PAGE 158
toun to see the Lady Airds, and finding some of our Klllinslhie
people going by to goe to Irvine communion, she presently came
along to Scotland with them, bringing with her the child sucking
her breast, and an servant woman to wait on him. She came with
an purpose to have gone back presently; but I keeped her still,
and brought her with the child to my father's to Lanerk, and sent
to Ireland for some of our goods, and stayed in Lanerk till I went
to Stranrawer.
While we were at Irvine, the Lord called home sweet Mr Cuninghame,
minister at Holywood, on the 29th of March 1637; for
both he and all the rest of the deposed ministers were forced to
flee out of Ireland. He had many gracious expressions of the
Lord's goodness to him, and his great peace in regard of the cause
of his sufferings, and spake much and weell to the presbytrie of
Irvine, when they came to see him the day before he dyed. And
ane little before he dyed,1
his wife sitting on the foreside of the
low bed wherein he lay, and having her hand upon his hand, he
was in prayer commending his flock of Holywood to God, and his
dear acquaintance and children;2
at last he said, "And, O Lord,
I commend to thy care this gentlewoman, who is now no more
my wife;" and with that he gently thrust away her hand with his
hand, and after ane while he sleeped in the Lord.
In the beginning of June, my wife went to Ireland, being sent
for to be with her mother, who was a-dying. Because I might not
goe myself, I sent my brother Samuel with her. After the death
and burial of her mother, she returned in September next, and
came and remained in Lanerk, where, the 7th of January following,
being 1638, she brought forth her second son William.
All that summer, 1637, I had as much work in preaching in
publick, and exercises in private, as any time before, partly in
Lanerk, and partly in the West, and at communions in diverse
places, and in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and in the Presbytrie
of Stranrawer, while I was waiting at the Port for my
**************
1
"His death."
2
"And."
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PAGE 159
wife's coming out of Ireland. This summer, severall1
ministers of Scotland were charged with letters of horning to buy and receave
the Service, which stirred up great thoughts of heart through the
land, beside ane tumult in Edinburgh, begun by some of the common
people at the first reading of the Service Book. The true rise
of that blessed reformation in Scotland began with two petitions
against the Service Book, the one from the West, and the other
from Fyfe; which mett together at the councill door in Edinburgh,
the one not knowing of the other. After that, about the
20th of September, a great many petitions from
severall2
parts were presented against the Service Book. These being delayed
by the king, the number of the petitioners and their demands
encreased; for they desired not only exemption from the Service
Book, but from the five ceremonies of Perth and the High Commission Court:
and these things being denyed, they at last desired
also freedome from Episcopacie, and ane free Parliament and Generall Assembly.
When these things were still denyed, and their
number had so encreased, that in some sort they were the whole
body of the land, and considering that the Lord's controversie
with them was the breach of Covenant, they did, in the beginning
of March 1638, renew the National Covenant which had formerly,
by authority both of king and parliament, severall times been
sworn. I was immediatly sent to goe post to London with severall
copies of the Covenant, and letters to friends at court of both
nations. To avoid discovery, I rode in an gray coat and ane gray
Montero cap.
One night rideing late, the horse and I fell to the
ground, where I lay about3
ane quarter of an hour as dead. The
first thing I discerned when I came to myself, I found the guide
sitting under me and crying and weeping; yet it pleased the
Lord, I recovered and got to Ferribrigs, where, after ane day or
two's stay, I came to London, but one of my eyes and part of my
cheek being blood-shott, I did not goe to street, but Mr Eleazar
Borthwick delivered the letters for me. Some friends and some
**************
1
"Of the."
2
"Sundry"
3
"Near"
|
