_9th Mo. 19th_. I think harm is done by considering a society such as "Friends," "a section of the Christian Church," as societies are so often called. It can be true only by considering the "Christian Church" to mean _professing Christians_; but surely its true meaning is the _children of God anywhere_. Of this body, there are no _sections_ to be made by man, or it would follow that to unite oneself to either section, is to be united to the body, which cannot be. _10th Mo. 1st_. I fear I have so long been _childish_ and _thoughtless_, that I shall hardly ever be _childlike_ and _thoughtful_. Oh for a little more _care_ without _carefulness!_ _10th Mo. 2d_. Much struck with Krummacher's doctrine of "Once in grace, always in grace." "After the covenant is made," he says, "I can do nothing _condemnable_. I may do what is sinful or weak, but my sins are all laid on my Surety." _True,_ if my will-spirit humbles itself to bear the reforming judgment of the Lord--but I think his doctrine utterly dangerous; his error is this, that "the covenant cannot be broken." Now, suppose a Christian, therefore, in the covenant; he sins, then the Lord would put away his sin by cleansing him from its pollution and power, by the blood of Christ, who hath already borne the punishment thereof. But he may refuse this cleansing, in other words, this judgment, revealed within; not against _himself_, as it must have been except for Christ's intercession, but against the evil nature in him, and in love to his soul. He may refuse this, because it cannot but be painful, it cannot but include repentance for his transgression, whereby he has admitted ground to the enemy. And if he refuse it, persisting in withdrawing his heart from that surrender, which must have been made on his adoption into the covenant, who shall say that the covenant is not at an end? Who shall say that the way of the Lord is not equal, in that, because he was once a righteous man, made righteous by the righteousness of Christ, "now, the righteousness that he hath had shall not be mentioned unto him, but in his trespass he shall die"? Far be it from me to say how long the Lord shall bear with man; how long he may trespass ere he dies forever; but I think it most presumptuous to suppose that God _cannot in honor_ (for it does come to this) disannul the covenant from which man has already retracted all his share; though this, truly, is but a passive one, a surrender of the will-spirit to the faith of Jesus.