thoughts and reasonings to supplant worship! How
they plead their own utility, and how like good is the
thought about good! but then the dry, barren, unsatisfied
unrest of soul that followed! Strange, that
thought employed to so little purpose at other times
should pretend to be so edifying in meetings. Reveries
on probability, as being a mere relation between a
cause and a spectator, or bystander; not between cause
and effect. Thought it important touching free will
and foreknowledge. God is certain of futurity--we
are uncertain. Futurity is certain in relation to God,
uncertain in relation to us--probable or improbable in
relation to us, neither in relation to God; but neither
the certainty nor the probability exists in future non-existent
fact, therefore I take it they do not influence
the fact. This, perhaps, is profitless; but I am glad
to find that thought on this point always tends to confirm
what I believe is the true scriptural doctrine in
opposition to Calvinism. This was a natural reaction
on the minds of reformers from the Romish doctrine
of justification by works. They no sooner found that
man cannot make his own salvation, than they fancied
he could not reject it. They learned that it was freely
given to some, and fancied that it could not have been
freely offered to all.

_7th Mo. 20th_. Mere carnal conscientiousness is a
poor substitute for love of God. The constant inquiry,
"What must I do to keep an easy conscience?"
is no proof of high Christian attainment; rather