ing her to Gon, she closed her eyes; and her happy spirit took its flight to the mansions of glory on Saturday, Aug. 14th, 1819, in the twenty-sixth year of her age.

Thus lived, and thus died, one of the best of women. The least that can be said of her, is, that whether viewed as a private Christian, or as the wife of a Missionary, her daily conduct shed a lustre on the sphere in which she moved. In housekeeping, she excelled. Always remarkably neat and clean in her own person, she endeavoured that every thing should resemble her. With a truly hospitable heart, she was a great economist; and it was her daily labour to maintain order and regularity in all her domestic affairs. And without inquiring what connexion may subsist between inward and outward things in general, I can confidently say that, in her case, all these external virtues did but shadow forth the graces of her pure, pious, and heavenly mind.-As she followed after holiness in heart and life, so she used the means prescribed for the attainment of it. From the time of her conversion, she read the Scriptures on her knees in private, whenever she could. She was instant in prayer; nor did it suffice her to be punctual in the outward duty; it was the end to which she looked,-union with God, and an abiding sense of his love. And O how faithful was she towards me, in reference to divine things! If I complained, she comforted me. If I appeared in grief or sorrow, she sorrowed too. If on any occasion I had been hurried from my room at my usual hours of devotion, she could not rest till she knew that I had not forgotten private prayer. The prosperity of religion lay near her heart. On our arrival in Jamaica, she offered to take charge of a class of negroes; but as it was difficult to understand their dialect, I wished her to decline it at that time. She saw and pitied the young brown women, who are here greatly exposed to various temptations and vices; and as soon as circumstances allowed, she formed a class of brown girls, whom she taught to read the Scriptures, and to understand the things of God. She prayed for them, and taught them to pray; and before it pleased God to take her to himself, she had gathered together almost the whole of that description of persons in this place. These, with myself, and many others, lament her loss; but call her memory blessed.

While I was writing this Account, two of our Leaders waited on me, with a list of brown people, principally members of the Society, who have subscribed a sum amounting to £43., for the purpose of getting, from England, a tomb-stone for MRS. HORNE. Though I could by no means allow such a thing, yet I think I ought to mention it, as affording a proof of the poor people's affection for her.

May all who read this Memoir be induced to embrace that Religion, which made her amiable and happy in life, and enabled her in death to say, "Thanks be to Gop who giveth us the victory!"

Morant-Bay, Jamaica,

JAMES HORNE.

October 4, 1819.

THE SUBSTANCE OF A SERMON

Preached in Liverpool, on the 30th of July, 1820, before the Conference of the Ministers late in Connexion with the REV. JOHN Wesley,

BY JOHN EMORY,

The Representative of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America.

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CONFERENCE.

To the PRESIDENT and MEMBERS of the CONFERENCE of the Ministers late in Connexion with the Rev, JOHN WESLEY,—as an affectionate and grateful acknowledgment of the hospitality and kindness with which he was treated while in England, as a Representative to their Body from the GENERAL CONFERENCE of the METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH in AMErica, this Sermon is respectfully inscribed, by their much obliged Friend and Brother in CHRIST, THE AUTHOR.

1 CORINTHIANS, I. 21-24.

For after that, in the wisdom of GOD, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased GOD by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach CHRIST crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, CHRIST the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

In this age of Missionary and Bible Societies a question has been revived, Whether the knowledge of GoD, and its happy effects, be not attainable by the mere exercise of reason, without the aid of revelation. For a satisfactory decision of this question, the most impartial ground is taken by the Apostle in the passage before us. He appeals to facts. He appeals to the history of the world anterior to the period of the christian era; and on this ground he challenges the disputers of the world to meet him. "Where is the wise?" said he. "Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world?" These terms seem designed to embrace both the Gentile Philosophers and Sophists, and the Jewish Rabbins; in each of whom a ready answer was to be found to the question following. "Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" Hath he not shown its weakness and insufficiency? Look into the systems of "the wise." Examine the traditions and the glosses of "the scribes." Listen to the reasonings of those "disputers of this world" and you shall find that by just how much they were destitute of revelation, or departed from its dictates, by just so much they fell into the silliest trifling, and into the grossest superstitions and absurdities.-The proper province of

reason and science is in the service of revelation. In this province they are both honourable and useful. But when they aspire to the ascendency, when they seek to supersede the necessity of revelation,-God takes care to humble their pretensions, and to pour confusion on their pride.

It is the remark of an eminent commentator, that "the wisdom of GOD," in the 21st verse, is not to be understood of that wisdom which had God for its author, but of that wisdom which had God for its object. There was, he adds, among the heathen, wisdom about natural things, and wisdom about GOD, that is, divinity. But the world, even in their divinity, gave no evidence of the knowledge of GOD.

Whether this be the precise meaning of the phrase, or whether it refer to those displays of the divine wisdom with which they were surrounded in the works of creation, or simply, to the wisdom of the counsels of GoD, "who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways," it is not necessary now to determine. In either view, the leading doctrine is the same. It is, that among all mankind, the most distinguished talents, the brightest genius, the deepest and most extensive learning, never were, of themselves, sufficient to conduct a soul to the saving knowledge of God. From which fact it is a fair conclusion, that this is a task beyond the power of human wisdom;-that this is a knowledge with which no wisdom can illumine the soul of man but that which cometh down from above, from the Father of Lights, from Him who caused the light to shine out of darkness, and who shineth into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of JESUS CHRIST. The subject may be divided into two parts.

