the air, than that one of molesting the Lord's people in their way
about an hour and a half in much weakness, and was at length exhausted. I quite forgot to pray after sermon; and never had the least thought of it, till returning into the tent after the first table, I reflected on it; and this did much confound me. The most sensible breathings of the Spirit that I had that day, were in the prayer of consecration, and the giving of thanks after the action; in both which addresses to the throne, the Lord was so with my spirit, that bodily strength was afforded me too. My wife was carried through and preserved, but still in great distress. The weather was louring, yet we had very little disturbance by it. But on Monday, at the dismissing of the congregation, rain came on; and in a little after, there was a violent storm of wind and rain, falling on the Lord's people going to their own homes; of whom many having come from far, behoved to lodge all night somewhere by the way. It continued that afternoon, and most of the Tuesday. Mr. Wilson suggested to me, that the bruised serpent was raging, and we were in concern for the preservation of the Lord's people by the way. I saw it then, on his suggesting it; and was thereby presently determined in my own mind to continue on that text; which accordingly I did insist on till Sept. 12. I know the serpent had more ends to serve by that disturbance in the air, than that one of molesting the Lord's people in their way home; it raised the affliction also of a particular person to a height. On the Friday after, I was comforted by a letter I received, shewing, that from several it was understood to have been a time of the Lord's presence in a remarkable manner; that it was no wonder the bruised serpent raged; particularly as to one, that it was one of the best days they had ever seen on earth. I have got a lesson to beware of fretting at long prayers by others; it was for that I was checked, by my forgetting to pray at all; and thereby also I have seen the need of dependence on the Lord, in the most ordinary things wherein one would think one can hardly mistake. The business of the journey to Penpont, and this stormy weather aforesaid, with other incidents, incline me to think, that I have but too little noticed Satan's activity in such matters. But glory to Jehovah, who comforteth us in all our tribulations; I have been perplexed, but not in despair.
Mr. Gordon returning to Edinburgh unto the winter-session, and having read the essay on the accentuation, desired an interview. Whereupon I made a stretch, and went thither on the 23d November. I was very apprehensive, that I would meet with discouragement from him. Tarrying there for eight days, I had in that time several meetings with him; and we went through his remarks on the essay. Not having given his judgment on the thing in gross, nor like to do it at all, I, ere we should part, was obliged to put on a brow, and downright to ask his judgment of the performance, as to the main. To which he answered, That as to the main we were agreed. I asked him again, Whether he could have freedom to give it his public approbation? and he replied, He not only had freedom to do it, but thought it his duty to do it. Hereupon I was swallowed up with joy and comfort, that the Lord had so far pitied and comforted me. But in that time, and after, I found the borrower to be servant to the lender.
At the same time, my Lord Grange, of his own accord, offered me encouragement in it; and told me, that Mr. Gordon said to him about it, that it looked almost as if it had been done by inspiration. But meeting all three together in his lodging, by appointment, they both agreed, that the essay, or at least the abstract thereof, behoved yet to be done in Latin; and offered nothing for publishing it in English. Their reasons were, that it could not be done in Scotland, nor yet in Holland, correctly, unless it was in Latin; that the thing being so little known in this island, it could not be thought to find buyers in it, being published in English. This new work laid upon me, now when my strength was exhausted, was an occasion of heavy thoughts to me; so after my lifting up, I was cast down again. Thus the weight of apprehended discouragement from Mr. Gordon, which I took from home with me, lay on me all the time I was in town, till the day or so before I came away, that I interrogated him as aforesaid, that it was lightened; and then the weight returned again while I was thinking to return home, and the matter began to move slow again. Nighting at Cardrona, on my way home, on the morrow there was a great storm of snow driving; and I was importuned to stay. I went to the Lord as
my father, for his pity; and had confidence in him, that he, who knew how unable I was to stand before the cold, and what need there was for me to be at home, would pity. So we came away, and still the snow drave on; but by the time we entered in among the hills, it ceased; so that I never in my life rode that way with greater ease. Howbeit, when we were come over all the hills, and were within two miles of home, it began to drive on again so vehemently, that we could hardly get looked up to discern our way. This was most acceptable and pleasant to me, as an emblem of my lot, viz. dificulties ventured on at the Lord's call, which I know not how to get through; carried through, meanwhile, in the greatest difficulties; and then the clouds returning again after the rain. When I came home, I found J. A's child, whom he had got baptized by a curate brought in by him to this parish, had died while I was from home, and was buried that same day, a little before my arrival.
