ce
they should forbear their former sins and follow his counsel, &c.

When giving a divine counsel to a friend, he rested in the midst of it,
and looked up to heaven, and prayed for a loosened heart and tongue, to
express the goodness of God to men, and thereafter went on in his
counsel (not unlike Jacob, Gen. xlix. 18. who in the midst of a
prophetical testament, rested a little and said, _I have waited for thy
salvation._)

He gave his lady divers times openly an honourable and ample testimony
of holiness, goodness and respective kindness to him, and earnestly
craved her forgiveness wherein he had offended her, and desired her to
make the Lord her comforter, and said, He was but gone before, and it
was but fifteen or sixteen years up or down[59].

He spoke to all the boys of the house, the butler, cook, &c. omitting
none, saying, Learn to serve and fear the Lord, and use carefully the
means of your salvation. I know what is ordinarily your religion, ye go
to kirk, and when ye hear the devil or hell named in the preaching, ye
sigh and make a noise, and it is forgot by you before you come home, and
then ye are holy enough. But I can tell you, the kingdom of heaven is
not got so easily. Use the means yourself, and win to some sense of God,
and pray as you can, morning and evening. If you be ignorant of the way
to salvation, God forgive you, for I have discharged myself in that
point towards you, and appointed a man to teach you, your blood be upon
yourselves. He took an oath of his servants, that they should follow his
advice, and said to them severally, If I have been tough to or offended
you, I pray you for God's sake to forgive me; and amongst others one to
whom he had been rough said, Your lordship never did me wrong, I will
never get such a master again. Yet he urged the boy to say, My lord, I
forgive you; howbeit the boy was hardly brought to utter these words. He
said to all the beholders about him, Sirs, behold, how low the Lord hath
brought me.

To a gentleman burthened in his estate he said, "Sir, I counsel you to
cast your burthen upon the Lord your God."----A religious gentleman of
his own name coming to visit him four days before his death, when he
beheld him he said, Robert, come to me and leave me not till I die.
Being much comforted with his speeches, he said, Robert, you are a
friend to me both in soul and body.--The gentleman asked him, What
comfort he had in his love towards the saints?--He answere