On Lord's day, June 14. I clofed my fubject of the Covenant of Grace: my notes thereon being written fo largely, that, in tranfcribing them fince for the prefs, I needed rather, for the most part, to contract, than to add and enlarge. On the following Sabbath, the 21ft, having come in from the fermons, and fat down to dinner, I fell indifpofed; endured the time of dinner; but while we were finging as ufual, (I think the pfalm was Pfal. cvii. 23. and downwards), after it my trouble came to a height, and I went off, with much ado, to my clofet, where a prodi gious vomiting and exquifite pain feized me, which afterwards I knew to be a fit of the gravel, which I had never been acquainted with before. It kept me till the Wednefday thereafter; though not always agonizing. It was told me, that one fit of the agony lasted about five hours, another about feven hours. In the mean time of my trouble, my wife, whom all had enough ado to wait on before, was helped to go up and down ftairs, betwixt me and the children, then fick, and to be helpful to both. When all were recovered, I was thinking on a day for a family-thankfgiving; but was fome way diverted from it: but that day, or the morrow after, the clouds returned after the rain my fon John fell fick, and at the fame time our fervant-woman. His cafe was of all the moft dangerous. The fever took no turn in the daughters till the eleventh day, in the fons till the thirteenth; but in the fervant-woman on the fixth. Thus was the fummer fpent; but no breach was made on us. They all came out of their fevers infenfibly, without a diftinct crifis; but my eldeft fon was very long a-recovering, even till about the middle of Auguft. Towards the end of that month, we had a day of family-thankfgiving; the whole family, except the man-fervant, having been under the rod. I was fenfibly helped to the exercife of faith in the time. of our firft diftrefs; and had a fweet view of the Lord Jefus as adminiftrator of the covenant, being a skilful pilot to carry us through the deep waters; which view was kept before me all along, after we were entered into them. My perfonal trouble was turned to my advantage. It was fore indeed; but kind Providence made it fhort, and timed it fo happily, that my public work was not interrupted by faw therein a palpable difference between groaning and grudging. For while in my agony I could not help it. groaning groaning and crying, fo that I was heard at a distance; yet my heart, fenfible that I had had much health, was made by grace to fay, Welcome, welcome; and kiffed the rod, for the fake of him who groaned and died on the cross for me; and I was even made to weep for joy in his dying love to me. The foundation of faith, that "whofoever believeth, fhall not perish, but have everlasting "life," John iii. 16. was my anchor-ground. I had a fatisfaction, in that while the rod was going about, my kind God had not forgotten me, but given me my fhare. But 1 had a greater difficulty to believe, upon the turning back of our broken fhip into the deeps, after we were brought within fight of land. But one day, as I was going into the pulpit, in the time of our firft diftrefs, the congregation was finging Pfal. cxxviii. verf. 3. to the end, "Thy "children like to olive-plants about thy table round," &c. That came feasonably to me, and was of great ufe to me all along thereafter. At length I got my wife and children fo planted about my table; and on the familythanksgiving, I told them how ufeful that pfalm had been to me in the day of our distress; and fo I fung it with them. And there is fomething more in that pfalm, that I have fome expectation of ftill. Mean while this fhock by the gravel quite broke and fhattered my frame, and altered my conftitution; so that thereafter I was no more as I had been formerly. PERIOD XII. From the notable breach in my health, to the time of the clofing of this account. TH His notable alteration was the more remarkable, that it came on when I was now going in the forty-ninth year of my age, the feventh feptenary: and here I reckon the groaning part of my life, more plainly pointing to my diffolution, to have begun. And whatever groanings I had, in the former part of my life, been witnefs to by day or by night, it hath, in the depth of fovereign wifdom, for my greater trial, been, from the preceding April 1724, unto this day, my lot, to be folitary in my clofet by night, as well as by day: but good is the will of the Lord; he hath done all things well. The The fummer thus fpent as aforefaid, a weary feafon to me, at beft, as an idle time; being engaged in a course of drinking Moffat-well water, at home, for the gravel; I did, on the last day of Auguft, put pen to paper again, in the beloved work aforefaid on the Hebrew text; not knowing whether I would be able to fit clofe any more at it or not. But it is but little I have had access to do in it fince; however, I defire to be thankful, that I have got the effay on the accentuation done: how the Lord may difpofe of me after, I know not; but I defire to be refigned. Now as the winter came on, my teeth began to be loofened, much pain in them going before; and that feafon I loft three, whereof two were fore-teeth; which marred my pronunciation in fome meafure. Nevertheless I was helped clofely to ply the work aforefaid: and my plan therein was carried to its height, with exceeding great labour and when at any time I happened to go to bed, with fome difficulty entered into, but not got through; the intensenefs of the mind upon it bereaved me of fome fleep, which I think did harm. : In the time of our distress in the fummer, watchful and kind Providence favoured