Ralph Josselin -- 6 januari 1661

• Ralph Josselin (1616–1683) was the vicar of Earls Colne in Essex from 1641 until his death in 1683. His diary records intimate details of everyday farming life, family and kinship in a small, isolated rural community, and is often studied by researchers interested in the period, alongside other similar diaries like that of Samuel Pepys.

Jan: 6: God good to me and mine in manifold outward mercies for which my soul praises him, this lords day morning a troop of horse marched by. Gods worship is nothing with them I fear, lord settle truth and peace in this nation. God was good to me in the word, though my heart very dead and unprepared to meet with and follow him, the lord accept me and do me good. My dear wife ill with a pain in her side, which put me in fear, but I hope in God its only a wind that troubles her to quicken us in the sense of our weakness.