclusiveness which marks his writings. He who confines the stream of divine love to the narrow channel of his own party is the worst kind of bigot, and the expression of such a sentiment mars and disfigures him whenever he utters it. But the pain one feels at such an utterance is weak compared with that which seizes upon us when we meet with the sentiment in writings so masculine, so luminous, and so pious as are those of William Gadsby.

We have long been convinced that many of our hyper-Calvinian

friends have not a clear understanding of the creed of the Arminian or Methodist religionist; for some persist in affirming that we blend our doings and the Saviour's merits when we seek forgiveness, and that after adoption we strive to become increasingly holy by cultivating and improving first one and then another of the attributes of our spiritual nature. Now nothing can be farther from the truth than this statement. It may be Unitarianism; it is not Methodism. Except, perhaps, in the one item of this creed, namely, final perseverance, Calvinists and Methodists are identical from acceptance into grace until admission into glory. So clear and thorough are the utterances of many Methodist preachers respecting the need of the Holy Spirit, both in bringing the sinner to Jesus and in sanctifying his nature, that Calvinists have sometimes regarded them as having come over to their side; and we recollect hearing it said that the late Dr. R. W. Hamilton, of Leeds, used to say that whenever he heard the late Dr. Newton preach, he always heard a good Calvinian sermon. We doubt not had Mr. Gadsby made himself more familiar with the preaching of the Methodists, or mingled a little more with the intelligent and consistent amongst them, he would have found out that they were as willing to admit the utter ruin of our nature through the fall, and the absolute need of the Holy Spirit's work in our conversion and sanctification, as he and his co-religionists. In this case it would not have been folly to be wise.

Order, harmony, and consistency, are admirable properties to whatever system of things they appertain. As Englishmen, accustomed to the family compact, and living in good "houses made with hands," we might not like to live in an Indian bungalow, nor yet in a Gipsy's tent; but we could not fail to appreciate the architectural harmony which might distinguish the one, nor the order, neatness, and good taste, which might mark the other. So while we cannot subscribe to the peculiar tenets of our hyper-Calvinian brethren, and, perhaps, may never be able to do so, yet we cannot but admire the logical consistency, the harmony of thought, which pervades their creed and regulates their practice. We will explain ourselves. Mr. Gadsby belonged to that school of Calvinists who, holding the doctrine of particular redemption, refuse either to exhort or warn, to offer mercy or to threaten wrath to a mixed congregation. Mr. Gadsby regarded such expressions as are commonly uttered in Methodist pulpits, as-"There is not one here but may be saved;" "I offer salvation to every one of you;" "If you refuse the offer, and continue so to do till the end of this life, you shall be damned for it," as only a stage removed from blasphemy, and when uttered by men professing the Calvinian creed, as Fuller and others, as something worse, if worse can be. Many of the perorations of Parsons of York would have aroused

the indignation of Gadsby. Between living men of his school, and Spurgeon, for example, there is a great gulf. By them, men like the last-named preacher, are held in abhorrence; they look upon them as greater enemies to the truth than professed Arminians. "Mr. Gadsby always considered, and often stated publicly, that Andrew Fuller was the greatest enemy the church of God ever had, as his sentiments were so much cloaked with the sheep's clothing." Assuming that Christ died for a part of mankind only, it follows, as absolutely as any one thing can follow another, that none else can be saved; hence, it is cruel, they say, to threaten the non-elect with eternal torment if they repent not, or to exhort them to come to Christ with the promise of pardon and eternal life if they do so; and as, in an assembly such as mostly gathers in a place of worship on the Lord's day, it is morally certain there are some whom sovereign right has seen fit to leave out of the covenant of grace, so Mr. Gadsby, and those who think with him, are content to place the bread and wine of gospel truth before their hearers, leaving it to the Holy Spirit to bring guests to partake of it when and how he pleases. Such conduct is in harmony with the principles believed; and therefore we cannot do otherwise than give it our sanction. We seldom take up a Lord's-day morning utterance of the far-famed preacher at the Tabernacle, without being amazed at the manifest contradictions into which he falls, for he declares a particular redemption one moment, and the next makes a universal offer of pardon: now tells his hearers that none can come to Jesus without special grace to draw them, and then fulminates the horror of horrors against all those who do not come to him.

This incongruity of thought and expression, which mars and spoils the symmetry and beauty of the work in which it is found, and which so often has disgusted us as we have read the works in question, are not to be found in the volumes before us. The severest logic guards every discourse therein; so that could we but see eye to eye with him in his propositions, we could do nothing else but approve of his conclusions.

From first to last Gadsby never seems to have wavered in his mind concerning the soundness of the creed he had adopted; and although he belonged to the school of High Calvinists, believing and teaching the all sufficiency of the gospel as a rule of faith as well as a declaration of mercy to the guilty, and, as such, had to bear very unjustly we think the charge of being an Antinomian, some saying "Lock up your cupboards when Gadsby enters your house; yet we know no author living or dead, whose works so fully claim from all believers that holiness without which no man can see the Lord; nor do we hesitate to affirm that taking the works of the two men as our guide-he was as devoted to the Saviour as was the well known Vicar of Madeley. The greatest