me; but surely we want a
new sanctification every day,--a new recurrence to the
grace that will _set_ "all dislocated bones," as J. Fletcher
calls unsanctified feelings and affections. I was much
pleased with this comparison, which I found in his life
the other day. I think it is an admirable exemplification
of the uneasiness and pain of mind they cause.
But how very uncertain our frames of feeling are;
sometimes thinking there is but _one_ thing which we have
not _quite_ given up to God, and sometimes, with perhaps
correcter judgment, lamenting, "_all my bones_ are out
of joint." May we, my dear M., encourage each other
in seeking help of Him who received and healed all
that had need of healing.
_9th Mo. 20th_. Finished most interesting review
of John Foster's life. * * * Foster was a very
deep thinker. He thought the boundary of the
knowable wider than the generality do. This may
be; but I fancy he does not always admit sufficient
weight in his arguments to the manifest relations
and actings of the unknown upon the known. He
was Calvinistic; this, joined to a strong view of the
moral perfection and benevolence of God, led him
to the natural result of denying _eternal_ punishments.
Could he have seen more of the essence of a human
spirit, as he doubtless now sees it, I venture to think
that that mysterious personality, by virtue of which
man may be said to choose his destiny, _i.e._ to embrace
destruction, or to submit to be saved by the Saviour
in his own way, that the perception of this personal
image of God in man might vindicate the Divine
perfection and benevolence, and make it evident that
our "salvation is of God, and our destruction is of
ourselves."
_10th Mo. 2d_. Oh to be permitted any taste of
that grace which is free--ever free; which brings a
serene reliance on eternal love; which imprints its
own reflection on the soul! Oh, be that reflection
unbroken by restless disquiets of mind; be that
image watchfully prized, and waited for, and waited in.
_10th Mo. 5th_. Some sweetness in thinking how
much akin is "having nothing" to "possessing all
things."
_10th Mo. 14th_. Talk with James Teare on the
immorality of drinking. Query:--Is it _per se_ a _sin_
to drink a little? He does not affirm it in pure
abstract, but says that no _action_ can be purely
abstract; and that as to uphold an immoral system
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