“May 25.—At the lovefeast, I was overwhelmed with the burden of our brethren, with such visible signs of dejection, that several, I was since informed, were in great hopes that I was now coming down in my pride, or unsettling, and coming into confusion. Indeed, my faith did well-nigh fail me; for in spite of the seeming reconciliation which brother Ingham _forces_ them into, it is impossible we should ever be of one mind, unless they are convinced of their abrogating the law of _Christian_ ordinances, and taking away the children’s bread. “May 27.—I rejoiced to find no difference betwixt my brother Ingham and me. He has honestly withstood the deluded brethren; contradicted their favourite errors, and constrained them to be _still_. That blot he easily hit: ‘You say no man must speak of what he has not experienced; you, Oxley and Simpson, say that one in the Gospel-liberty can have no stirrings of sin.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you in Gospel-liberty?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then out of your own mouth I judge you: you speak of things which you know not of.’ “June 2.—I _preached up_ the ordinances, as they call it, from Isaiah lviii.; but first, with the prophet, I preached them _down_. Telchig” [Toltschig], “Ingham, etc., were present, which made me use greater plainness, that they might set me right, if I mistook. “June 11.—I returned” [from the Delamotte family at Blendon] “to be exercised by our _still_ brethren’s contradiction. My brother proposed new-modelling the bands, and setting by themselves those few who were still for the ordinances. Great clamour was raised by this proposal. The noisy _still_ ones well knew that they had carried their point by wearying out the sincere ones scattered among them; so that a remnant is scarcely left. They grudged us even this remnant, which would soon be all their own, unless immediately rescued out of their hands. Benjamin Ingham seconded us, and obtained that the names should be called over, and as many as were aggrieved put into new books. “We gathered up our wreck,—_raros nantes in gurgite vasto_; for nine out of ten are swallowed up in the dead sea of _stillness_. O, why was not this done six months ago? How fatal was our delay and moderation! ‘Let them alone, and they will soon be weary, and come to themselves of course,’ said one,—_unus qui nobis cunctando restituet rem!_ I tremble at the consequence. Will they submit themselves to every ordinance of man, who refuse subjection to the ordinances of God? I told them plainly, _I should only continue with them so long as they continued in the Church of England._ My every word was grievous to them. I am a thorn in their sides, and they cannot bear me.