nds a-year) yet he was never in want.

He further observes, that he could not remember any particular time of
conversion, or that he was much cast down or lifted up; only one night,
in the dean of Kilmarnock, having been, most of the day before, in
company with some people of Stuarton, who were under rare and sad
exercise of mind; he lay down under some heaviness, that he never had
such experience of; but, in the midst of his sleep, there came such a
terror of the wrath of God upon him, that if it had but increased a
little higher, or continued but a few minutes longer, he had been in a
most dreadful condition, but it was instantly removed, and he thought it
was said within his heart, See what a fool thou art to desire the thing
thou couldst not endure.--In his preaching he was sometimes much
deserted and cast down, and again at other times tolerably assisted. He
himself declares, That he never preached a sermon, excepting two, that
he would be earnest to see again in print; the first was at the kirk of
Shots (as was already noticed), and the other at a communion Monday at
Holywood in Ireland[150]; and both these times he had spent the night
before in conference and prayer with some Christians, without any more
than ordinary preparation.----For otherwise, says he, his gift was
rather suited to common people than to learned judicious auditors. He
had a tolerable insight in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and somewhat of the
Syriac languages; Arabic he did essay, but he soon dropped it.

He had as much of the French, Italian, Dutch and Spanish as enabled him
to make use of their books and bibles. It was thrice laid upon him by
the general assembly to write the history of the church of Scotland
since the reformation 1638: but this, for certain reasons, he had
altogether omitted.

The greater part of his time in Holland he spent in reducing the
original text unto a Latin translation of the bible; and for that
purpose compared Pagnin's with the original text, and with the later
translations, such as Munster, the Tigurine, Junius, Diodati, the
English, but especially the Dutch, which he thought was the most
accurate translation.

Whether by constant sitting at these studies, or for some other reasons,
the infirmities of old age creeping on, he could not determine, but
since the year 1664, there was such a continual pain contracted in his
bladder, that he could not walk abroad, and a shaking of his hands, that
he could scarcely write