7
singing a psalm: after the rude people began to observe his example, and listen to his heavenly doctrine, he came quickly to that respect amongst them that he became not only a necessary counsellor, without whose counsel they would do nothing, but an example to imitate, and so he buried the bloody quarrels.
He gave himself wholly to ministerial exercises, he preached once every day, he prayed the third part of his time, was unwearied in his studies, and for a proof of this, it was found among his papers, that he had abridged Suarez's metaphysics, when they came first to his hand, even when he was well stricken in years. By all which, it appears, that he has not only been a man of great diligence but also of a strong and robust natural constitution, otherwise he had never endured the fatigue.
But if his diligence was great, so it is doubted whether his sowing in painfulness, or his harvest in his success was greatest; for if either his spiritual experiences in seeking the Lord, or his fruitfulness in converting souls be considered, they will be found unparalleled in Scotland: and many years after Mr. Welch’s death, Mr. David Dickson, at that time a flourishing minister at Irvine, was frequently heard to say, when people talked to him of the success of his ministry, that the grape gleanings in Ayr, in Mr. Welch’s time, were far above the vintage of Irvine, in his own. Mr. Welch, in his preaching, was spiritual and searching, his utterance tender and moving: he did not much insist upon scholastic purposes, he made no show of his learning. I once heard one of his hearers say, That no man could hear him and forbear weeping, his conveyance was so affecting. There is it large volume of his sermons, now in Scot-