me with a vifit from Mr J G-, a minifter of the church of Scotland, whom I had but little acquaintance of before: A man well seen in the doctrine of free grace, and to a pitch kind, and difpofed to be useful, whereof I have fince had fignal proof. At that time I fhewed him, that I could get no body to judge of the effay made on the Hebrew accentuation, the performance being upon fuch an out-of-the-way fubject; and that I had fome view to Profeffor Simfon for that end. And he having minded this, and taken occafion in his own country to inform himself, did afterwards write me a letter, giving me notice of Mr George Gordon, profeffor of the Oriental languages in the King's College, Aberdeen, as the fittest in our island to judge in fuch matters. Mr Wodrow was his informer, being a man of the moft extenfive correfpondence. I had no acquaintance with Mr Gordon, nor did I know his character, but by my correfpondent's letter. I knew not till afterwards that I had it from himself, that he was that Gordon whom Mr Crofs mentions in his preface to the Taghmical Art. But without more ado, I quickly addreffed myself to him, by a letter of the 14th December, committing the matter to the Lord. Mean while, after clofing my fermons on the Covenant of Grace, I had purfued my former fubject of Chriftian morality, in the general, from John xv. 14. "Ye are my "friends, if ye do whatfoever I command you ;" and Eccl. ix. 10. "Whatfoever thy hand findeth to do, do it," &c. Then I entered on fome particulars, viz. against profane fwearing, finful anger, revenge; and preffed the love of our enemies; the which fubjects were ended Dec. 27. * On the 17th of January 1725, I received a letter from Mr George Gordon aforefaid, large and friendly, quite beyond any thing I could have expected, thewing all readinefs to perufe the effay, when it could conveniently be put in his hand. This ftep of Providence was great in my eyes, looking like a dawning of light, in a cafe right hopelefs, even as to the getting any body's judgement upon it, that I could rely on, for which my attempts hitherto had been baffled. The date of the letter, being Jan. 1. was moft fweet, when I called to mind, that that very day having spent fome time in folemn prayer, (as ufual on the occafion of the new year), my letter's finding favour with that man, had been much on my heart before the Lord. Whatever be the iffue, it is a great mercy to me, to have hope of getting it put in one's hand capable to judge of it. After carrying on the work aforefaid, through the first twenty chapters of Genefis, I found it neceflary to stop; and that in confideration of my frailty, and that the notes were written in fhort-hand characters, and therefore ufelefs to any but myfelf. And after feeking the Lord, I began, on the 9th of February, to write all over in mundo, in long hand, defiring to believe that he will give power to the faint, and to them that have no might, he will increase ftrength. The notes on the Marrow had now for fome time been in a friend's hand at Edinburgh. And in the latter end of that month, there was a propofal made me, for publifhing the Marrow with them. Mr William Wardrobe apothecary there, above mentioned, was the chief under All these fermons are published in the volume, intitled, The diffiaguishing chara&ers of true believers, printed in 1773, and arc a most choice et of difcourfes. : taker in this. Hereupon I revifed the notes again and having spent fome time in prayer for light in that matter, April o. and again on the 13th, laid it before the Lord; I was cleared, and determined to give up the copy of the Marrow, as corrected and new-modelled by me, together with the notes thereon, into his hand, to do therein as he should find himself conducted by Providence; and this in confideration that matters are still growing worfe in this generation, and the declining is on the increafe; for the fake of truth, and of the prefent and rifing generation. In this month of April, began my wife's entire barring from public ordinances, which lafteth unto this day. About the middle of May, my fon Thomas, who had got about two years domeftic teaching in the Latin tongue, efpecially by my own and my other fon's means, was fent to the grammar-fchool at Hawick. Now, after infitting for fome time this year on the hiding of the Lord's face, Pfal xxx. 7 I entered on the Son of man's coming to feck and fave the loft," Luke xix. 10. and dweit thereon till the fermons preparatory for the facrament of the fupper. It was adminiftered June 6. not without apprehenfions, that it might be the laft fhould have occafion to adminifter. By that time I had carried on the work torefaid to Gen. iii. 22. MS. in folio, p. 44. I entered on it, and proceeded therein, with a view of death at my back; and was much eafed in my mind, when I had brought it that length; judging that the church of God might thereby difcern what it was I aimed at, in cafe I thould never have had accefs to have carried it on further. Mean while great were my trials about this communion. My wife feemed to be in a dying condition for about two weeks before: on the Tucfday immediately before the communion, the furgeon told me, he thought the could not now lait long. The want of my teeth made fpeaking. difficult; and I had lefs ftrength to speak with, than fome time before and the remaining teeth were become blackish. But the Lord pitied, amidit thefe and other trying incidents. Mr Gordon aforefaid coming to Edinburgh to the fummer-feffion, the effay on the accentuation was, according to our concert, put into his hand about this time. I preached the action-fermon on the "bruifing of the "terpent's |