d. Only with difficulty he was heard to say,
"The covenanted God of Scotland hath a dreadful storm of wrath provided,
which he will surely pour out suddenly and unexpectedly, like a
thunderbolt, upon these covenanted lands, for their perfidy, treachery,
and apostacy, and then men shall say, they have got well away that got a
scaffold for Christ." He exhorted all to "make use of Christ for a
hiding place; for blood, blood, shall be the judgment of these lands."
He sang the first six verses of the 34th psalm, and read the 8th of the
Romans, and prayed divinely with great presence of mind and very loud.
Then went up the ladder rejoicing and praising the Lord, which all
evidently saw: And so ended the race which he had run with faith and
patience upon the 4th of Dec. 1685, in the 58th year of his age.

He was a man of strong memory, good judgment, and much given to
self-denial. It is said of him, that, under his hidings in a cave, near
or about his own house, he wrote out all the new testament; which
probably (according to some accounts) might be a transcription of an old
copy, which one of his ancestors is said to have copied out in the time
of popery, when the scriptures were not permitted to be read in the
vulgar language.

Hardhill was always a man very particular upon the testimony of the day,
which made some compliers censure him as one too harsh and rugged in
point of principle; but this must be altogether groundless. For in one
of the forementioned manuscripts, he lets fall these words, "Now as for
misreports, that were so much spread of me, I declare, as a dying person
going out of time to eternity, that the Lord never suffered me in the
least to incline to follow any of those persons who were drawn away to
follow erroneous principles. Only I thought it still my duty, to be
tender of them, as they had souls, wondring always wherefore I was right
in any measure, and they got leave to fall in such a manner. I could
never endure to hear one creature rail and cry out against another,
knowing we are all alike by nature." And afterwards when speaking of
Argyle's declaration, he farther says, "Let all beware of refusing to
join with ministers or professors, upon account of personal infirmities,
which is ready to raise prejudice among persons. But it shall be found a
walking contrary to the word of God, and so contrary to God himself, to
join either with ministers or professors, that hold it lawful to meddle
with sinful t