Now for the remaining part of that year, to December 12, I did, for my ordinary, handle the subject of forsaking the fountain of living waters, and hewing out broken cisterns, &c. from Jer. 2:13.
The parish of Selkirk having now for some time been vacant, through the death of Mr. Macghie; and my wife's case allowing my going abroad in the winter, rather than the summer; I went thither, and preached, Jan. 2, 1726. On the morrow after, I visited a sick person without the town; and from thence came to Faldhop in my way home, and visited another; but was taken ill there of a fit of the gravel. Mounting my horse, I rode from thence in great agony to Newhouse, in a cold frosty day; reaching which place with great difficulty, I just fell down; but getting a bed a while, I recovered some ease. Wherefore I mounted again; but by the way it seized me anew, and in great distress I came into Upper Delorain. There I staid all night, and turned easy again. On the morrow coming homeward, it again seized me, that I was obliged to go to Calcrabank; where recovering after a while, I came home, and it went off. This I reckon to have been owing to the unclearness of the drink I had got in my quarters at Selkirk; the which since that time has made me more
cautions; drinking no ale while new, or very old, or muddy. A considerable time after this being at Midgehop, where was a little wench from Newhouse, who had said to them, that at such a time, viz. the foresaid, I came in there drunk; Jane Hope, a well disposed person, wounded me to the heart, telling me, most simply and imprudently, before not only the wench, as I remember, but another woman whom I was not yet well acquainted with, that the foresaid had said so. Thus was I most unjustly and cruelly wounded, in that place where I had often comforted, and been comforted; but this happened not indeed in the family most comfortable to me. But O! what need of that charity that "thinketh no evil;" and of due caution as to the case and actions of others, not to judge rashly! It is dangerous, as my experience in that matter hath taught me. I had, some years before that time, encounterd, in Newhouse, with a good man, whom I knew not; him being paralytic in the tongue, and newly come home from a fair, I took to be drunk, so that I could not endnre to converse with him, till Walter Bryden, then tenant there, cured me of my misapprehension about the honest man. So he is a jealous God with whom we have to do. But I cannot but admire the wisdom of that kind Providence, which, after I had complained in that house to the master of it, touching the misrepresentation that had been made of my illness in it, as above said, brought him to my house; where being just to sit down to meat with him, I was seized with another fit of the gravel, and obliged to retire, and groan under it, leaving him and the table. I reckon myself debtor to my God for this beautifullytimed fit, which served to confirm, that I had been injured in the matter of the former.
On March 25, I finished the work on the first twenty chapters of Genesis; that MS. consisting of 272 pages in folio, App. No 5. That winter my frailty was great, being quite unable to bear the cold, the blood and spirits deserting my fingers; so that the parish was but once examined for that year, and that after the vernal equinox, save one diet only in the beginning of the winter, and I had several thoughts, that there would be a necessity of my demitting, as unable for the charge Having read Dr. Cheyne's book on health, I had set
myself to regulate my manner of living accordingly, for the cure of the scurvy; so I ate very sparingly at dinner, and took do supper. This course I had used, I think, more than a year about this time; going to bed withal about nine, and rising early about four or five; making the time of dinner late in the afternoon, and thereafter doing nothing, until I went to bed again. Thus my work indeed went on, but my body was brought to that low pass. And whereas my head was now shaken, for several years, paralytically; the first time I observed that shaking thereof, was on the J Saturday's afternoons, when I shaved myself, in the time I was employed in writing the said manuscript. Afterwards I returned again to my ordinary way of living; seldom succeeding in my projects for health by art, whether with or without the physician's advice.
About this time began my wife's constant confinement to her bed; for whereas formerly she was wont to have some respite in the winter, so as to rise out of her bed, in that season of the year; she hath, since the month of March 1726, lain constantly, all the year over, in winter as well as summer, unto this day.
Having carried on the work aforesaid with a most strictly literal version only, I did thereafter make a more smooth version of these chapters, consisting of twenty-two pages in folio; but which, upon a review, I do not judge smooth enough as yet. This I finished April 12, and, by the 21st had all read over, corrected, and laid up. Withal I had written the preface to the "Marrow" with notes, which was published about that time. It pleased the Lord, while I was engaged in the foresaid work, to let me in somewhat into the reason of double accentuation. And it is truly wondrous in my eyes, that I have been helped to finish that work which I had good reason some time to fear I might never see the end of.
