d ashes! that holy ministring spirits should be sent
with a message to me!" And then told her, That he had had a vision of
angels, who gave him an audible answer from the Lord, respecting his
wife's condition; and then, returning to the house, he said to the
people who attended his wife, "Be of good comfort, for I am sure that
ere ten hours of the day, that brand shall be plucked out of the fire."
After which he went to prayer, at his wife's bed-side;--she continued
for some time quiet, but, upon his mentioning Jacob wrestling with God,
she sat up in the bed, drew the curtain aside, and said, "Thou art this
day a Jacob, who hast wrestled and hast prevailed, and now God hath made
good his word, which he spoke this morning to you, for I am pluckt out
of the hands of Satan, and he shall have no power over me." This
interruption made him silent for a little, but afterwards, with great
melting of heart, he proceeded in prayer, and magnified the riches of
grace towards him. From that hour she continued to utter nothing but the
language of joy and comfort, until her death, which was on the Friday
following, August 13th, 1601.

Mr. Simpson lived for several years after this, fervent and faithful in
the work of the ministry. In the year 1608 when the bishops and some
commissioners of the general assembly conveened in the palace of
Falkland, the ministers assembled in the kirk of the town, and chose him
for their moderator; After which they spent some time in prayer, and
tasted some of the comfort of their former meetings. They then agreed
upon some articles for concord and peace to be given into the bishops,
&c.----This Mr. Simpson and some others did in the name of the rest,
but the bishops shifted them off to the next assembly, and in the mean
time, took all possible precautions to strengthen their own party, which
they effected.

In 1610, the noblemen and bishops came to Stirling, after dissolving the
assembly. In preaching before them, he openly charged the bishops with
perjury and gross defection. They hesitated for some time, whether they
should delate him, or compound the matter:--But, after deliberation,
they dropt the affair altogether for the present.----There is no reason
to doubt but he would have been subjected to the same sufferings with
many others of his brethren, had he lived, but before the cope-stone was
laid on prelacy in Scotland, he had entered into the joy of his
Lord.----For, in the month of March 1618,