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Archive for the ‘Alexander Henderson’ Category

WPE 003 | The Life & Ministry of Alexander Henderson

Posted in Alexander Henderson, Christian Life & Experience, Church of Scotland, Experimental Religion & the Cure of Souls, Faith & Saving Faith, Preaching, WPE Podcast on May 16, 2026| 1 Comment »

This is the third episode of the West Port Experiment podcast, featuring the Rev. D. Douglas Gebbie, minister of the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Chesley, Ontario. In this episode, we introduce and discuss Alexander Henderson, one of the greats of the Scottish Second Reformation and a crucial figure in the 17th century Kirk. For further study, listen to a recording of Thomas M’Crie’s life of Henderson. The next two episodes of WPE will continue the discussion on Henderson, looking at his Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, followed by his sermon before parliament on John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

About the WPE podcast. I have completed the first ten episodes before releasing any to make sure I wasn’t overcommitting or underperforming. But I’m hoping that this podcast fills a niche in a crowded digital area. While this site’s theme is about “parish missions, the care of souls, and all things reformed,” the first season is dedicated specifically to the Scottish Presbyterian tradition to which my denomination is devoted. God willing, I’ll continue to focus mainly in this area. But if it continues, I may branch off into other related areas, especially my great interest in Thomas Chalmers and the theory of practice of parish missions.

The church in Leuchars where Henderson served for 25 years. [source]

For now, the episodes focus on a text or texts for discussion with various friends as conversation partners from within and beyond my presbytery. In this first season, we are dealing with John Willison, Samuel Rutherford, Hugh Binning, Alexander Henderson, David Dickson & the Stewarton Revival, James Guthrie, and Thomas Boston. I hope to release them about once per month.

If you would like to be kept updated about WPE podcast releases, subscribe to this site at the right, just under the banner. If any links are broken, please drop me a note at michael@reformedparish.com.

[Instrumental music in podcast courtesy of Ernst Stolz. ]

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The Life of Alexander Henderson

Posted in Alexander Henderson, Audio Resources, Church of Scotland on June 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Listen to Thomas M’Crie’s The Life of Alexander Henderson.

Robert Baillie, in a speech delivered before the General Assembly in 1647 upon the death of this great churchman, declared of his late friend, “That glorious soul of blessed memory, who now is crowned with the reward of all his labours for God and for us, I wish his remembrance may be fragrant among us, so long as free and pure Assemblies remain in this land, which we hope shall be to the coming of our Lord. You know he spent his strength, and wore out his days, he breathed out his life in the service of God and of his Church. This binds it on our back, as we would not prove ungrateful, to pay him his due. If the thoughts of others be conform to my inmost sense, in duty and reason, he ought to be accounted by us and posterity, the fairest ornament, after John Knox, of incomparable memory, that ever the Church of Scotland did enjoy.”

And check our our entire audio library here.

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In the nick of time

Posted in Alexander Henderson, Vox Patrum on April 9, 2023| 1 Comment »

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Second Reformation Galaxy to go: Henderson

Posted in Alexander Henderson, Audio Resources, Church of Scotland, Macleod, John (1872-1948), Puritans & Puritanism on April 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Have a listen to recorded sermons by the Second Reformation divine, the great architect of the Church of Scotland in that era, Alexander Henderson. More titles from this and other expanding shelves in my audio library here.

Principal John Macleod in his definitive work, Scottish Theology in Relation to Church History (1943), wrote the following:

“There are great times in which a crop of great men is raised up. In one sense all times are great by reason of the opportunities which they offer and the duties for which they call. Men in quiet times, however, live in an age that tells on the more stirring times ahead and their influence will contribute to the stir and bustle of those times when they come. The quiet times see the stream of life running a more smooth and less exciting course. They may be said to be the days of the average man or of the leading man that is distinctly small. The days of the Second Reformation were not of the tame an uneventful kind. They were days when things happened that are not forgotten and great men appeared on the field and had the chance to show their quality. The leader of the Church of Scotland in those days was not one of the creatures of the court exalted to dignified office above his brethren. There were such men with honours thrust upon them—yet not against their will—strutting their petty hour upon the stage. They were, however, but the puppets and tools of the royal policy. The leader who emerged when the call his work came was the minister of a quiet parish in Fife where he had almost as his next neighbor the Archbishop of St Andrews. The Archbishop was Spottiswoode, and the minister was Alexander Henderson.”

[Is a link broken? Please drop me a note! mjives dot refparish at gmail dot com]

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