ministers of Boston, upon the early baptists in that country, this remark was attendant; how dreadful have been the devastations and scandals occasioned by a false and furious zeal, even by those who, in many respects, have been reputed pious, when they departed from that charity by which all the members of the body, however diversified, are edified together, "and grow up in all things, into him who is the head, even Christ!"

29. A pretty comfortable day, passed under some internal sense of the divine presence, and a conviction that the Lord is a God near at hand, who hears the prayers of the poor. At the Park evening meeting, there was a giant in the way; but a degree of victory was experienced in an inward exercise.

30. The forenoon meeting was small, and wholly silent; from the early part to the close, my mind was exercised respecting the necessity and nature of inward silent prayer, and with various openings relative thereto; but I esteemed it much more preferable to experience something of it in my own particular, than to speak of it to others.

SECOND MONTH, 1785.

4. This week I have been low, as to the divine life; nevertheless, some inward exercise and reformation from unnecessary speaking, has been experienced; every deliverance from evil, even in

what may be esteemed minute and inconsiderable instances, is a mercy not of works, but of grace; which teacheth to deny ungodliness.

II.

Before

I came to Hartford, after having been absent therefrom more than two months. I arose, I had some sensations of a living faith in Christ, as he was the one offering, which hath forever perfected them who are sanctified; and as he is revealed within, the sanctifier of his people, "and their hope of glory."

12. This week I have remembered the Lord upon my bed, and measurably meditated on him, in the morning watches.

17. Walking towards Dunkirks in the snow, I was favored with some sense of God that made me, and desires after more communion with him, through the Mediator, who "is the way, the truth, and the life." My spirit was measurably tendered and humbled in the presence of Him,

who dwelt in the bush ;" it is certainly our incumbent duty to be diligent in the attendance of meetings, and not through lukewarmness and indifference to neglect the assembling of ourselves together, for the purposes of divine worship in a collective capacity: yet herein is a danger of a zeal which is not according to true knowledge, and of laying too great a stress upon the attendance and feeding as it were, upon the bare outward act. Particularly erroneous and blameable are those of the Romish and episcopal communities, in calling their places for worship, the houses of God;'

and endeavouring to inculcate a veneration for those edifices. Wherever the divine presence is manifested, whether it is in the open fields, the secret chamber, or elsewhere, the language of the patriarch Jacob may with propriety be adopted; "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." "What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits?"

19.

"What owest thou to thy Lord ?" was a query formerly proposed. We are all as bankrupts; we owe much, and have nothing to pay with; and are destined to everlasting perdition for our debts, unless, with the man who owed the ten thousand talents, we are not only forgiven, but graciously supplied by Him, in whose hand is the wine and the oil, the light and the atonement, and the unsearchable riches of an everlasting inheritance.

Notwithstanding the severity of the weather, I have hitherto been, since my late confinement, free from rheumatic returns, and some customary complaints; I have likewise been at times favored with some sensations of the divine preservation from evil.

20. In the forenoon meeting, some words were spoken respecting that state of nothingness and dependence, in which we ought to attend our religious meetings; in order to wait for "the promise of the Holy Ghost," and the pouring forth of the spirit from on high.

21.

A pretty comfortable day; some ascent in spirit, being experienced towards the mountain of

the Lord's holiness.

Without a vital, internal

holiness, no man shall see the Lord.

27. I sat down in the forenoon meeting in a state of utter insensibility respecting spiritual things; but pretty soon, some sense of that effectual prayer which availeth much, covered my mind; which, with some matter relative to the exercise thereof, seemed almost ripe for utterance; but the weight of the pointing to speak seeming rather to abate, I remained in silence; but I hope the opening was, in some degree, profitable to myself, and also to others.

THIRD MONTH, 1785.

1. As to the outward, was passed pretty fairly: we had what I have sometimes called the "gospel feast ;" and some of the poor were partakers of the benefit. Fefore dinner, I set out for a walk with my wife and S. R. but was soon disposed to leave them for the sake of retirement; sitting under a tree, the gracious promise recorded in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, was freshly brought to my remembrance; videlicet, " they that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength." I greatly marvel that any who have experienced the benefit, the unspeakable benefit resulting from retirement, should be so fond of company: the true friend is in the heart, the spouse who is always jealous : the strength of Israel "is not a man that he should

lie, nor the Son of Man that he should repent ;" "He is the everlasting strength of the poor, and refuge for the needy in his distress."

2. In the week-day meeting a short testimony was borne to Him, who is the "Tower of the flock, and the strong hold of the daughter of Zion.”

5. The assizes for the county were held this week, and seven of my fellow men were destined to death, by the decision of an earthly tribunal; erroneous and mistaken the Calvinists appear, in supposing all Adam's posterity are subjected to the penalty of death, spiritual, temporal and eternal, through the default of their original progenitor; from him, indeed, they derive a fallen nature, "prone to evil as the sparks fly upward;" as by one man sin entered, and death by sin; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned;" not in Adam as their head and representative, but in their own persons.

9. I was deeply depressed under a consideration of man as mortal, and my own distance and dissimilitude from Him, "who dwelleth in the light," and who only hath immortality.

16. I went to the week-day meeting in distress; but the wonderful transition of the beggar Lazarus, from the gate of Dives, to Abraham's bosom, being powerfully impressed, I was for a season measurably consoled; but nothing was verbally expressed by me.

20. The meetings this day were large, that in the afternoon particularly so, on account of the