(From the Christian Internet
Magazine - C.A.T.I.)
BONAR, BOSTON, M'CHEYNE, AND MORE!
Throughout its history, Scotland has produced its share of noteworthy
preachers, and getting to know them better is a worthwhile experience for all
Christians. We'll be looking at some of these Scottish preachers in this
article, as well as looking at related rich resources on the Web.
You may
(or may not) recognize names like Andrew and Horatio Bonar, Thomas Boston,
William Guthrie, Robert Haldane, John Knox, Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Samuel
Rutherford, Robert Traill, and Alexander Whyte. If you don't know them, you may
want to get to know them, because there is much that they can teach us today.
Some of them you may know without knowing that you know them. That could be
true of Horatio (or Horatius) Bonar, who is the author of many hymns, some of
which you may know well. For example, you'll find over a dozen of his hymns in
the Trinity Hymnal, including "Blessing and Honor and Glory and Power," "A Few
More Years Shall Roll," "Go, Labor On," "Fill Thou My Life, O Lord My God,"
"Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face," "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,"
"I Lay My Sins on Jesus," "I Was a Wandering Sheep," "No, Not Despairingly Come
I to Thee," "Not What My Hands Have Done," "O Love of God, How Strong and
True," "Thy Way, Not Mine, O Lord," "Thy Works, Not Mine, O Christ," and "When
the Weary, Seeking Rest."
An excellent Web site to use as a starting place
to learn more about Scottish Preachers of the past is this one: Scottish
Preachers' Hall of Fame (home page) http://www.newble.co.uk/hall/
The
webmaster, Alan Newble, acknowledges his substantial debt to another site: Hall
of Church History http://gty.org/phil/hall.htm
We
looked at Phil Johnson's Hall of Church History in a past issue of CATI:
The Hall of Church History: Wisdom from the Past
http://traver.org/cati/archives/cati19.html
Previous issues of CATI
also referred briefly to a Scottish Preachers site, but that site, the work of
Sean Richardson, is no longer around. Fortunately, Alan Newble - who started
his site independently - is now here to maintain that tradition, with Sean
Richardson's permission and encouragement.
The emphasis at Alan Newble's
Scottish Preachers site is especially on the Scottish Reformers (including John
Knox and Andrew Melville) and the Scottish Puritans (including Thomas Boston,
William Guthrie, Samuel Rutherford, William Traill, and others). Many suffered
or even died (often at an early age) because of their Christian faith, and
their lives and writings are a real inspiration to Christians today.
When I
speak of the Scottish Reformers, I have in mind, of course, not the original
Reformation (involving Martin Luther and John Calvin), but the "Second
Reformation of Scotland." On his site, Newble provides a brief overview of that
time period: The Second Reformation of Scotland
http://www.newble.co.uk/hall/history.html He also provides two background
articles on Puritanism by J.I. Packer: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life
http://www.newble.co.uk/hall/jiponpuritans.html
Puritan Evangelism
http://www.newble.co.uk/hall/evanjip.html
Packer
has done much in his various writings on the Puritans to show people that in
history the Puritans have often been maligned and misrepresented. He introduces
us to the real Puritans, many of whom are included on Newble's Web site.
The best place to start at his site is not the introductory home page
mentioned earlier, but this page: Scottish Preachers' Hall of Fame
http://www.newble.co.uk/hall/hallofame.html On this page you will find two- or
three-sentence descriptions of the Scottish preachers included, as well as
links to sites (or sections of his own site) where you will find some more
information about these men and/or find their writings.
Here's a selection
of some of the links he provides (arranged here in alphabetical order for ease
of reference):
Bonar, Andrew A. http://www.newblehome.co.uk/bonar/
Bonar, Horatius http://members.aol.com/OrthodoxUM/BonarHome.html
Boston, Thomas http://www.geocities.com/~thomasboston/
Candlish, Robert
Smith http://www.newble.co.uk/candlish/
Chalmers, Thomas
http://www.newble.co.uk/chalmers/
Dickson, David
http://www.newblehome.co.uk/dickson/
Gray, Andrew
http://www.newble.co.uk/gray/
Gray, Andrew (Perth)
http://www.newble.co.uk/grayperth/
Guthrie, Thomas
http://www.newble.co.uk/guthrie/
Guthrie, William
http://www.newble.co.uk/guthriew/
M'Cheyne, Robert Murray
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/d.haslam/m-cheyne.htm
Whyte, Alexander
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/4199/index.html
I'll let you
pursue Newble's site(s) as well as the other sites further at your own leisure.
Incidentally, you may notice that the photography on some of Newble's pages
is breathtaking. That really should be of no surprise, because Alan Newble is
an award-winning professional photographer. If you like good photography (and
especially if you have an interest in railroads and railways, but also if you
like other types of pictures), check out this starting point: The Alan Newble
Photo-Resource Site http://www.newble.co.uk/
Here's how
he introduces himself and the site: "Hello! I am Alan Newble and I am pleased
to welcome you to this site. I hope you enjoy the pictures - if you don't like
pictures, then go away! This site is Family-Friendly - all the images are
viewable without offence by all. Should you wish to download and use any of the
images for your own personal enjoyment, please do so." http://www.newble.co.uk/
Some of the photographs would make excellent jigsaw puzzles, so I think
you can take those comments as permission to use his pictures with the Traver
Jigsaw program made available as a gift to CATI readers:
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