Scottish Puritans: Select Biographies-Two Volume Set

Description

‘This is a magnificent two-volume set, calculated to stir the soul and to find a place of honour and affection in every Christian who loves to read the thrilling history of the Scottish church!’ — SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON

 

‘In these records we find a whole gallery of men and women whose lives and deaths speak to us of apostolic Christianity. Although not to be used as models in all things, the Scottish Puritans and Covenanters still exemplify the same kind of spiritual and missionary zeal that has ever been associated with the advance of the kingdom of God. Their lives were centred on the Word of God and prayer and they enjoyed real communion with Christ. They knew the Holy Spirit and believed in his power to change lives and nations. What Spurgeon once said of David Dickson’s Explanation of the Psalms we say of Scottish Puritans – Select Biographies, “We comment it with much fervour”.’ — IAIN H. MURRAY

 

Book Description

 

Scottish Puritans – Select Biographies constitute one of the great treasures of Scottish Christian literature. In quick succession, we meet such justly famous and revered figures as John Welsh, David Dickson, William Guthrie, and James Fraser of Brea, but also the lesser known and long forgotten, like the land-labourer of Carrick, John Stevenson. Here are the stories and reflections of men and women who, in times of great darkness, testing, and suffering, tasted what the author of Hebrews calls ‘the powers of the age to come’.

 

The 17th century was a dynamic period in Scottish church history, and yet many of its rich records lay hidden in privately owned manuscripts for two hundred years. It was only with the evangelical awakening of the 1840s that close attention was given to their publication, and a Society, formed for that purpose in Edinburgh, took the name of the historian, Robert Wodrow (1679-1734). On the 26 volumes thus published subsequent authors have depended heavily, and particularly so with respect to the two volumes originally entitled Select Biographies. In an era when Puritan literature is again being rediscovered their reprint is timely, providing as it does the opportunity to go back to first-hand sources. Here, for the most part, men and women live in their own words, or in the witness of their contemporaries. The 19th-century editor, William Tweedie, himself an evangelical leader, thought it worthwhile to be the editor of this rare material, and all who have possessed them endorse his judgment.

 

In these records we find a whole gallery of men and women whose lives and deaths speak to us of apostolic Christianity. Although not to be used as models in all things, the Scottish Puritans and Covenanters still exemplify the same kind of spiritual and missionary zeal that has ever been associated with the advance of the kingdom of God. Their lives were centered on the Word of God and prayer and they enjoyed real communion with Christ. They knew the Holy Spirit and believed in his power to change lives and nations. What Spurgeon once said of David Dickson’s Explanation of the Psalms we say of Scottish Puritans – Biographies. ‘We recommend it with much fervour’. Iain Murray

 

Two Volume Hardbacks total page count: 1084

 

Table of Contents:

VOL 1	CONTENTS
	THE HISTORY OF MR JOHN WELSH, Minister of the Gospel at Ayr,	1
	APPENDIX to the History of Mr John Welsh,	45
	A TRUE RECORD OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MASTEH PATRICK SIMSONE…	63
	A BRIEF HISTORICAL RELATION OF THE LIFE OF MR JOHN LIVING­ STONE…	127
	MEMORABLE CHARACTERISTICS, AND REMARKABLE PASSAGES OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, exemplified in the Lives of some of the most eminent Ministers and Professors in the Church of Scotland.	293
	LETTERS from ELIZABETH, Daughter of Sir James Melvill of Hal­ hill, and Wife of John, Lord Colvill of Culross, to Mr JOHN LIVINGSTONE,	349
	THE LAST AND HEAVENLY SPEECHES, AND GLORIOUS DEPARTURE, OF JOHN, VISCOUNT KENMURE,	371
	THE MEMOIRS OF WALTER PRINGLE OF GREENKNOW; or some few of the Free Mercies of God to him, and his Will to his Children, left to them under his own hand,	411
	AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARTICULAR SOLILOQUIES AND COVENANT ENGAGEMENTS, past betwixt Mrs JANET HAMILTON, the defunct Lady of Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun…	495
	INDEX	509
VOL 2	CONTENTS
	A SHORT ACCOUNT OF’ THE LIFE OF THE REV. DAVID DICKSON…	5
	MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MR WILLIAM GUTHRIE…	33
	MEMOIRS OF THE REV. JAMES FRASER OF BREA…	89
	A TRUE RELATION OF THE LIFE AND SUFFERINGS OF JOHN NISBET IN HARDHILL…	377
	RARE SOUL-STRENGTHENING AND COMFORTING CORDIAL FOR OLD AND YOUNG CHRISTIANS; being an exact Account of the Au­thor’s Experience…	415
	MEMOIR OF MRS GOODAL…	481
	THE LAST WORDS OF THE LADY COLTNESS…	499
	A RELATION OF MY LADY ANNE ELCHO…	515
	INDEX	523