1736 February 1 (Sunday). No body to preach to us upon this dark and Sorrowfull Day. I know not how to undertake any thing — but God called for it. Weeping must not hinder sowing. And I went forth with some old preparation and repeated my sermon on Heb. 12.5.[1] It was observable how God tyed up my Affections and restrained my Tears, and carryed me through all, without those Confusions I feared and expected.[2]
[1]Heb. 12.5, “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.”
[2]On the Puritans’ control of emotions, see Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England (rev. ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 48-49.