Thursday, August 12. This morning I was exercised with sore inward trials: I had no power to pray; but seemed shut out from God, I had in a great measure lost my hopes of God’s sending me among the Heathen, and of seeing them flock to Christ. I saw so much of my hellish vileness, that I appeared worse to myself than any devil: I wondered that God would let me live, and wondered that people did not stone me, much more that they would ever hear me preach! It seemed as though I neither could nor should preach any more: yet about nine or ten o’clock, the people came, and I was forced to preach. And blessed be God, he gave me his presence and Spirit: so that I spoke with power from Job xiv. 14. Some Indians cried out in great distress,[¹] and all appeared greatly concerned.
[¹] It was in a place in the western borders of Connecticut, where there is a number of Indians.
Tuesday, August 17. I was exceedingly depressed in spirit; it cuts and wounds my heart, to think how much spiritual pride, and warmth of temper, I have formerly intermingled with my endeavours to promote God’s work: and sometimes I long to lie down at the feet of opposers, and confess what a poor creature I have been, and still am. Oh, the Lord forgive me, and make me for the future “wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove!”
Thursday, August 17. This day, being about to go from Mr. Bellamy’s at Bethlehem, where I had resided some time, I prayed with him, and two or three other Christian friends, and we gave ourselves to God with all our hearts, to be his for ever: eternity looked very near to me. If I never see them again in this world, it seemed but a few moments before I should meet them in another.
Friday, August 20. I appeared so vile to myself, that I hardly dared to think of being seen, especially on account of spiritual pride. However, to-night I enjoyed a sweet hour alone with God, (at Ripton) I was lifted up above the frowns and flatteries of this world, had a sweet relish of heavenly joys, and my soul did as it were get into the eternal world, and really taste of heaven.
Monday, August 23. I had a sweet season in secret prayer: the Lord drew near to my soul, and filled me with peace and consolation. My soul tasted the sweetness of the upper world; and was drawn out in prayer for the world, that it might come to Christ!
*Monday, August 30. I prayed with a Christian friend or two; and, I think, scarce ever launched so far into the eternal world; I got so far out on the broad ocean, that my soul triumphed over all the evils on the shores of mortality.——Time, and all its gay amusements and cruel disappointments, never appeared so inconsiderable to me before; I saw myself nothing, and my soul reached after God with intense desire. I knew, I had never lived a moment to him as I should do: indeed it appeared to me, I had never done any thing in Christianity; my soul longed with a vehement desire to live to God.
Saturday, September 4. God enabled me to wrestle ardently for the Redeemer’s kingdom; and for my dear brother John, that God would make him more of a pilgrim and stranger on the earth, and fit him for singular serviceableness in the world; and my heart sweetly exulted in the Lord, in the thoughts of any distresses that might light on him or me, in the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.
*Wednesday, September 8. I felt exceedingly weaned from the world.—In the afternoon I discoursed on divine things with a Christian friend, whereby we were both refreshed. Then I prayed, with a sweet sense of the blessedness of communion with God: I think I scarce ever enjoyed more of God in any one prayer. I knew not that ever I saw so much of my own nothingness in my life; never wondered so, that God allowed me to preach his word: never was so astonished as now.
*Friday, September 10. I longed with intense desire after God; my whole soul seemed impatient to be conformed to him, and to become “holy, as he is holy.” In the afternoon, I prayed with a dear friend, and had the presence of God with us; our souls united together to reach after a blessed immortality, to be unclothed of the body of sin and death, and to enter the blessed world, where no unclean thing enters. O with what intense desire did our souls long for that blessed day that we might be freed from sin, and for ever live to and in our God!