ife_,
&c. _shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus my Lord._ Now, said he, is my finger upon them?" and being
told it was, he said, "Now God be with you my children; I have
breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus Christ this
night." And so like Abraham of old, he gave up the ghost in a good
age[55], and was gathered to his people.

In this manner did this occidental star set in our horizon. There was
none, in his time, who did speak with such evidence of the power of the
Spirit; and no man had more seals of his ministry, yea many of his
hearers thought, that no man since the apostles days ever spoke with
such power. And although he was no Boanerges (as being of a slow but
grave delivery), yet he spoke with such authority and weight as became
the oracles of the living God: so that some of the most stout-hearted of
his hearers were ordinarily made to tremble, and by having this door
which had formerly been shut against Jesus Christ, as by an irresistable
power broke open and the secrets of their hearts made manifest, they
often times went away under deep convictions. He had a very majestic
countenance, in prayer he was short, especially when in public, but
every word or sentence he spoke was as a bolt shot from heaven; he spent
much of his time in private prayer. He had a very notable faculty in
searching the scriptures, and explaining the most obscure mysteries
therein, and was a man who had much inward exercise of conscience anent
his own personal case, and was oftentimes assaulted anent that grand
fundamental truth, The being of a God, insomuch that it was almost
customary to him to say when he first spoke in the pulpit, "I think it a
great matter to believe there is a God," and by this he was the more
fitted to deal with others under the like temptations.[56]

Mr. Bruce was also an eloquent and substantial writer, as the
forementioned apology, and his excellent letters to M. Espignol, the
duke of Parma, Col. Semple, &c. doth copiously evidence, Argal's
sleep, &c. He was also deeply affected with the public cause and
interest of Jesus Christ, and much depressed in spirit when he beheld
the naughtiness and profanity of many ministers then in the church, and
the unsuitable carriage and deportment of others to so great a calling,
which made him express himself with much fear, that the ministry in
Scotland would prove the greatest persecutors it had, which so lately
came