June, 1796.

PSALM CXXII. I was glad when they said unto me, Let

us go

into the house of the Lord.

The house of the Lord-whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord, to seek his face, to learn his will, to taste his love, to behold his glory, to enjoy God as their own God, and reconciled Father.

Lord! let my heart be warmed more towards thy house; I have sought and found thee in thy sanctuary, read thy providences, and been taught thy will; I have tasted thy love, and beheld thy glory; I have enjoyed thy presence as my own reconciled Father in Christ Jesus; I have been satisfied with thy goodness, as with marrow and fatness, and yet how cold and languid at times, how little desire to return, how small my expectations, how wandering my imagination! how do I sit before thee as thy people, and my heart with the fools eyes at the ends of the earth! Lord, I would blush and be ashamed, were a fellow mortal to see my heart at times. I may hide my eyes from viewing vanity, but the evil lies within. O Lord, thou knowest the cause: for all I have heard, seen, tasted, and handled of the word of life, I am still of myself an empty vessel, unable to speak a good word or think a good thought. Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord. Quicken me according to thy word; turn thou away my eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken me in thy way: then shall I run in the way of thy commandments, when thou hast enlarged my heart.

The house of God-the owner, the builder, and maker is God, and it is his peculiar treasure. Christ is the foundation, and chief corner stone, and his

N

house are we, built upon him, cemented together a spiritual building; the foundation cannot fail, the corner stone can never give way; neither can we fall to pieces, or be separated from him.

and

The house of God-Jerusalem, Zion, the rest of God, where he delights to dwell, where he will for ever stay; the house of God, the Church, yea the body of Christ: Christ the head, his people the church, his members, whose life is in him, and derived from him; because he lives, we shall live also. Lord, enlarge my understanding, to comprehend more and more of the height, and depth, length and breadth of the love of Christ, which passeth all understanding. Open my eyes to behold wondrous things in thy law, (Gospel.) I am as yet but a babe: Glory to God that I am what I am; a babe in Christ. I shall be nourished with life and

strength from my divine head; educated and nurtured by the blessings of the new Covenant. I shall arrive at that perfection of stature appointed; and stand in my lot at the latter day. Amen.

May 16, 1796.

my

statutes,

PSALM lxxxix. 30. If his children forsake my laws, and walk not in my judgments: if they break and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes : nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from them, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail; my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Amen. Blessed promise! O it is a well ordered Covenant, and it is sure. Of all the provision of the Covenant, this has been to my soul among the most comfortable. Thanks be to God for the discipline of

the Covenant; often has it been administered. Thou knowest, and I know in part how necessarily, although I shall not know, nor understand all, until that blessed rod shall have perfected its correction, and shall never more be lifted up.

Many ups and downs has thy servant experienced in this vale of tears; many tears have watered these now aged cheeks; in variety of ways hast thou stricken, and at times stripe has followed stripe, but mercy and love accompanied every one of them. I bless thee; OI praise thee, that I have seldom received a stripe ΟΙ but I had with it a token of love. Sin was embittered, a Saviour endeared, and grace given to kiss the rod, and cleave to him that had appointed it. And now I can read in legible characters, where in many instances thy checks met my wandering steps, and stopt me short of huge precipices, preserved me from destroying even my worldly comfort. In some instances, (I thank thee they have not been many;) thou hast been pleased to let me alone, to let me pursue my own way: ways so wise in my own eyes, that I have either not sought counsel at all, or sought it as Balaam did, with my heart set on my own will.

In some cases, thou hast let me eat of the fruit of my own doings, and let me weary myself in my own way, until I found it not only vanity and vexation of spirit, but sometimes a labyrinth from which I could find no escape: then did I cry unto the Lord: then did I remember my backslidings: then did I seek unto the cleansing fountain, and to the appointed Mediator, the maker up of the breach: then did I experience afresh the Lord's power to save.

In how many instances has he given a sudden turn to providences, which have been made means of my

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deliverance; not only so, but brought good out of my evil, so that I have been made to wonder, and to say, surely this is the finger of God.

I destroy myself, but in thee is my help found. O let these wanderings end: fix it deep on my mind, that in the Lord only have I wisdom as well as strength: that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O when shall I learn to live simply on Christ, by the light of his pure unerring word, and the Spirit coinciding; and have done with these carnal reasonings, the wisdom of men! Search me, O Lord, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Amen.

August 4, 1796.

A DAY TO BE REMEMBERED!

Rose at four, not to mourn: no, but to repeat my grateful thanks to my covenant God, for the work he finished this day, last year. In delivering my weak, feeble, tossed, and tried Jessie from a body of sin and death, and giving her the victory through Jesus Christ, who loved her and gave himself for her. To thee she was dedicated ere she saw the light: to thee a thousand times I repeated the dedication, begging that thou mightest bring her within the bond of thy Covenant: this was the sum and substance of all my askings for her, and all of them. I witnessed the time of her second birth, saw the tears of conviction and remorse. I witnessed thy loosing her bonds, and tuning her heart and tongue to praise redeeming love. I witnessed the teaching of thy Spirit, and the enlightening of her eyes, and the taste thou gavest her of thy salvation; I thought her mountain stood strong, and she would not

be easily moved: but who can tell the deceitfulness of the human heart? Too soon did we all turn aside like a deceitful bow, forsook the fountain of living waters, and hewed out broken cisterns that could hold no water. Glory to God for the discipline of the Covenant, that he did not cast us off, but chastised and corrected. He repeated the discipline stripe upon stripe; I stood by and saw it, and though my heart melted at times I said, "she is in her Father's hand, let him do his pleasure." I too was unfaithful to her, thou knowest, and often entered into the same vanity of mind which stifled the love of God in our hearts, instead of guarding her, and warning her: still, still, the Shepherd of Israel followed after both, and with the precious rod restored both, time after time, till it pleased thee to finish her warfare and deliver her from both body and sin. Lord, I thank thee for all the circumstances, for the privilege of attending her in her warfare, for the cheerfulness of her spirits, for the rich support we all experienced, for the view we all had of thy faithfulness and fatherly dealing, and for her last words, "all is well." O yes! every thing thou doest is well, and this was peculiarly well. I resigned her to thee with joy and thankfulness, and I still acquiesce. Her thou hast taken, me thou hast left, to be yet exercised with further discipline. It is well-thy will be done. O! help me to profit by every pang! O let sin be mortified, and my soul purified; enlarge my heart to run the ways of thy commandments. Now may I lay aside every weight, and that vanity of mind which doth so easily beset me, and hath been the secret spring of much backsliding both to myself and to my children. Lord, destroy it. O let me now live to God, closely and consistently; down with my will, with self in every form!