you fhall do with them when I am gone; but you need not. The Lord will raise you up friends where you do not expect. And what is beft of all, I fhall meet you in glory!" I replied, That is a pleafing thought! She anfwered, "It is." But faid I, my dear, you have greatly the advantage of me: you have got through the wildernefs. You are juft going to cross Jordan; and when you do, there will be an end of all your woes for ever! But alas! I am fill in an evil world; and what may yet await me I know not at prefent. But I know, a vast sea of trouble lies before me, through which I must pafs. Yet, I blefs God, I feel a ftrong confidence that all will be well in the end; although the way to it appears tedious and difficult. But I know the Lord is my strength, and all my hope is in him.

In the evening, fhe defired the children might be brought, to her bed-fide. She kiffed them both, and prayed that the bleffing of the God of Jacob might ever attend them: and added, I believe God will blefs you, and make you bleffings to many. I believe he will make you good men, and you will one day follow me to heaven." She uttered many expreffions of the same kind.

[To be continued.]

An Accoumt of Mr. JOHN HOSKINS: in a Letter to the Rev. John Wesley.

I

Rev. Sir,

Take this opportunity of giving you a fhort Account of the dealings of God with my foul for a few years last paft together with fome account of his work in Newfoundland.

In March, 1774, I left London, went down to Poole in Dorfetfhire, and embarked for Newfoundland. My defign

was

was to work there, till I got money enough to pay my pallage to New-England; where I intended to keep a school for my living; to work out my falvation, and to spend my little remains of life (being in my fifty-fixth year) with the people of God; and, as far as I was able, to help forward the falvation of others.

When I was about fourteen years of age, I tafted of the love of God, and felt the powers of the world to come. From that time I had frequently ftrong defires to live to God; to give myself wholly unto him.

In 1746, I first heard the Methodists at Bristol. The word fell on my foul as dew on the tender herb. I received it with joy, and foon joined the Society. In about three weeks I received a clear fense of forgiveness; but foon fell into reasoning and doubting. Sometimes I was in heaviness through manifold temptations; and it was near ten years. before I had the abiding Witness. Oh! how flow of heart to believe! and how unwilling to give up all to God!

After a paffage of five weeks I arrived at Trinity, in Newfoundland. I faw myself indeed a poor pilgrim on the earth, having no money; nor did I know one perfon in the place. As I was walking about on the shore, seeing a few low, mean houses, or rather huts, built with wood; and a rocky, defolate country and meditating on the deftruction which fin hath made in the world, I rejoiced exceedingly, that I was under the care and protection of an almighty and all-gracious God. Going by one of thefe houfes, I heard a child cry; and thought, as there was a family, there might be fome person with whom I might advise how to get into business: yet I was afraid, as I had been on board a fhip with a crew of English, curfing, fwearing favages, left I should meet with the like people in this barren and uncultivated country. However I knocked at the door; when a woman, the mother of the family came out, and asked me and my fon (a lad about fixteen who was VOL. VIII. with

D

with me) to come in. She gave us fome Seal and bread to eat, and fome coffee to drink, the beft the houfe afforded. She then directed me to feveral places, where she thought I might get bufinefs. The Minifter of the place advifed me to keep a fchool at Old Perlican, a place feven leagues from thence, across the Bay. Accordingly I went in a boat to Old Perlican. The people received me, and were glad of one to teach their children; there being about fifty families in the place. They likewife defired I would read prayers, and a fermon to them on Sundays; there being no manner of public worship before; neither Sundays nor week-days.

I accepted the Call, as from God, knowing it was my duty to do all the good I could, to the fouls as well as bodies of my fellow-creatures. Accordingly I read the Church Prayers, and fome of your Sermons, and fung your Hymns, by myself alone, for many weeks. For my congregation did not know how to behave in divine fervice; no not even to kneel in prayer, or to fing at all: but would ftand at a distance and look at me, as if I had been a monfter: and yet they called themselves members of the Church of England.

I then, according to my poor ability, began to explain to them, fome part of the Common-Prayer, the Articles of the Church, and the most effential parts of the religion of the heart fuch as repentance, remiffion of fins, and holinefs. I infifted on the neceffity of converfion. I told them, Ye must be born again; you must know your fins forgiven, or you cannot be faved: you must have the witness in yourselves: God's Spirit to witnefs with your fpirit that ye are the children of God. From that fpirit of faith and love, dwelling within you, will spring forth the fruits of good living, in all holinefs of life and converfation; and you are to grow in grace daily, till you are fully renewed, and all that is within you is holiness unto the Lord.

Sometimes

Sometimes in reading the Sermons, I fpoke a few words extempore, to make them (if poffible) underftand the meaning of what was read.

A few now began to be more ferious, and would kneel in prayer, and help me to fing. Soon after, I perceived fix or feven were awakened, and had a real defire to flee from the wrath to come. I advised them to meet together once a week, to help each other in working out their salvation, and told them I would meet with them. Accordingly we met on Sunday evenings. Our number foon increased to fixteen. And two or three in a little while teftified that they knew their fins were forgiven.

[To be continued.]

Of the FORE-KNOWLEDGE of GOD.

[Extracted from a late Author.]

OD is omnifcient with regard to things finite, in the

fame sense that he is omnipotent. He is not omnipotent because he actually and neceffarily produces all; but because he can, when he pleases, produce all that is poffible. Juft fo he is omnifcient with regard to finite, not because he necessarily knows all: but because he can, when he pleases, know all that is poffible. He was effentially free to think, or not to think of the actions of finite beings. The knowledge of them is not neceffary to the perfection of his boundless understanding. He fees them not by neceffity of nature but from his free love of the creatures. He is neither obliged to think of our effence, nor of our actions or modalities; but he does fo out of his pure, generous and communicative goodness. It is true that God by his own omniprefence fees neceffarily all that is; D 2

because all things

lie

lie open and bare before him. But this can be faid only of what is already exiftent: neceffary or inevitable; and not of what is contingent, poffible and free. Because there is no reality exiftent in matters purely poffible, that can be the object of the Divine perception. When God therefore forms the idea of a free creature, he forms that of an intelligence whofe determinations he leaves unconftrained; they may or may not be; and confequently their happening is only contingent and poffible. Now to fee in the nature of the creatures, or in his own eternal decrees, what is only contingent and poffible, as infallibly future and inevitable, is a perfect contradiction. It is to create and annihilate, to form and destroy, to establish and overturn his object by the fame individual act: it is producing a triangular circle. Wherefore as we do not derogate from the divine omnipotence, by denying that he can produce the one, fo neither do we impeach the divine omniscience by denying that he can see the other. In both cafes, the ideas are incompatible, their union is impoffible, and fo they cannot be the objects of the divine power or knowledge. It was therefore a strange delirium in the schoolmen, to attribute to God a fcience of what was impoffible to be known, which destroys liberty, establishes now an universal fatality in nature, and so destroys all God's moral attributes of juftice, fanctity and goodness; and all this under pretext of exalting his knowledge.

Once more I repeat the fublime principle. We must reafon of all God's acts, concerning finite beings, according to the rules of analogy. As God might have fufpended for ever the acts of his free power and free love, without being impotent or unjuft; fo he might have fufpended for ever the acts of his free knowledge without being ignorant. His generous, communicative, free, and difinterested goodness alone engaged him to exert all the three. None of thefe acts intereft neceffarily the effential perfection of his nature, and all their effects when compared to his abfolute effence are

nothings.