d among the rest one
Aiton, younger of Inchdarny in Fife, (a pious youth about eighteen years
of age) and giving Mr. Welwood an account of the great tyranny and
wickedness of prelate Sharp, Mr. Welwood said, "You will shortly be quit
of him, and he will get a sudden and sharp off-going, and ye will be the
first that will take the good news of his death to heaven." Which
literally came to pass the May following.

About the same time he said to another who came to visit him, "that many
of the Lord's people should be in arms that summer for the defence of
the gospel; but he was fully persuaded that they would work no
deliverance; and that, after the fall of that party, the public standard
of the gospel should fall for some time, so that there would not be a
true faithful minister in Scotland, excepting two, unto whom they could
resort, to hear or converse with, anent the state of the church; and
they would also seal the testimony with their blood; and that after this
there should be a dreadful defection and apostacy; but God would pour
out his wrath upon the enemies of his church and people, wherein many of
the Lord's people, who had made defection from his way should fall among
the rest in this common calamity; but this stroke, he thought, would
not be long, and upon the back thereof there would be the most glorious
deliverance and reformation that ever was in Britain, wherein the church
should never be troubled any more with prelacy."

When drawing near his end, in conversation with some friends, he used
frequently to communicate his own exercise and experience, with the
assurance he had obtained of his interest in Christ, he said, "I have no
more doubt of my interest in Christ, than if I were in heaven already."
And at another time he said, "Although I have been for some weeks
without sensible comforting presence, yet I have not the least doubt of
my interest in Christ. I have oftentimes endeavoured to pick a hole in
my interest, but cannot get it done." That morning ere he died, when he
observed the light of the day, he said, "Now eternal light, and no more
night and darkness to me."--And that night he exchanged a weakly body, a
wicked world, and a weary life, for an immortal crown of glory, in that
heavenly inheritance which is prepared and reserved for such as him.

The night after his exit his corpse was removed from John Barclay's
house into a private room, belonging to one Janet Hutton (till his
friends might co