Rev. JOHN WILLISON, Dundee.
SCOTLAND in proportion to its size has contributed a very large number of men who may be reckoned as bright ornaments of the Church of Christ. Many of these appeared when religion flourished, while some were but like isolated stars, whose rays penetrated the gloom of a night of almost
Egyptian darkness. The subject of this sketch may be said to be of the latter class. John Willison was born of respectable parents near Stirling in 1680, the same year in which the illustrious Ebenezer Erskine first saw the light of day. He received a good education, and being a diligent and able student, as his subsequently published works prove, he passed through the University, and in 1703, when he was only twenty-three years of age, was ordained as minister of Brechin. The part of the country where his parish is situated was at that time very dark spiritually. The blight of Prelacy had continued for years and the gospel was a strange sound. The young minister heroically set to work and immediately turned his attention to the young. Conscious of his responsibility he laboured early and late to instil into their minds the first principles of the Christian religion and had the happiness of seeing his labours blessed. Not only did his own congregation benefit by his zeal and industry, but generations to come throughout Scotland, and even beyond it, were instructed by his “Mother’s Catechism,” and his “Example of Plain Catechising on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism.”
After labouring faithfully in Brechin for fifteen years Willison was translated in 1718 to Dundee, which town is so often associated with his name in the minds of the godly in Scotland. Long before this, however, he appeared as an author, for about the year 1713 he published his well-known work, A Treatise Concerning the Sanctification of the Lord’s Day. The evil influence of the Book of Sports remained long after the Stuart’s had been hurled from the Throne of Britain, with the result that the Sabbath had ceased to be a day of rest and worship and had become a day of revelry. The conditions prevailing when Willison published his treatise may be gathered from the following statement in the preface:—”It would be no grievance to many to see that old abomination of the Book of Sports revived and authorised among us; I mean that infamous declaration for liberty of sports and recreation on the Lord’s Day, published by authority in the year 1633, and appointed to be read from the pulpits; the prelates consenting to it, and persecuting those ministers who refused to read it.” That he was “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” should be apparent to any who will carefully peruse the treatise. This work of John Willison was attacked by a Mr. Small, an Episcopal clergyman who occupied the church and parish of Forfar. His production purports to assert and prove the morality of the Fourth Commandment, but in reality it attacks the Sabbath as it is observed in Scotland, and the writer is unable to hide the fact that he has no love for the law of God in general, or for the Sabbath in particular, or for Presbyterianism either. In 1714 Willison published an able work on the government of the Church of Scotland entitled, A Letter from a Parochial Bishop to a Prelatical Gentleman in Scotland, and in a postscript to it pulverised the sophistries of Mr. Small. The latter was foolish enough, at least for himself, to reply, and to that folly we are indebted for a masterly treatise from the pen of Mr. Willison entitled, An Apology for the Church of Scotland against the accusations of Prelatists, etc.
Though time and again he was drawn by a sense of duty from the more
congenial work of his pastoral charge into the fields of controversy, yet his congregation was by no means forgotten or neglected, and the result of his pious instructions to his own flock is to be found in his Sacramental Directory, the publication of which has been edifying to many who were beyond the reach of his voice. This Directory was added to and improved on various occasions during the author’s life and is one of the most complete of its kind found anywhere. In 1722 he published Five Communion Sermons in which he deals with such important matters as, God’s withdrawals from His people, and their exercise under them; the happiness of being in covenant with God; the right improvement of the day of grace; the believer’s dignity in being an heir of God; and the fainting believer strengthened for his work. In this work is to be found a feast “of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.”
He took a keen interest in the questions which agitated the Church of Scotland in his day, and this was particularly the case in connection with the controversies which raged round the Marrow of Modern Divinity. He always espoused the cause of truth and his soul was pained at the dark shadows which were gathering more and more round the Church as the years rolled on. The Moderate party were bent on ruling the Church with a rod of iron, and thus suppressing all opposition, but there were noble spirits among the ministry of the Church who would not allow the prerogatives of King Jesus to be trampled under foot, and this led at last to the Secession of 1733. Willison was not the man to hide his light under a bushel, as his sermon preached before the Synod of Angus and Mearns in 1733, and published afterwards under the title of The Church’s Danger, shows, but he was not prepared to cast in his lot with the Seceders for the reason that, though there were many defections in the Church of Scotland, its Constitution was still intact. His efforts at preventing a Secession and again at effecting a reconciliation were equally futile, and we do not find him after this taking any active part in the work of the Church courts. His activities, however, are to be met with in a more congenial sphere. In 1737 he published two of his well-known works, The Afflicted Man’s Companion, and the Example of Plain Catechising already referred to.
In 1742 Willison published a volume of sermons entitled, The Balm of Gilead, and in them he bewails the corruptions and backslidings of the Church and directs to the remedy. In his preface he says, “What remedies can be so effectual to cure them of these evils as those proposed in the following discourses, to wit, the excellent Balm of Gilead and the glorious ministration of the Spirit.” In about a month after its publication what is known as the Cambuslang Revival began; he hastened to the place and was privileged to be an eye-witness of this remarkable outpouring of the Spirit of God. On his way home he preached at Kilsyth from Psalm xl. 2, 3, and the impression made by his sermon proved to be the beginning of a similar movement at Kilsyth. In the years that follow we find him, in his letters to the minister of Cambuslang, expressing his great joy at the accounts received of the work of the Holy Spirit, and of the steadfastness of those who were the subjects of it.
He was not, however, to go off the stage of time without serious trouble
and annoyance. In 1745, through the landing of the Young Pretender at Moidart, a determined attempt was made to overthrow the reigning House of Hanover and place the Stuarts once again on the British Throne. This would have been a great triumph for Popery in our land, and a farewell to religious liberty. When the rebels arrived at Dundee they demanded that Willison and the other ministers would cease to pray for King George, but though, at times, threatened with loaded pistols in church, he never acceded to their demand. On account of the panic which their behaviour caused among the women members of his flock he deemed it prudent to remain away from church for three Sabbaths and preach in private houses. It was during this time that he preached and published six sermons on Galatians I. 8, entitled, Popery Another Gospel. Thus he showed that in the discharge of his duty he feared no man’s frowns nor courted any man’s favour. He acquitted himself as a servant of the Lord should, and though he was beset with dangers he suffered no harm.
The time had now come when this honoured servant of Christ was to rest from his labours. The infirmities of old age began to make their appearance but in the midst of them he was not idle. In 1747 he published his Sacramental Meditations and Advices, being the substance of a series of sermons which he preached previously to his own congregation. This was the last work which issued from his pen, and on the 3rd May, 1750, he exchanged this world of strife and disappointments for that where there is perfect peace, in the forty-seventh year of his ministry. Among his dying sayings, written by himself a few days before he died, and left with his Bible lying on his pillow, may be quoted the following:—“Lord, I must be in; out I cannot stay: oh, shut me not out with the swearers, Sabbath-breakers, and profane persons. Lord, I never chose their company while in this world; Lord, do not gather my soul with sinners hereafter . . . Lord, I live upon Christ; I live upon His righteousness, I live upon His blood and merits; yea, I die also, leaning wholly upon His foundation.” Thus lived and thus died John Willison of Dundee.
J. C.