About this time he met with a most notable deliverance, for, staying in a high house at the end of the town until the manse was built, being late at his studies, the candle was done, and calling for another, as the landlady brought it from a room under which he lay, to her astonishment, a joist under his bed had taken fire, which, had he been in bed as usual, the consequence, in all probability, had been dreadful to the whole town, as well as to him, the wind being strong from that quarter; but, by the timeous alarm given, the danger was prevented; which made him give thanks to God for this great deliverance.
When he first celebrated the Lord's supper, his heart was much lifted up in speaking of the new covenant, which made him, under the view of a second administration of that ordinance, resolve to go back unto that inexhaustible fountain of consolation; and coming over to Scotland about that time[143], he received no small assistance from Mr. Dickson, who was then restored unto his flock at Irvine, and was studying and preaching on the same subject.
But it was not many years that he could have liberty in the exercise of his office, for in harvest 1631, he and Mr. Livingston, were, by Ecklim bishop of Down, suspended from their office, but, upon recourse to Dr. Usher, who sent a letter to the bishop, their sentence was relaxed, and they went on in their ministry, until May 1632, that they were by the said bishop, deposed from the office of the holy ministry.
After this, no redress could be had; whereupon Mr. Blair resolved on a journey to court to represent their petitions and grievances to the king; but, after his arrival at London, he could have no access for some time to his majesty, and so laboured under many difficulties with little hopes of redress, until one day, having gone to Greenwich park, where, being wearied with waiting on the court, and while at prayer, the Lord assured him that he would hunt the violent man to destroy him. And while thus in earnest with the Lord for a favourite return, he adventured to propose a sign, that if the Lord would make the reeds, growing hard by, which were so moved with the wind, as he was tossed in mind, to cease from shaking, he would take it as an assurance of the dispatch of his business; unto which the Lord condescended; for in a little time it became so calm, that not one of them moved; and in a short time he got a dispatch to his mind, wherein the king did not only sign his petition, but with his own hand wrote on the margin (directed to the depute) Indulge these men, for they are Scotchmen.
It was while in England, that he had from Ezekiel xxiv. 16. a strange discovery of his wife's death, and the very bed whereon she was lying, and particular acquaintances attending her; and although she was in good health at his return home, yet, in a little, all this exactly came to pass.
And yet, after his return, the king's letter being slighted by the depute, who was newly returned from England, he was forced to have recourse to arch-bishop Usher; which drew tears from his eyes, that he could not help them, and yet, by the interposition of lord Castle-Stuart with the king, they got six months liberty; but upon the luck of this in Nov. 1634, he was again conveened before the bishop, and the sentence of excommunication pronounced against him, by Ecklin bishop of Down.—After the sentence was pronounced, Mr. Blair rose up and publicly cited the bishop to appear before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, to answer for that wicked deed; whereupon he did appeal from the justice of God to his mercy; but Mr. Blair replied, Your appeal is like to be rejected, because you act against the light of your own conscience. In a few months after he fell sick, and the physician inquiring of his sickness, after some time's silence, he, with great difficulty, said, It is my conscience, man—To which the doctor replied, I have no cure for that;—and in a little after he died.
After his ejection, he preached often in his own house, and in others houses, until the beginning of the year 1635, that he began to think of marriage again with Catherine Montgomery, daughter to Hugh Montgomery, formerly of Busbie in Ayr-shire (then in Ireland) for which he came over to Scotland with his own and his wife's friends.—And upon his return to Ireland, they were married in the month of May following.
But matters still continuing the same, he engaged with the rest of the ejected ministers in their resolution in building a ship, called the Eagle-wings, of about 115 tons, on purpose to go to New-England. But about three or four hundred leagues from Ireland, meeting with a terrible hurricane, they were forced back unto the same harbour from whence they loosed, the Lord having work for them elsewhere, it was fit their purposes should be defeated. And having continued some four months after this in Ireland, until, upon information that he and Mr. Livingston were to be apprehended, they immediately went out of the way, and immediately took shipping, and landed in Scotland anno 1631.
All that summer after his arrival, he was as much employed in public and private exercises as ever before, mostly at Irvine and the country around, and partly at Edinburgh. But things being then in a confusion, because the service-book was then urged upon the ministers, his old inclination to go to France revived, and upon an invitation to be chaplain of col. Hepburn's regiment in the French service (newly inlisted in Scotland), with them he imbarked at Leith; but some of these recruits, who were mostly highlanders, being desperately wicked, upon his reproofs, threatening to stab him, he resolved to quit that voyage, and calling to the ship-master to set him on shore, without imparting his design, a boat was immediately ordered for his service; at which time he met with another deliverance, for his foot sliding, he was in danger of going to the bottom, but the Lord ordered, that he got hold of a rope, by which he hung till he was relieved.
Mr. Blair's return gave great satisfaction to his friends at Edinburgh, and, the reformation being then in the ascendant, in the spring of 1638, he got a call to be colleague to Mr. Annan at Ayr; and upon May 2, a meeting of presbytery, having preached from 2 Cor. iv. 5. he was, at the special desire of all the people there, admitted a minister.