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considerable share of prudence; he studied to walk in wisdom towards them that are without, as well as them that are within, and to become all things to all men. He was dexterous in observing the tempers of men, and in addressing and managing them. How wisely he carried himself in church-judicatories, of which he was a member, others can witness. He abhorred that unedifying conversation, so common with many, that is spent in frequent and unseasonable jesting and drollery, though he was abundantly facetious in company, when and where he saw it expedient; and in this way he sometimes dropped what tended to edify. Those who conversed with him most will own, they seldom enjoyed his company without deriving some profit. He was often uneasy after much. converse with others, if he was not edified himself, or thought he did not edify others. How circumspect and tender was the strain of his walk in this! He often regretted the difficulty there was to retain integrity in most companies in this degenerate age: he reckoned such company a great hardship; and he was loath to allow any thing offensive in conversation without a check.

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The following Memoirs will witness how he walked with God in his family and closet. But some things I cannot pass here. It was his custom, except he had been necessarily hindered, to come from his closet to family worship, especially if the Lord had given him enlargement of heart; and if his spirit was in a due frame, he would then have been very uneasy, if any interruption occurred between closet and family duties. He also commonly

expounded the word of God, at least once a-day, in his family. The night before family, or national fasts, which he kept, he always directed his servants how to manage that work; and on the fastdays themselves, discourses to them about their souls' condition and concerns. He was an affectionate and dutiful husband, a conscientious and kind parent, a faithful and easy master. Such as knew him, will acknowledge he had a clear head, a very ready invention, and an uncommon memory. He read ́ little after his health broke, and often acknowledged his greatest improvement was more by thinking than reading. He had a very ready way of expressing his thoughts; he was far from having a vain airy affectation of language in preaching, (a prevailing evil in this time;) he had studied an even, neat, and Scriptural style; and this became natural; though some thought, in the end, his deep thinking made it a little more abstruse than formerly to a popular audience. He had choice pulpit gifts; he was an accurate and pathetic preacher, very textual, close in handling any truth he discoursed on, and, in the application, he was home, warm, and searching; and in this he usually showed himself a skilful casuist. He often complained, that some worthy men were too general and bare in the application of their doctrines. He generally wrote his sermons very exactly, when health and business would allow. used to say, "A lazy minister in his younger years would make a poor old man." It were to be wished, that this example were more followed than it is. He often ventured to preach, even at sacraments,

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under great indisposition, when he was not able to write so much as the heads of his sermon; and he has been singularly assisted, to the conviction of all that heard him. In his last two years he wrote little, his health was so low. His experience of the power of godliness, with his other mentioned gifts, made him very skilful to deal with wounded spirits, according to the variety of their cases; and this conversation he owned was extremely useful to himself. Few ministers have taken a more cautious and confirming way of dealing with people, than he did before he admitted them to the sacrament; and, while in health, he was diligent in the other parts of his ministerial work. He was no less singularly fitted for the schools; he spoke elegant Latin with fluency, though he had been in the disuse of it. He was very expert in the Greek; but his sickness hindered his design to accomplish himself in the rest of the oriental languages. In controversies, especially those of the time, he excelled many. It was strange to see how quickly he would have taken up the state of a controversy, the strength of an adversary, seen through their deceitful sophistry and pretences, and how close and nervous his reasoning usually was.

On the whole, what a loss, especially in that juncture, may we justly reckon the death of this great man to the poor wrestling church of Scotland, to the place he lived in, and to his family! Alas! what shall we say? What great concern of heart may it cause, when such a green olive-tree, fair and of goodly fruit, is cut down; when such bright stars set, yea, even constellations of them in our day?

May we not justly fear, when such wrestlers with God are taken away, as he on his death-bed comments on such damping providences, that “the consumption decreed shall overflow in righteousness ?"

MEMOIRS

OF THE

REV. THOMAS HALYBURTON.

PART I.

INTRODUCTION. THE STATE OF MATTERS WITH

ME FROM THE TIME OF MY BIRTH, TILL I WAS ABOUT TEN YEARS OF AGE.

THE common occurrences of the life of one in all respects so inconsiderable, are not worth recording; and, if recorded, could be of little use either to myself or others. Therefore it is not my design to waste time or paper with these. But if I can recount the Lord's gracious conduct towards me, the state of matters before and under the Lord's special dealings with me, in a way of conviction, illumination, conversion, consolation, and edification, and present them so as to discover, not only the parts of this work, the several advances it made, the opposition made to it, its victory over the opposition of my own heart, Satan, and the world, but also to present the work in its order and issue, it may be of

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