April 25, Monday. From that 25th of March aforesaid, I have been endeavouring to know what I shall do next, and to lay that matter before the Lord, And this morning, being in Eskdalemoor, where I preached yesterday, in the laigh room in the manse there, having had
the matter aforesaid much at heart before the Lord in secret, it fell in order, as being abroad, that I read Psalm 71 in the Hebrew original; and it pleased the Lord so to shine upon the latter part of it particularly, that from ver. 14, to the end, it was made most sweet to me, and encouraging, towards the matter of writing the essay on the accentuation in Latin, and the low circumstances I was then brought into in respect of bodily weakness. [Nota, I have now (Sept. 12, 1727,) got much of that scripture made out to me, I verily expect to get more; particularly that word of it, ver. 21, V'THISSOBH T'NAHH'MANI; "Thou shalt wheel round about," [and] "comfort me," has stuck much with me ever since that time.] So on the morrow, taking some time in secret at home, upon that matter, I came to this resolution, viz. That I could neither enter on revising and writing over my notes on the covenant of grace, which I would fain do; nor yet go on in the essay on Genesis; but venture on putting into Latin the essay on the accentuation; since it appears, that while this is not done, that want is a gravestone upon what I have done already both upon the accents and the text; and that this will be the most diffusively useful. From thence I gathered, that the Lord calls me to essay that now; and I am not without hopes of his pity, and his affording me strength for this new and unexpected work.
Accordingly on the Wednesday, April 27, I began to write the essay foresaid in Latin. And as I went on, I read something of Cicero, in my leisure hours, for the language, and noted in a book some terms and phrases, taken from him, and others; particularly out of Calepin's Dictionary, which Providence had in the year 1724 laid to my hand, when I knew not for what use it was designed. And to this collection I had frequent recourse, while I wrote that book; and found it to be of good use to me. I had formerly, upon occasion of appearing in print, done the same as to the English tongue; by which means my style, that I had been careless of before, was now somewhat refined.
But, this year, the course of administering the sacrament of our Lord's supper was interrupted, through a disorder in the eldership, and my wife's heavy case meeting together. Meanwhile, after closing
of the former subject, I entered on Christ's titles; Isa. 9:6, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of peace," for my ordinary; the which I treated at large; and then added thereto several sermons on "believing the report" concerning him, on Isa. 53:1, "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" and concluded these subjects, August 12.
Having put the essay on the text of Genesis into Mr. Gordon's hand, I had, at his desire, another interview with him, in the end of November, at Edinburgh, where he gave me some remarks upon it. Both this and the former journey to Edinburgh, were undertaken purely on the head of meeting with him; by which I felt my bondage. At that time, I left with him the first part of the Latin essay on the accentuation, which I had completed by the 5th of September. And he promised me his testimony thereto, providing he should be satisfied therewith in the main, as he had been with the English essay; and afterwards he wrote me, that he was so satisfied. Nevertheless to this day I have not seen it, however I have tugged for it.
At the same time I waited of Mr. William Hamilton, Professor of Theology in the college of Edinburgh; who treated me very civilly. And having desired him to revise it, when Mr. Gordon should put it into his hand, he readily consented thereto; I allowing him, at his desire, to consult Dr. Crawford, Professor of Hebrew in that college thereupon.
I had, in the end of the preceding year, received a letter from my Lord Grange, of the date Dec. 13, 1725, wherein, upon a perusal of the essay on the text, in the space of three or four hours, which had cost me near as many years, he shewed his dislike of my notion of the heavens; Gen. 1:1, but especially of the waters above the firmament, as collection of waters above the starry heavens; adding his remembrance of an old scholastic interpreter having said some such
thing before. To this I made a return with all becoming respect, regretting his having so very little time for perusing that MS. and candidly pointing to the reason of my interpretation; withal giving him a good many valuable authorities in favour of my notion of the waters aforesaid, among whom were Pfeiffer, and Gregory of Oxon, a noted mathematician as well as a divine; and its being a common opinion among the Lutherans. But since that time I heard no more from him. And waiting on him again, at this time as I reckon, I found him quite strange and cold. Thus was I deserted by him, after putting me upon the new work of writing the work in Latin, as above narrated. Whether his disgust of the essay on the text, on these few hours' reading, or my letter in return to his, or both, occasioned his casting me off, I know not; but thus was I taught, not to trust in princes.