I. The insufficiency of human wisdom for the purpose of saving knowledge.

II. The means by which it pleases GOD to enlighten and save the world.

It will be remembered that the view which the Apostle takes of the subject is a practical one. I shall endeavour to place it in the same light.

I. At the time of which he speaks, the world was divided into two great classes;-the Jews, and the Gentiles. These two classes embraced all mankind. Under the first proposition we may therefore consider, 1. the state of the Jews; and, 2. that of the Gentiles.

The Jews, it is true, were not without the knowledge of God. "In Judah was God known, and his name was great in Israel.” This is amply evident from their Scriptures: and these Scriptures, independently on the question of their divine original, are certainly venerable monuments of the highest antiquity.

But what a singular fact is this in the history of the world. Let us approach and see this great sight. Why is it that there is light in the habitations of Israel, whilst darkness covers all the rest of the earth? Why is it that the brightness of day shines in Goshen,

whilst every other part of Egypt, that cradle of literature, and nursery of science, is wrapt in gloom? Why was God known in Judah ?JEHOVAH, the one living and true God, why was his name great in Israel, and no where else? Were the descendants of JACOB endowed with any superior powers of mind, or any superior leisure for metaphysical and moral speculations? In no wise. On the contrary, at the period of which we speak, they were an oppressed and a degraded people. They were neither distinguished for intellect, nor, if we may judge from their circumstances, for education. MOSES, indeed, by a singular providence, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. But if this were the source of his knowledge of God, why was it not possessed by the Egyptians themselves, from whom he had his learning? That they did not possess it, is a sufficient refutation of this idea. Besides, it was not to Moses first, or solely, that the Israelites were indebted for their knowledge of God. He was made instrumental in improving and establishing it. But the GOD whom he served, and whose worship he taught, was the God of ABRAHAM, and the GOD of ISAAC, and the GOD of JACOB: and the descendants of JACOB had preserved the knowledge and worship of him, under all the debasing effects of slavery, and in the midst of a superstitious and idolatrous nation, several hundred years. The knowledge of JEHOVAH, therefore, among the Jews, could not have been derived from the learning or wisdom of MOSES. It is equally evident that it could not have been made out by the mere reasoning of their patriarchal ancestors who preceded Moses. To suppose this, would be to suppose that certain reasoning powers had been conferred on them, which have been denied to all the rest of the world, before and after them. This, I imagine, will hardly be asserted.

There is one other source to which some have attempted to trace the knowledge of GOD. They have attempted to trace it to innate ideas ;-to natural impressions of the Deity, existing in our minds at birth, and growing with our growth. I shall not enter into any minute discussion of this opinion. It is sufficient to say of it, if it were true, it would follow that these ideas, being a natural endowment of the human mind, would naturally be possessed by all, and every where be found the same. Is this the fact? Do any such corresponding ideas of the true God naturally exist among all mankind; and have they always done so? The history of the world demonstrates the contrary, and consequently refutes this notion.

It remains, that the Jews derived their knowledge of God from the revelations which he made of himself; and which were preserved in the patriarchal line, till the time of Moses, by tradition, and afterwards, more explicitly and fully, in written records. "He showed his word unto JACOB; his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He did not deal so with any other nation." This explains the difference, in this respect, between them and all other people ;—a difference which, we conceive, cannot be accounted for on any other principle.

It may tend both to illustrate and to confirm the doctrine now advanced, if we consider that among all the improvements which have been made in other knowledge, by the study and wisdom of men, none has ever been made in the knowledge of God, except by revelations of himself. That truth delivered by Moses, in the first verse in the Bible, " In the beginning Gon created the heaven and the earth,'' is one which has stood the test of nearly four thousand years, without either refutation or improvement. Yet it is one, however familiar to us at present, which no philosopher or wise man, without the light of revelation, ever thought of. The gulf between nothing and something was one which human reason never could pass. The idea of a proper creation out of nothing, was one which never entered any philosopher's head. And hence the eternity of matter, in some form or other, was nniversally held by those who were unenlightened by revelation.

Mark, too, in the manner of delivering that great truth, the clearness and certainty, the completeness and perfectness with which it is expressed. These are the characteristics of proper knowledge ;—such as might be expected in a revelation from GOD. But this is not after the manner of men. Imperfection and uncertainty are the characters of their discoveries: the best of them owe their improve ment to much study and toil. We see this even in the useful inventions of ordinary life: and how much more might it be expected in the sublime contemplation of spiritual and eternal things. A comparison of the most celebrated uninspired writings of antiquity with those of Moses, in this view, would place the subject in a most convincing light.

That the Jews, whenever they were guided by their own imaginations, were inclined to the same superstitions and idolatries as other nations, is proved in every page of their history. They too "burnt incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven." But it was when the book of the Law was lost. With the recovery of that book the worship of the true God was again established, and idolatry banished from the land. It is a remarkable fact, too, that although they frequently fell into such idolatry previously to their captivity in Babylon, yet they never did afterwards. The only satisfactory reason that I recollect to have seen assigned for this is, that as they had no synagogues previously to that event, so also the book of the Law itself was very scarce among them. But after their return from Babylon, synagogues were erected, and the law was read to them every sabbath-day; which has ever since effectually preserved them from idolatry. This is a striking proof of the necessity of revelation, not only for the original attainment of the knowledge of God, but also for the preservation of it. Were this light once extinguished, and all the ministrations of it abolished, darkness would again cover the earth;-superstition and idolatry would resume their ancient empire, and once more stretch their leaden sceptre over a prostrate world. And let me add, this is