1699. MR THOMAS BOSTON. 39 lightning, and immediately made my very heart to leap for dread. This, I faw, was one of Satan's fierydarts. To-morrow morning, being the Lord's day, I found my heart dull ; I endea- voured to apply that word, Hof. xiv. 5., " I will be as the dew unto Ifrael ;" and was fomewhat revived. But in prayer thereafter he covered himfelf with a cloud. I cried, that if there were any accurfed ftuffI knew not of, he would difcover it to me ; and I had a fad profped of thisday's work. I would have been content of a fick-bed, rather than to be carried hence with- out his pretence to the pulpit. Intending to read, I prayed for a word that might revive me ; and reading in my ordinary, Matth. xvi. my heart moved and leapt, I thought; within me, when I read ver. S. " O ye of little faith, why reafon yeamong " yourfelves, becaufe ye have brought no bread?" I took it to myfelf; I faw it was my unbelief, and that I behoved to depend on God, laying all the ftrefs on him. Afterward I got that word, " When I fent you out, lacked yeany thing ?" I poured out my foul when in the manfe, and fuffered the bell to toll long : and when I was going out, and heard it tolling, I thought, it was now tolling for me to come to preach, may-be ere the next Sabbath it may toll for me to the grave. This was ufeful. The Lord was fweetly and powerfully with me through the day. Af- ter the lecture we fang part of Pfal. li. the last line ofit, at which I flood up, was, " With thy free fpirit me flay :" I flood up with courage, for I thought the Spirit of God was my flay ; and . in the night when I awoke, I was íìi11 with God. On the 23d, reading in fecret Matti). xix. and coming tover. 29. " And every one that hath forlàken houfes," &c. I found my heart could givetno credit to it. I would fain have believed it, but really could not. I meditated a while on it, with ejacu- lations to the Lord, till in fome meafure I overcame. I then went to prayer, where the Lord gave me to fee much of my own vilenefs, and particularly that evil and plague of my heart.. I bleffed the Lordfor fealing ordinances, for then I faw the need of them to confirm faith. On the 24th came to me one of the elders of Carnock, and (hewed me a letter they had from the Countefsof Kincardine, defiring them to go to the prefbytery of Stirling, to get me to preach two or three days with them ; and if they and I fhould be both pleafed, fhe -would concur in a call, and Sir Patrick Mur- ray would join with her. But by means, I think, of a lifter of my friend's living in their neighbourhood, I had been ftrongly impreffed with a very hard notion of that parifh, a4a Pelf- people, among whom I would have no fuccefs : and tho' I durit not forbid them to proceed, yet I told plainly, that I found my heart was not with them, thinking myfelf obliged, in juftiçe to them, to declare the matter as it really was. Thus I ftood in myown way with refpe& to that parifh : but Providence had defigned far better for them, the worthy Mr James Hog being E2
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