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increase of the testimony and government of the prince of peace. If there is not a diligent waiting at wisdom's gate and in the valley of humiliation, in the true faith and patience of the faints, the sense of divine things is gradually leffened and loft; and inftead thereof, a kind of reafoning takes place, wherein the divine life and its bleffed teftimony is ftifled and rejected; and those who ftand faithful therein are cenfured and condemned. And, O thou exercised travailing foul, whoever thou art, hold on thy way; hold faft thine integrity; be not discouraged at the lukewarmnefs or want of true judgment and difcerning in others; but be thou valiant for the cause of truth in thy day; and then notwithstanding all the oppofition thou mayeft meet with, within or without, the Lord will be thy fhepherd; the holy One of Ifrael will watch over, protect, and defend thee; and as thou leaneft wholly to the arm of his help, and truftest steadfastly in his divine light for thy leader, he will furely uphold and sustain thee through all thy combats and fiery trials in this militant state; and when thy faithful warfare here below is fully accomplished, he will receive thee into his glorious church triumphant, there for ever to join the fhouts and hallelujahs of faints and angels, in a glorious and unspeakable participation and fruition of perfect bleffedness.

8th month, 4th. I have now freedom to commit to writing a little of what I have thought of the cuftom among many Friends of calling one another friend, inftead of calling them by their proper given names, which I think deferves ferious confideration,

why this way of fpeaking, to those whofe names we are acquainted with, is continued in. Is it not to fhun the cross or because calling perfons by their names John, James, Peter, Paul, &c. founds too unmodifh, or as fome may think, difrefpectful? Is there nothing of the fpirit of the world in thus flinch

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ing from ftrict plainnefs and fimplicity? If I am not mistaken, we fhall, whenever we arrive to the bleffed estate the apoftle mentions, of having every thought brought into captivity to the obedience of • Chrift,'* be willing to deny ourselves and take up the cross, even in things that appear to be foolishnefs itself to this world's wifdom, for it is in fuch things that God in his wifdom is often pleased to exercise and prove the integrity of his children, in order to confirm and establish their humiliation and fubjection of will to him and his holy law. Here pride has no free fcope; the fpirit and friendship of the world is carefully renounced; and the crofs in all its neceffary operations fubmitted to and embra

A plain decent dress, a plain house, furniture, and fare, in all things, will become the humble followers of a meek and humble Saviour: plainness and fimplicity of language will beft adorn a 'real christian.

In these days I often renewed covenant with my God-fat much alone-kept filence-and bore his yoke and rod upon me. Many days I spent nearly, if not quite, without condemnation; and I believe without fin; though many others were fo spent, as to cause more or lefs of anxiety and wo: but I even found the miniftration of condemnation was truly glorious, because it prepared my mind for, and led to, the more glorious miniftration of juftification. Fervent was the engagement of my mind; and often my peace flowed like a river, and Sion's welfare fwallowed up almost all other confiderations and concerns. Much travail did I often feel for the prefervation and growth of the Lord's vifited children, I mean thofe who had become livingly fenfible of the operations of his divine power upon their fpirits and to fome of these I wrote once in a while an encouraging or perfuafive letter, a confiderable

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* 2 Cor. x. 5.

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number of these I have by me, but, to avoid fwelling these memoirs, I omit them here, as alfo a great part of the minutes and memorandums which

made of my exercifes, watchings, ftrivings, and trials in those days.-In the time of waiting on the Lord in filent retirement alone, which was mostly my daily practice, it fometimes pleased him to vail his holy prefence from me, in order to prove my patience and steadfast reliance upon him; and fometimes to command a folemn awful filence in me, wherein he often stood revealed in majestic all-fufficiency before me, in a manner which I have no words to convey a clear idea of to any who have not experienced the fame in themselves. But I am affured that all, who rightly wait upon him in their own minds, will find him a God nigh at hand, and graciously difpofed to replenish and fatisfy the hungry foul. I do not believe a man can go afide, and fit down alone, to make the experiment, merely to see what the confequence of fitting in filence will be, without a real hunger and heart-felt travail; and therein be favoured with the, flowings of the holy oil. But none ever wait rightly and perfeveringly upon God in vain. The incomes of his love afford more true joy, than all earth's richest enjoyments. A feast of fat things, of wines on the lees well re'fined,' is the comfortable portion of his chofen.

In these awful approaches I beheld at times with clearness the kind hand of the Lord in leading ine through many deep probations. I viewed his overturning influence among men, in these outwardly troublesome times; and now and then my profpccts were livingly extended in great good-will, and rolling of bowels, towards the church in general, and fome places in particular, with a living evidence fealed on my heart, that, if I abode faithful, I must devote

+ Ifai. 25. 6.

devote confiderable time in the fervice of the gofpel in my day and generation. My foul, under the animating influence of these openings and profpects, at feafons, bowed in reverent proftration before Emmanuel, God with us.

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CHAP. IV.

On taxes for war. Vifit to fome families in Dartmouth, and to Mofes Farnum in his laft fickness. His marriage. Vifit on Rhode-Island. Concerning fpirituous liquors. On procuring this world's goods. Thankfgiving, a Poem. Family vifit in his own monthly meeting.

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Tour yearly meeting this year, 1779, the fubject of Friends paying taxes for war came under folid confideration. Friends were unanimous, that the teftimony of truth, and of our fo. ciety, was clearly againft our paying fuch taxes as were wholly for war; and many folid Friends manifefted a lively teftimony against the payment of those in the mixture; which teftimony appeared evidently to me to be on fubftantial grounds, arifing and spreading in the authority of truth. It was a time of refreshment to an exercised number, whofe fpirits I truft were feelingly relieved, in a joyful fenfe of the light which then sprung up among us. On the whole, I am renewedly confirmed, that however the burden-bearers of the present generation among us may hold on their way, or fall fhort and give back, the Lord will raife up a band of faithful followers, who, prefering Jerufalem's welfare to their chiefeft joy, will prefs through the crowd of reafonings, and follow the Lamb whitherfoever he leadeth them.

In those days I paffed through many trials and exercises, unknown except to God and my own foul; but he knew my heart, and all my tribulations, and how to carry me through them; and bleffed be his holy name! he supported and bore up my drooping mind through every probation and befetment. At times I clearly faw he was refining me in the furnace of affliction: then why

fhould.

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