r! I! 168 MEMOIRS OP PERIOD vIII. were none there from Etterick. It was my good friend C. Wood 'that, by keepingiup of Mr Wilfon's letter, occafioned this dillrefs to me. Feb. 27. A violent fit as of thegravelbeginning with mywife, Ideigned to go to prayer on that account : but immediately fhe was better; arid therefore I prayed, and with her gave thanks for the receipt of what we were thinking to feek. My heart was . enlarged under a fenfe of the Lord's goodnefs. And this new mercy revived the grateful fenfe of the Lord's kindnefs that I have of late "met with in the hearing of prayers. This night the two focieties met together for prayer, concerning the bufinefs of my tranfportation. One of the wefiern fociety going to read, allied The where he fhould read ; I laid he might read where he pìeafed, thinking he would chufe force place thimble to the occafion. And íb one tells him, our ordinary in the -eaftern fociety (which met"weekly at my hdufe) was Gen. xii. "So he begins, and reads, " Now the Lord had Paid untoAbram, Get thee out of thy coun- try, and from thy kindred; and from thy father's houfé, unto " a land," &c. This was very furprifing to me, being fo pat to my café. Thus was that work begun. As for their prayers, they were as I noted before, p. 203. March 2. I preached on the obferving of providences, from Pfal. cvii. ult. ; and I obferve how the Lord led me to it, through feveral;difiiculties, drying up to me another fubje l I thought to have been on. I was afraid to venture on this fubjed, not know- ing how to manage it ; but the Lord was pleated to lay to my hand liberally, for all the fcrimpnefs I feared. March S. Latter end of the tall week, I began to have force paflìng fears, that the buffnefs of Etterick 'might mifgive at the fynod ; but laft night they became exceeding great and preíling, fo that I lay down with fuch a weight of them, that I had much ado to bear up againft them. The precife point on which they rolled, was this, viz. That in cafe it fhould mifgive, it would brangle me terribly as tomy own foul's cafe, raze foundations, turn all I had got in quell of light in the matter, into delufion; and fo, in that event, l would not know any more how to difco- ver the mind of God in a particular cafe. No wonder then this was moll heavy, and perplexing, and racking, as indeed it was, threatening a firoke at the very rootofmy foul. Only I thought, if I was wrong, I would be content to be undeceived ; feeing I was yet in the land of the living, and 'might yet be fet right. This day I had a grateful fenfe of the Lord's goodnefs to nie; and of his gracious condefcenfìon, in that he had been pleafed to let me fee my duty clearly now eight daysago ; and that he did not keep up his light from me till the very nick of time of the determina- tion of the bufìnefs. O ! the wifdom and foreknowledgeofGod, in letting in there fears, like a flood, on my foul l I do with pro- foundefl' humility, and thankfulnefs, admire and adore that wif-. dom and foreknowledge, when I look back on the heavy talkL
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