From about that time I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and
ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of
salvation by him. An inward sweet sense of these things at times came
into my heart, and my soul was led away in pleasant views and
contemplations of them. And my mind was greatly engaged to spend my
time in reading and meditating on Christ, on the beauty and excellency
of his person, and the lovely way of salvation by free grace in
him....
Not long after I first began to experience these things, I gave an
account to my father of some things that had passed in my mind. I was
pretty much affected by the discourse we had together; and when the
discourse was ended I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my
father's pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there and
looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a
sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God as I know not how to
express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and
meekness joined together: it was a sweet, and gentle, and holy
majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and
great, and holy gentleness.
After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became
more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The
appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were,
a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost
everything. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed
to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars, in the clouds
and blue sky, in the grass, flowers, trees, in the water and all
nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and
view the moon for a long time, and in the day spent much time in
viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these
things; in the meantime singing forth, with a low voice, my
contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce anything among
all the works of nature was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning;
formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be
uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I
saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me.
I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a
thunder-storm; and used to take the opportunity at such times to fix
myself in order to view the clouds and see the lightnings play and
hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which oftentimes
was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my
great and glorious God. While thus engaged it always seemed natural
for me to sing or chant forth my meditations, or to speak my thoughts
in soliloquies with a singing voice.
My sense of divine things seemed gradually to increase, till I went to
preach at New York, which was about a year and a half after they
began; and while I was there I felt them very sensibly, in a much
higher degree than I had done before. My longings after God and
holiness were much increased. . . .
Holiness, as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it,
appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm
nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness,
peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul. In other words, that it made
the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant
flowers; enjoying a sweet calm and the gently vivifying beams of the
sun. The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations,
appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of
the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive
the pleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing as it were in a calm
rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and
lovingly in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner
opening their bosoms, to drink in the light of the sun. There was no
part of creature-holiness, that I had so great a sense of its
loveliness, as humility, brokenness of heart, and poverty of spirit;
and there was nothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart panted
after this--to lie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be
nothing, and that God might be All; that I might become as a little
child.