All the remaining part of this year, I preached on resignation to the will of God in afflicting providences, from 1 Sam. 3:18, "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good;" and on acceptance with God from 2 Cor. 8:12, "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted," &c., and Eph. 1:6, "Having made us accepted in the beloved."*
That winter a copy of the essay on the text was taken at Edinburgh, half on Mr. William Hogg's charges, and half on mine, which I paid, leaving that copy to him. My body has kept up better this winter than the last. I am now almost a second time through the parish in examination; and since the middle of January 1727, have had a diet of examination of the younger sort, every fourteen days except one.
Having plied the writing of the Latin essay on the accentuation through the winter, I finished it on the 17th of March, 1727; consisting the first part of 182, the second of 322 pages in quarto. That day was to me, on this account, one joyful day among many heavy and sorrowful ones I have had; and it was my birth-day, upon which, not by any art of mine, but providentially, as I went on in my ordinary course, the finishing of that work of my life did fall. It being Friday, I had studied my sermons by eleven o'clock; and having
refreshed myself an hour, I finished that work about four o'clock; laid it before the Lord with thanksgiving, for life, strength, and heart, graciously given me, for it; sang that latter part of the 71st psalm, given me for my launching out, as being now on the shore; dined with my two daughters, with a kind of little solemnity; and at night in the family sang again that part of the 71st psalm, which I could not get conveniently done after dinner, in respect of a stranger, a widow, being present in the house. She came in while I was finishing my work; and in token of my thankfulness to God for his bounty to me in this matter, I gave her a crown on the Monday when she went away, and three shillings on Saturday to some others in straits. After some time spent on Saturday morning, in further thanksgiving, being dissatisfied with some phrases in one or both of the two last paragraphs, I wrote the last leaf over again; and added the Hebrew sentences, as the language of my heart and experience, to the praise of a gracious God.
In the spare time I had till March 28, I sought out and bound up some papers which I incline not to leave behind me; read over the MS. now finished; reformed my closet; took a list of borrowed books with me; and made a catalogue of such of my own books, as I desired to leave for prosecuting the study on the Hebrew Bible, which I have begun, though I know not to whose hand they may fall, but being desirous, that, if it shall please the sovereign Manager, they may be so disposed of and employed; and took some new thoughts of the way of disposing my worldly goods to my children; but the then state of my affairs would not permit the putting them as yet in execution. These things were done, with design to have no incumbrance from worldly affairs, when the Lord should be pleased to call me home. Meanwhile my wife's furnace was heated. In the thought aforesaid of my demission, I had some view of carrying her in to Edinburgh against the winter 1726, and going in thither myself too, for the winter, and to make trial that way; but her indisposition increasing beyond what it had formerly in that season, barred all moving that way; meanwhile he helped us both through, and kept me up better than the winter before. The Lord knows man's thoughts to be vanity.
I was like to have little encouragement from Professor Hamilton and Dr. Crawford. But I adored the Providence that has led me to and through that work on the accentuation, and the essay on the text; the two things I had mainly at heart; and that has so far accomplished his word to me, Psalm 66 that I was in a better case when I finished the essay in Latin, than when I began it, in respect of my body.
For my ordinary, I had, on Feb. 19, entered on the subject of propagating religion to posterity, and discoursing it from Isa. 38:19. "The living, the living, he shall praise thee," &c., and insisted thereon till May, 21, that I entered on sermons preparatory for the sacrament. About which time, the weather proving exceeding rainy, for about the space of a month, I was brought to a pitch of bodily weakness, though my great task was now off my hand. In this case, at the sacrament, June 11, my kind and gracious Master managed me as ever a mother would have done a weak child; so that at that time I got a lesson, just to be doing with the strength I have for the time, without asking questions; the which hath been of good use to me since. Now the bruised serpent began with a broadside; which was heavy indeed, but made me the rather expect to see the goodness of the Lord in this work an open door, since there were many adversaries. Some of the parish had a horse-race appointed to be just on the Monday before, to which many were invited through the country. I had no notice of it till the immediate preceding Sabbath betwixt sermons; and then told them the surprising indecency of it; got no answer, but that they knew not if it could be diverted. Hereupon I warned the congregation, that there was a snare laid for them; and the distributing of the tokens, appointed to have been that Sabbath after sermon, was delayed till Thursday the fast-day. The issue was, that the manager of that matter seemed to be ashamed, declared he had done it inadvertently. None of the parish answered their invitation but one; a few came from other places; the race was dropped for the time, and they parted civilly. Thus, by the Hearer of Prayer, Satan was outshot in his bow. He plied another engine I was wounded and vexed on the Thursday, with Mr. J. M.'s two sermons, on Prov. 28:13, "He that covereth his sins, shall not prosper; but