them all to be careful to lead holy and Christian lives. On the 13th,
being obliged by the increase of his malady to leave off his ordinary
course of reading in the Scriptures (for every day he had been wont to
read some chapters of the Old and New Testaments, especially some of the
Psalms and Gospels), he directed his wife and servant to read to him
each day the 17th chapter of St John's Gospel, one or other of the
chapters of St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, and the 53rd chapter of
Isaiah. On the 14th he rose early, apparently supposing it had been the
Lord's day, and being asked why he did so when he was so ill, he replied
that he had been meditating all night on the resurrection of the Lord
(the subject which would have fallen to be treated next in order by him
in his ministry), and that he was now prepared to ascend the pulpit to
communicate to his brethren the consolation he had enjoyed in his own
soul. Next day, though very sick, he prevailed on Durie, already
mentioned, and another friend, Steward by name, to remain to dinner with
him, ordered a hogshead of wine in his cellar to be pierced for them,
and desired Steward to send for some of it as long as it lasted, for he
should not tarry till it was done. Little is recorded of him for several
days after this, but it was probably in this interval that he was
visited by many of the chief of the nobility, including the Earl of
Morton, so soon to be created regent,[253] and by many members of his
congregation. All of these he "solidly exhorted" and comforted. On the
20th or 21st he gave orders that his coffin should be prepared. On the
22nd he sent for the ministers, elders, and deacons of the church, that
he might give them his last counsels and take final farewell of them. In
the brief but solemn address which he delivered to them he called God to
witness, whom he served in the Gospel of His Son, that he had taught
nothing but the pure and solid doctrine of the Gospel of the Son of God,
and had never indulged his own private passions, or spoken from any
hatred of the persons of those against whom he had denounced the heavy
judgments of God. He exhorted them to persevere in the truth of the
Gospel and in their allegiance to their young sovereign, and dismissed
them with his solemn blessing. To Lawson and Lindsay, whom he asked to
remain behind, he gave a last earnest message for his old friend
Kirkaldy of Grange, the commandant of the castle, who had gone over to
t