Series 1 > Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston 1632-1639

DIARY OF LORD WARISTON
and not despise thair prayer,1 and with quhat hopeles wissings
read thou quhat folloueth, ‘ He looked doune from the height
of his sanctuary; to hear the groaning of the prisoner; and
to loose thos that ar apointed to death.1 Oh then hou cryed
thou, ‘Lord, I groane in the prison of my body and wisseth to
be among thos quho ar apointed to death, praying the, morn¬
ing and evening, that if thy Majestie hes nayther thy auine
glory, nor the salvation of thy servants, to be furthert any way
by my lyfe, evin to put ane end to my miseries, and to advance
thy naime, aedifie uthers, and saive ane silly saule from the
burden of sinne, affliction, and tentation, by ane speedy godly
and happie death. And this my prayer was redoubled by me
againe quhen I hearing Mr. Alexander Tomson1 teatching on
the 21 v. of 7 c. Mark (‘ For out of the heart of man procedeth
evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murthers, thifts, covet-
ousnes, wickednes, deceit, lasciviousnes, ane evil eie, blasphemy,
pryde, foolischnes’), and finding myselth guiltie a thousand
fold of everie on of them, and fearing to be esclavisched unto
them againe, I cryed, ‘ O Lord, quhy wilt thou spaire my dayes
(if thou haive nothing to doe with me for thy glory) to leave
me as ane pray to be devoured by thir ravenous lyons and
tirannical maisters?1 And, O saule, thou reiterated the samin
with many tears of ane contrite heart, cheifly quhen thou
remembred hou God nou had diminisched thy hopes and taken
av^ay the occasions of doing good in thy lyfe, and on the uther
pairt had augmented thy fears, and multiplied the occasion
and tentations of doing evil. Heir God yet comforted the by
bringing the in mynd of the texts quhilk wer preatched at the
communions thou haist beine at this year, at Musselbrugh by
Mr. Adame Court2 (thy uyfe being with the be Gods provi¬
dence) upon the 3 c. 14 v. of Jhons evangile (‘ And as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wildernes, evin so must the Son of
Man be lifted up; that quhosoever beleiveth in him sould not
perisch, bot haive asternal lyf. For God so loved the world,
1 Mr. Alexander Thomson. See note, p. 10.
2 Mr. Adam Colt, minister of Inveresk or Musselburgh, to which he had
been translated from Borthwick in 1597. He ha4 previously been a Regent of
Philosophy in Edinburgh University. He died in 1641, ‘of good age, and
much reputation for learning, wisdom, and pietie.’—Craufurd, pp. 31, 36.