Many, many fears is he under, and many snares, and meikle [much] guiltiness. This day he desires to look unto thee in Christ Jesus, and to believe in his name for mercy, pardon, sanctification, wisdom, prevention; let him not be confounded. And through the Covenant, that is in all things well ordered and sure, even in all things, to look for help in all these cases, and other cases beside, which are known to thee. Let him not be disappointed, not put to shame, for he trusts in thee. Lord! his soul will not pass by nor dispense with any one particular this day; but desires through the blood of the Covenant that is everlasting [to] be answered through his name, and born through. Let not false reasoning and appearance deceive and draw away the heart; for thy law do I love, in thy laws I delight, according to the inward man.

Mr. G. H.a (L.) "Apostasy from God is a plague and judgment enough in itself, though there were no punishment following it. It raises an ill report of God, as if he were not good to his own, or worth the keeping, but to be fled from as from an enemy. 'What evil have your fathers found in me?'" Oh Lord! I flee from thee in many things, and know it not; or I am blinded, and will not know. Lord correct, he had never a fault to thee, and therefore is the more inexcusable, if he flee from thee, from his life and from his light, and from his guide and from his father. Any cause, though never so deeply contrived, though never so wise, which leads from the Lord, is but silliness and folly. Lord! print this on my heart, and convince the land of sin, and my soul of sin and silliness and folly. Silly dove! simplicity cannot bear us out in that which is evil; if it be not seasoned with holy wisdom, it cannot but insnare and mislead us. Lord! guard and pity my poor soul then.

Success should be rightly and wisely construed. When we construct providence or judgment wrong, to confirm us in an evil way, it is to speak lies against the Lord, and to father wickedness upon him, for he takes no pleasure in any thing that is evil. Much of this kind of lying and misconstruing seems to be among us. "I have redeemed them, and they have lied against me." Carnal confidence, or leaning to creatures, and misknowing the Lord, is a great degree of apostasy. They will never mourn for the sins of the Church or of their own soul, that see not the heinousness of them beyond the sins of any other. Oh that I could take up sin

Probably Mr. George Hutcheson.

rightly, and every thing that aggravates it, and be duly burdened with it. It is right with God, when men walk out of the way, to make their own way a snare to them.

(A.) We poor creatures are commanded by our affections and passions, they are not at our command; but the Holy One doth exercise all his attributes at his own will, they are at his command; they are not passions nor perturbations in his mind, though they transport us. Were my affections and faculties at thy command, I would not seek them at mine: but when I would hate, I cannot; when I would love, I cannot; when I would grieve, I cannot; when I would desire, I cannot when I would. It is the better for us, that all's as He wills. And we need not marvel why He hides, and does not manifest love sometimes, for He knows the prejudice which it might do to us. The Lord will never let forth more anger than may consist with the good pleasure of his will, and his fidelity, and covenant, and love to his people, or that may hinder his sympathy with their sufferings. Goodness and compassion appears [as] in forbearing to strike, so in moderating when he strikes, and laying less on us than we deserve. He suffers their manners. They are cruel to themselves, that put the Lord to strike; he smites not willingly. Not observing his oft preventing mercy in holding off wrath, is great unthankfulness to God, and a provocation to strike.

Use. To these that have not been smitten in the common calamity, see that immunity from the stroke be not the saddest stroke. Turning away anger, and the manifestation of it, may prove the pouring out of greatest anger. Let us not so much grumble at that which is upon us, as wonder that there is not more inflicted on us. We oft sin in not shewing forth our thankfulness in acknowledging the mercy in our afflictions, whilst we complain. When afflictions are a-dealing, let us not refuse to take our share with the Lord's people, though oft they get the first, yet never the sorest. Join with whom we will, they shall taste more of the dregs than his Church shall do.

22nd May. His soul desired to seek the Lord, and to be cast down under the loosness of his spirit, and unfavouriness in this week that's past, especially his unwatchfulness, carnal-mindedness, formality in drawing near to thee. Others are this day renewing the seals of their assurance, peace, and communion, with the Lord of his ordinance, and getting strength and

grace renewed while he is sitting still. Let them come good speed, and let my drought and barrenness be helped in the Lord Jesus! Let my soul live, and be prepared to receive more of that life that is hid with Christ in God, and be purged more of all superfluity and naughtiness, that it may live by faith!

This forenoon he read the 32nd Psalm, 8, 9. "I will instruct thee, and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye. Be not ye like the horse, or like the mule, that have no understanding, &c." Lord, this does describe the very condition of my heart; I am like a brute creature that has no understanding. May he not pray that thy admonition, "be not," may be a command? "Be not thou," thou shalt not be as the horse. May he not pray and believe in thy name for making good the promise to me, even to me also, "that thou wilt instruct and teach me the way that I should go, and guide me by thine eye?" He desires to have the faith of this promise in his heart, and to exercise the faith of it, and [that] I may not let it go. He waits on thee; thou art his rock, his strength, his house of defence. Thou wilt know my soul in adversity; and for thy name's sake lead me and guide me.

