[258] Lord Boyd. See Letter LXXVIII.
[259] When even the slight afternoon meal and the cup handed to one at the door is so sweet.
[260] "Joist" was in some old editions.
[261] Not used; cast off.
[262] A thrust back. In a sermon at Anwoth, 1630, on Zech. xiii. 7, he says, "God gives a back-set and fall under temptation."
[263] Mr. Matthew Mowat, minister of Kilmarnock. See notice of him, Letter CXX.
[264] On, not "in," as in old editions.
[265] When Mr. Robert Blair and Mr. John Livingstone, who had been deposed in Ireland by the Bishop of Down, were obliged to leave that country, they came over to Irvine in 1637, to Mr. Dickson. Dickson had been advised by some respectable gentlemen not to ask them to preach, lest the bishops should thereby take occasion to remove him from his ministry. But his reply was: "I dare not be of their opinion, nor follow their counsel, so far as to discountenance these worthies, now when they are suffering for holding fast the name of Christ, and every letter of that blessed name, as not to employ them as in former times. Yea, I would think my so doing would provoke the Lord, so that I might upon another account be deposed, and not have so good a conscience" ("Life of Robert Blair").
[266] The sense may be, "My sins against light which was at work even when I was in the act of sinning."
[267] Mattereth? In other editions it is "maketh."