Sixth day. Attended the funeral of our honest friend Richard Townsend. There was a large collection of Friends and neighbours, he being generally esteemed. A meeting was held on the occasion, which proved a very solemn season. The people’s attention was called to the necessity of a timely preparation for death, in a large arousing testimony; setting forth the great and singular advantages which would redound to the children of men, by their obtaining right ideas and apprehensions of God. The want of these left them to be led away into a belief of many strange and ideal notions concerning him, particularly that of foreordination; the inconsistency of which, my mind was led to unfold to the auditory, by this and other undeniable arguments;--that, as God’s ordination, and God’s creation, and God’s will, are always in perfect unison, and cannot be diverse one from the other; and as all that he wills and creates is immutably good, agreeably to his own declaration in the work of creation; hence, whatever he ordains must likewise be immutably good: therefore, if there is any such thing as sin and iniquity in the world, then God has neither willed it, nor ordained it; as it is impossible for him to will contradictions. And secondly, if he has, previous to man’s creation, willed and determined all his actions, then certainly every man stands in the same state of acceptance with him, and a universal salvation must certainly take place; which I conceive the favourers of foreordination would be as unwilling as myself to believe. And moreover, if man was not vested with the power of free agency, and a liberty of determining his own will, in relation to a choice of good or evil, he could not be an accountable creature; neither would it be in his power to commit sin. It was a time of favour, and the Lord’s blessing on the labours of the day was reverently supplicated. O, saith my soul, may they have the desired effect.
First day, the 26th of 12th month. Sat the greater part of our meeting in much weakness and poverty of spirit, to which I felt perfectly resigned, believing it to be agreeable to the Lord’s will. But towards the close an honest elderly Friend, though young and small in such service, expressed a sentence or two accompanied with a degree of life, which seemed to give spring to a concern on my mind, which led to communication. The subject which opened was to show, that plainness and simplicity were the true marks and badges of the Lord’s people and children in every age of the world, witnessed to by the true nature and analogy of all things in the universe; and confirmed by the testimony of the grace and good spirit of God through his servants in all the generations of mankind. The youth were exhorted and tenderly invited to submit to the _cross of Christ_, with the assurance assented to by the experience of all the faithful; that if they bowed willingly to his yoke, it would become not only easy but delightful. But alas! how true is that declaration of the prophet: “who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Certainly to none but the obedient, which number, if we are to judge by their fruits, is doubtless very small.