Page:Brief historical relation of the life of Mr. John Livingston Minister of the Gospel.pdf/5

( 5 ) ; the ſchoolmaſter prevailed with my father, I being young, and the maſte having hopes of my proficiency,  I ſhould ſtay yet one other year, and thus another boy  I atayed another year. We, for the moſt part read by in a little chamber above the ſchool, the maſter  us books, where we went through moſt part of  choice Latin Writers, both Poets and others, and that  was to me the large mod profitable year I had at the, only in my third year at the college of Glaſgow,  read more than I think I did any year ſince: I waſ then  the oversight of precious Mr. Robert Blair who for  years was my Regent: and having gotten ſome  in the logicks and metaphyſicks, and the ſubtilties of  ſchool-men, a vain desire to be above my equals,  me to more diligence. In many things whereunto mind was very bent, the Lord often diſappointed me,  always to my greater advantage. After I had paſſed degrees in the college, I had a great mind to the study of  claſſicks, and therefore was delirous to ſpend ſome time  a Regent in the college, and for that end, a place being  in the college of Glaſgow, I studied hard and  to diſpute for the place, but when the time came I  that one without any diſpute was placed. Becauſe in winter of my laſt year at the college, I had been long  under phyficians or chirurgeons with a ſiſtula in my, in which time Mr. Robert Boyd had taught the reſt in  claſs fome Hebrew; being grieved at that loſs, I began  my father’s houſe by my private ſtudy to attain to ſome  of the Hebrew, which thereafter by time I  encreaſed.

I do not remember the time or means particularly, the Lord at first wrought upon my heart; when I  but very young I would sometimes pray with ſome, and read the word with delight; but thereafter  often intermit any ſuch exerciſe; I would have ſome  and begin, and again intermit. I remember the time that ever I communicated at the Lord’s table  in Stirling, when I was at ſchool, where ſitting at the, and Mr. Patrick Simpſon exhorting before the distri-