Page:Life and prophecies of Mr. Alexr. Peden.pdf/42

 tered in the house of James Gray, my acquaintance; they being frighted in their sleep, started up, & clapped their hands, crying Peden, Peden. These two dragoons affirmed, that out of curiosity they opened his coffin, to see his corpse, and yet he had no smell, though he had been forty days dead.

All the foregoing articles I was assured of, except the 40th. which is said he spoke to John Clark in Muirbrock, within the bounds of Carrick, in the year 1685, and has been passing from hand to hand in writ. I sent a friend twenty miles to him, for the certainty of it: & although he was my old acquaintance, he delayed to give it. But I am informed, that some other friends enquired at the said John, who owned that the 10th. passage was all one for substance, with what Mr. Peden said to him.

There are other two passages I have often heard, and doubt nothing of the truth of them, though the times & places be not mentioned, viz. One day preaching in the fields, in his prayer he prayed earnestly for the preservation of the people, and again & again he prayed for that man that was to lose his life. The enemies came upon them the same day, and fired upon the people, and there was none of them either wounded or killed, save one man, and he was shot dead. Another time he was preaching, and giving a very large offer of Christ, in the gospel terms: an old woman being sitting before him, he laid his hand on each side of her head & rocked her from side to side, and said, “Thou witch wife, thou witch-wife, thou witch-wife, I offer Christ to thee! Quit the devil’s service, thou, hast a bad master; thou wilt never make thy plack a babee of him: But if thou wilt break off and renounce the devil’s service, I promise thee, in my Master’s name, that he will give thee salvation.” After this, there was a discernable change in her practice; & when she was a-dying she confessed that she was either engaged in the devil’s service, or was engaging: and expressed her thankfulness that had the happiness to hear Mr. Peden at that time.