1622, he was summoned before the court of high commission for nonconformity to the Articles of Perth, and required to confine himself within the bounds of his parish. He was a member of the general assembly of 1638, when he was named one of a committee of ministers to inquire—from personal knowledge of the handwriting of the clerks and their own memory of events—into the authenticity of certain registers of the general assembly that had been missing for some time. He was able to establish their authenticity. By the same general assembly, he was also named to a committee to construct such constitutions and laws as might prevent corruptions like those that had troubled the kirk in the past. He died on 26 June 1646, and was buried in the family burial-place at the east end of the church of Carnock, where there was a monument to his memory. Epitaph He died 26 June 1646, after a few days' illness, and was buried at the east end of Carnock Church, where a monumental stone was erected to his memory. This monument is surmounted by a Scottish thistle, immediately over which are the Hebrew words for "The Last House," and the following Latin inscription: "Hic Iacet M. Jo. Row, Pastor hujus ecclesise fidelissimus : vixit acerrimus veritatis et foederis Scoticani assertor : hierarchias pseudo-episcopalis et Romanorum rituum cordicitus osor : in frequenti symmistarum apostasia cubi instar constantissimus." In "Memorials of the Family of Row" there is to be found this other epitaph : Though bald with age, and prest with weight, In crooked times this man went straight : His pen kept hid things on record For which the Prelats him abhorr'd : And his Carnock, his little quarter For Canterbury he would not barter." Family He married 4 January 1595 Grizel (died 30 January 1659), described as "a verie comelie and beautifull young woman," daughter of David Fergusson, minister of Dunfermline, and had issue — David, a minister in Ireland, "who was obliged to return to Scotland after a residence of twenty-five years, fifteen of which he had spent in the ministry, with a wife and five children without means of support, because of persecution and oppression from Papists who burned, slew, and did all the hurt they could to those that fled not"; John, Principal of King's College, Aberdeen; Robert, minister of Abercorn; William, minister of Ceres; Katherine (married