and follow him here. Then their out-get will be easy; for his "yoke is" truly "easy and his burden. light," when, in this way, we begin to be helped to take it upon us.

But, being by this digression drawn off from the particular of this day's experience, to which I was to speak, I shall say a word to it shortly, as follows.

That, among other occasions, when Satan is most busy to assault the believer, it is, ordinarily, when they have been most seeking after, or have attained to any nearness in communion with God; then, they may be sure he will make them, if he can, to abuse that mercy. And so did I find in my experience;— though I can say but little of any access that then, or at any time, I ever had; yet, blessed be the Lord! for the hope that was given to get more; to deprive me of which the enemy has been very busy. O! by what wanderings and diversions, has he been endeavouring to get the heart to its old bias again, to pore upon either sinful, vain, or unprofitable thoughts; knowing, that life from Christ, the Fountain of it, is ordinarily conveyed into the heart, when He is made use of for keeping out of these. Then comes He in, (the soul having patiently waited for him,) like a mighty speat, [inundation,] with free love overrunning all the banks that formerly stood in his way, and carrying them all down before him,-the mountains flow down at his presence. Isai. Ixiv. 1. O! then, the creature thinks, its waiting on him well [bestowed,] and begins to feel its work to be easy; for, whatever were the former apparently insuperable difficulties, now it sees through and finds an out-get from them all. Not as if there were now any such thing, either promise or expected, as immunity

from assaults, or freedom from hazard of falling, either into sin or judgment for it.

No; the heart is

and in true fear

now more in expectation of the one, and dread of the other, than ever. For Satan, who was but angry before, comes now in full fury to set himself and all his instruments. [Thus in hazard of being mastered, the soul] was never so on his watch, as now he desires to be; knowing, that the very being and preservation of his life, depends entirely upon his being near, and keeping close to Christ ; who is the Fountain of life, and from whom, [as the Psalmist says,] lxxxvii. 7; all his springs do flow. "My soul followeth hard after thee," Psal. lxiii. 8;— the soul can now be at no quiet, but as and when it finds its refreshments, every moment flowing out from the streams of this, the true Fountain of living waters; as the Prophet says, in the name of the Lord, "I will water it every moment," &c. Isai. xxvii. 3; and see Jer. ii. 12, 13. For now he knows, that he has this Fountain in himself, as “a well of water, springing up into everlasting life," John, iv. 14; so he desires never to rest, but to be drawing and drinking "abundantly." Canticles, v. 1.

Some thoughts of this kind, having been very sweet to me this morning, I was desiring to know of the Lord, what course might be most suitable and conformable to his blessed will, for [enabling me,] in keeping near and close to him. My [heart] did most conclude, as follows:-With his grace and help, by which alone I stand, to endeavour to keep close to Christ, the true Light, as he enlightens himself forth in the conscience; and in his strength to labour, to shut and keep out every sinful, vain, unprofitable thought, so as to get and keep in holy,

wholesome, and good thoughts;-while I find the truth of what Paul experienced in this way, 2 Cor. x. 5, by managing rightly the weapons of our Christian warfare, to bring every thought into subjection and obedience to Christ. So likewise, for words and actions, to endeavour to have a warrant for every one of them;-when to speak, or what to do;-when to go abroad, or keep within :-[in this way] to see and know my GUIDE,-even He who was my Guide of old, in my youth, when I followed him in a wilderness, in a land that was not sown, Jer. ii. 2.—And shall I not from this time cry unto him, "My Father! thou art the Guide of my youth!" Jer. iii. 4; and shall I be as one," which forsaketh the Guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God!" Prov. ii. 17. Thus, may I see and behold him, so as even to say or do nothing without him,

[and-may it not be added-by "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," be "changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." "Now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."] 2 Cor. iii. 18, 17.

END OF THE DIARY.

APPENDIX

OF

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DIARY.

NOTE A.-Page 7.

It does not very clearly appear, at what precise period Alexander Jaffray commenced his narrative. From the allusion that is made in the preceding paragraph, to his views on the constitution and government of the church, as well as from that passage at page 4, respecting his age, it is evident, the date of its first production must have been subsequent to 1654. Other circumstances, however, incline the Author of these Notes, to place the earliest insertion as late as 1656.

In a future Note, some further remark will be made, on the retrospective form of this part of the Diary.

NOTE B.-Page 16.

This Robert Burnet was the father of Bishop Burnet, and married a sister of the Lord Warristoun, who is several times named by our Author in future pages of his Diary. In Row's Supplement to Blair's Life, a MS. in the Library of the Writers to the Signet at Edinburgh, he is mentioned as being "both a good man and a good advocate ;" and in Nicoll's Diary of Occurrences, a MS. in the Advocate's Library there, he is termed, " ane very guid, honest, and religious Christian." After the Restoration, he was made a judge in the Court of Sessions, by the title of Lord Crimond. The preface to Burnet's History of his own Times, represents him, agreeably to Jaffray's description, as "so remarkable for his strict and exemplary life, that he was generally called a Puritan."

According to the same testimony, "he was the younger brother of a family, very considerable for its authority as well as interest in the shire of Aberdeen;" his father being Alexander Burnet of Leys. See Dougl. Baronage, 42. The reader, as he proceeds, will find, that in 1645, Alexander Jaffray, with his father, took up

their abode for a time with their "cousin, Alexander Burnet the elder." Now, the maiden name of Jaffray's mother was Christian Burnet, and she is described in the genealogy of the family, as daughter to the then proprietor of Leys. Burnet, in the Diary, and in some other documents, is uniformly spelt with one t, which, however, does not appear to be the correct mode.-That the Burnetts, who are mentioned in the succeeding Memoirs, as being of the Society of Friends, were connected with the above family, is not distinctly ascertained.

NOTE C.-Page 16.

"In the year 1633," says Bishop Burnet, in the History of his own Times, "the King [Charles the 1st.] came down in person to be crowned.- -His entry and coronation were managed with such magnificence, that the country suffered much by it: all was entertainment and show." Spalding, in his History of the Troubles, &c., edit. 1830, p. 14, gives a particular account of each day's banqueting and ceremony.

NOTE D.-Page 17.

George Jamieson is named in Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen as "an eminent portrait painter," who also "not unfrequently applied his talent to history, landscape, and miniature." He was employed by the magistrates of Edinburgh to make paintings of the Scottish monarchs; and in 1633, King Charles, when there on the occasion of his coronation, sat to him for his portrait. Vol. i. p. 268.

NOTE E.-Page 17.

The Editor has been wholly at a loss to English the expressions made use of in this place; although he has examined a glossary of Scottish phrases.-He was equally unable, even to decipher, with any certainty, two or three words towards the close of the preceding paragraph, where the hiatus is denoted as nearly as could be made out, they are these,-" and made some waring of wattglen or thereby." But a clue has occurred, whilst looking over the Annals of Aberdeen, from which it may be conjectured, that he alludes to some woollen goods, or other description of manufacture.-"In the year 1636," that is, two years after the time we are now arrived at in the Diary, our Author being, as we shall see, provost or chief magistrate of Aberdeen, "the magistrates obtained from King Charles the 1st. a patent for establishing a house of correction; chiefly with the view of re