LAST WORDS (7)

[522] A fortnight before this was written, viz. on 8th July 1660, the King had committed the Marquis to the Tower, on an unfounded charge of treason. Rutherford did not live to see the issue.

[523] "His heavenly King, whom he has faithfully owned, as well as in private conscientiously served, will on that account all the more stand by him, in the question of his earthly King being reconciled to him." The hopes of his friends, however, were not realized; for next year (on 27th May 1661) he was beheaded at Edinburgh.

[524] Proverbs iii. 2.

[525] Such, as is well known, was the fate of Mr. James Guthrie, a few months after this was written. He was hanged at the cross of Edinburgh on the 1st of June 1661, and his head thereafter cut off and fixed on the Nether Bow.

[526] Rutherford died on the 20th of March 1661, shortly after this letter was written.

[527] When you yourselves have got safe within.

[528] From the original among the Wodrow MSS. vol. xxvii. fol. No. 18.

[529] The minister to whom Letter CCCLXIII. is addressed.

[530] Mr. John Crookshanks (as Wodrow spells the name), minister of Redgorton, in the Presbytery of Perth. He afterwards followed those who fought at Pentland Hills, in 1665, and was killed in the battle.

[531] Is not this the very spirit of 2 Pet. i. 13, 14, "Yea, I think it meet to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle"?

[532] Apothecary in Edinburgh. See Livingstone's "Charact."

[533] In a sermon at Kirkcudbright on Rev. xix. 11, he introduces the courtiers saying to Daniel, "What need ye make all the fields ado with your prayers?"