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April 1, 1742. – “I seem to be declining, with respect to my life and warmth in divine things; have not had so free access to God in prayer to-day as usual of late. Oh that God would humble me deeply in the dust before him! I deserve hell every day, for not loving my Lord more, who has, I trust, “loved me and given himself for me;” and every time I am enabled to exercise any grace renewedly, I am renewedly indebted to the God of all grace for special assistance. “Where then is boasting?” Surely “it is excluded,” when we think how we are dependent on God for the existence and every act of grace. Oh! if ever I get to heaven, it will be because God pleases, and nothing else; for I never did any thing of myself but get away from God! My soul will be astonished at the unsearchable riches of divine grace when I arrive at the mansions which the blessed Savior is gone before to prepare.”
Lord’s day, April 25. “This morning I spent about two hours in secret duties, and was enabled, more than ordinarily, to agonize for immortal souls. At night I was exceedingly melted with divine love, and had some feeling sense of the blessedness of the upper world. Those words hung upon me with much divine sweetness. Psa. 84:7. “They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. ” Oh! the near access that God sometimes gives us in our addresses to him! This may well be termed “appearing before God:” it is so indeed, in the true spiritual sense, and in the sweetest sense. I think that I have not had such power of intercession these many months, both for God’s children, and for dead sinners, as I have had this evening. I wished and longed for the coming of my dear Lord: I longed to join the angelic hosts in praises, wholly free from imperfection. Oh!, the blessed moment hastens! All I want is to be more holy, more like my dear Lord. Oh for sanctification! My very soul pants for the complete restoration of the blessed image of my Savior; that I may be fit for the blessed enjoyments and employments of the heavenly world. So much of heaven before; it was the most refined and most spiritual season of communion with God I ever yet felt.”