{219} On Tuesday following, the 11th of November, he was seized with a severe cough, which greatly affected his breathing.[291] When his friends, anxious to prolong his life, proposed to call in the assistance of physicians, he readily acquiesced, saying that he would not neglect the ordinary means of health, although he was persuaded that death would soon put an end to all his sorrows. It had been his ordinary practice to read every day some chapters of the Old and New Testament; to which he added a certain number of the Psalms of David, the whole of which he perused regularly once a‑month. On Thursday the 13th, he sickened, and was obliged to desist from his course of reading; but he gave directions {220} to his wife, and his secretary, Richard Bannatyne, that one of them should every day read to him, with a distinct voice, the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel according to John, the fifty‑third of Isaiah, and a chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. This was punctually complied with during the whole time of his sickness; and scarcely an hour passed in which some part of scripture was not read in his hearing. Besides the above passages, he, at different times, fixed on certain Psalms, and some of Calvin’s French sermons on the Ephesians. Thinking him at times to be asleep, when they were engaged in reading, they enquired if he heard them, to which he answered, “I hear, (I praise God,) and understand far better;” words which he uttered for the last time, within four hours of his death. The same day on which he sickened, he desired his wife to discharge the servants’ wages; and wishing next day to pay one of his men‑servants himself, he gave him twenty shillings above his fee, saying, “Thou wilt never receive more from me in this life.” To all of them he addressed suitable exhortations to walk in the fear of God, and as became Christians who had lived in his family. On Friday, the 14th, he rose from bed at an earlier hour than usual; and thinking that it was Sabbath, said, that he meant to go to church, and preach on the resurrection of Christ, upon which he had been meditating through the night. This was the subject on which he should have preached in his ordinary course. But he was so weak, that he needed to be {221} supported from his bedside by two men, and it was with great difficulty that he could sit on a chair.