Biographical Sketch
John Welwood was a native of Dumfriesshire, and son of the minister of Tundergarth — James Welwood. He was born about the year 1649. After the usual course of training, he was appointed to the work of the ministry. With great self-denial and fidelity, he attended to the duties of his high calling. The period of his service on earth was not of long duration, for he passed away in the thirtieth year of his age.
It was John Welwood’s lot to live in troublous times. When he was yet twelve years of age, his young heart would doubtless be stirred with terror at the tidings of the persecution which was beginning to break forth around him. Still he was not deterred from prosecuting his studies with a view to the exalted office whose duties he observed his father discharge with holy love and sweet composure. He entered upon the labour of his life when fines, banishment, hunting on the mountains, the scaffold, and the stake were the rewards of fidelity to Christ. In his days, settled pastorates among those ministers who protested against the defections of the times and braved the wrath of the backsliders, were almost unheard of. It is true that the parish of Tarbolton, in Ayrshire, called Welwood to be their pastor, and that he accepted the call. If ordained, however, his residence in that place must have been brief, for the Privy Council resolved upon his ejection from the parish and his apprehension, and he is found engaging in His Master’s service throughout various parts of the country as opportunities presented themselves. He went hither and thither preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, offering the water of life to thirsty souls, and comforting the suffering heritage of the Lord.
One of the most interesting of the “relations” concerning Welwood respected one of his last sermons. Preaching at Boulterhall, in Fife, from the text, “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called,” he remarked, toward the conclusion, “If that unhappy Prelate Sharp die the death of all men, God never spoke by me.” A servant of the Archbishop was one of the audience, having come with a brother with whom he had been sojourning who lived in the neighbourhood. The livery of the servant attracted the notice of the preacher, who concluded, and rightly too, that he was in the Prelate’s service. Having, after the sermon was ended, desired this man to stand up, as he had a message to deliver to him, Welwood proceeded to say:—”I desire you, before all these witnesses, when thou goest home, to tell thy master that his treachery, tyranny, and wicked life are near an end, and his death shall be at once sudden, surprising, and bloody; and as he hath thirsted after and shed the blood of the saints, he shall not go to his own grave in peace.” When Sharp was informed of these words of the minister he made light of them, but his wife said, “I advise you to take more notice of that, for I hear that these men’s words are not vain words.”
But John Welwood was soon to pass beyond the reach of the persecutor’s fury, and to enter upon eternal peace and rest. Being naturally of a weak constitution, having to undergo much discomfort and exposure, and being much cast down by reason of the condition of the Church and cause of the Redeemer throughout the land, he contracted a consumption which brought him to an early grave. During his illness, and particularly as he advanced near to the gates of death, he had many clear views of the King in His beauty and of the land afar off. His conversation bore much upon the downtrodden interests of truth, on the duty of persevering in a full and faithful testimony for Christ, and, though the prospects of a change were dark as midnight, he always declared his full confidence that a bright period was before the Church, and that the morning of Reformation would dawn once more. As to his own personal interest in the Saviour, he had the most comforting assurance. “I have no more doubt,” said he to those around him, “of my interest in Christ than if I were in heaven already.” On another occasion 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.” When the light of the morning before he died began to break into his chamber, he said, “Now eternal light, and no more night and darkness to me.” The night following, his spirit was borne to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to God the Judge of all. He died at Perth, in the beginning of April, 1679.
Information having been obtained by the authorities that an outlawed minister had died in the city, measures were instantly adopted to have the dead body seized. At first the Magistrates resolved to prevent the interment, and they called out the soldiers to support their decision; but they were afterwards prevailed upon to allow the friends of the dead to carry the body out of the town, and bury it where they might choose. Some of the people of Perth who went out with the funeral were imprisoned. On their arrival at the churchyard of Drone, whither they had sent before two men to prepare a grave, those who carried the body found the gates locked, and they could not prevail upon the minister of the place to grant them the keys. Passing over a dyke near the churchyard, the “narrow home” was prepared for the remains of this faithful servant of God, and his body was laid in that resting-place in certain hope of a blessed immortality. “The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning.”