Page:Life of James Renwick.pdf/2

 LIFE OF MR JAMES RENWICK.

was born in the parish of Glencarn, in Dumfries-shire, February 15th, 1662. His parents, though not rich, were exemplary for piety. His father, Andrew Renwick, a weaver by trade, and his mother, Elizabeth Corsan, had several children before Mr James, who died young; for which, when his mother was pouring forth her motherly grief, husband used to comfort her with declaring, that he was well satisfied to have children, whether they lived or died young or old, providing they might be heirs of glory. But with this she could not attain to be satisfied; but she had it for her exercise to seek a child from the Lord, that might not only be an of glory, but might live to serve him in his generation; whereupon, when Mr James was born, she took it as an answer of prayer, and reputed herself  manifold engagements to dedicate him to the Lord, who satisfied her with very early evidences of his accepting return of his own gift, and confirmed  same by very remarkable appearances of his gracious dealings with the child; for, by the time he was two years of age, he was observed to be aiming at prayer even in the cradle, and about it, where with his  conceived such expectations and hopes, that the Lord would be with him and do good by him, as that all  reproaches he sustained, difficulties and dangers  afterwards he underwent, to his dying day,  moved her in the least from the confidence that  Lord would carry him through and off the stage, in some honourable way for his own glory. His also, before his death, on February 1st, 1679,  the same persuasion, that his time in the world would be but short, but that the Lord would make  eminent use of him.