Oh Lord, print on my heart Psalm xxxi. 6, to hate these that regard lying vanities; my nature is not bent to hate evil with that indignation that he should. "What profit is there in my blood, when I go down into the pit? In thy favour is life. Let me dwell in thy temple, there every one speaks of thy glory." "Thou wilt keep me alive, that I go not down into the pit. Let me not be ashamed, for I have called upon thee." Oh Lord! meikle sweetness in these Psalms: teach me to draw it forth, that I may be prevented.

Hosea vii. This day he heard that many things might fall in, that we are apt to rest upon in the matter of repentance; as conviction, legal work of terror, some external duties: that there may [be] meikle din and praying with little substance. "They cried, but not [to] the Lord with their heart." When our cry arose only from self, and fear of our external calamity, we were no better than brute beasts; howl'd like dogs. There is no right turning to God, but when he is taken up to be the most high God. Nothing will so surely or suddenly bring on judgment, as defending ourselves in sin, and not taking with our sin, and the punishment of it. Our repentance must not be like a deceitful bow. Prayer and an, orderly conversation must be joined together, or else it is rebellion against him.

Psalm 1xxviii. 39.-We oft partake of the fruit of his compassion, and know it not; therefore we would not taste and see his compassion in any thing. The choicest of men are frail and nothing, flesh; and as the wind it passeth away and returns not again. "Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of ?" Uncontentedness with our estate, and lifting up ourselves against God, shews we know not our original. Tho' man be frail and nothing, yet, alas! I esteem over meikle of man, even more than of God; for I fear and am over loth to offend him. We should not complain on our condition here as hard: when we are under cross, we think we were well if this were over; and yet we may change our cross, but not our condition. Let us not build much on outward comforts; they will not last nor continue. Changes will trouble us the less, that we resolve with them before-hand, and think not on building tabernacles to ourselves here. Men are atheists in the point of their own frail mortal condition here, and atheists in the point of eternity.

Evidences that we know not ourselves how frail we are. 1. If we be not evermore in mercy's common. To one that knows his own nothingness, the Lord's mercy is never tasteless; he finds it in approaching to God, and then cries out he abhors himself; in deliverances and benefits, he is less than the least of his mercies. 2. When we expect or dream of contentment below in the creatures. He that knows himself, cannot be beguiled of the world, or disappointed; he is prepared for the worst it can do, and is not allured nor taken with the best of creatures. 3. Boldness to sin, an evidence we know not ourselves. (1) Meddling with God's truth and worship may seem a cleanly sin, &c. (2) To fall in sin, which the word preached does often challenge. 4. Pride and insolence under prosperity. They at times think themselves God, or not in the common condition of men, but singular. Make them know themselves to be but men. 5. They think never to meet with eternity, and never to part with the present world. Lord, discover this, and purge away my dross!

23rd May, 1653.-I have resolved and determined, in the Lord's strength, to eschew and avoid employments under Cromwell; I say, 'Tis in the Lord's strength.

24th May.—I spoke with Mr. Leighton; he did shew me, that the composing of our differences was not a harder task than the finding out the Lord's mind by them, both the procuring and final cause. He thought holiness, the love of God and our brethren, was the chief duty God was calling us unto, and sobriety and forbearance to one another. He knew not if it were not from his natural temper, or something of the English air; but he thought it was the safest to incline in mitiorem partem. Much persecution was there upon our imposing upon one another, as if we were infallible, allowing none that differed from ourselves in the least measure. He thought the Lord would break that which we would so fain hold up, our Judicatories; he had observed so much of our own spirit in them these many years past, that he had lothed them for the most part, and wearied of them. I said indeed, I thought that our Judicatories these three or four years were much deserted, and without that presence of God in them which sometimes was observed. Our differences were [the cause]. That the Lord might not be traced in his way, and that none may come after him; therefore he darkens our mind. Now, oh Lord! guard my heart against that which I incline unto, even indulgency and counting light of errors and heresies! and, oh Lord! guard also, upon the other hand, against that blind spirit of sinful untenderness! help him to be making a right use of all thy works of judgment and mercy, and to be thorowly acquainted with thy will, and the duty which thou callest me unto.

Mr. Leighton said, These differences should make the hope of heaven the sweeter. I said, 'Tis true; yet so as not to weary here, or be hasty. He said, It was the more venial extreme, if any were venial, and better than any love of the world. I said, One grain of the world's love was more burdensom and worse than a hundred grains of untimeous desires after heaven. He said, Deferred hope breaks the heart. He said, If the saints knew the advantages and final causes of their differences and trials, they would rather trials. And indeed, I think the sweet fruit of a sanctified trial is to see mercy in it for correcting our quarrelling, and advantage; which would make us love the Lord better, and so say, "In faithfulness thou hast afflicted me, and, it was good for me, &c." Tho' we may not love the

Robert Leighton, minister of Newbattle, was admitted by the English to be Principal of the University of Edinburgh,

17th January, 1653. He held this office till his promotion to the See of Dumblane, in 1662.