West Port Experiment

Just completed recording Thomas Halyburton’s “A Christian’s Belief Under Troubles: Two Sermons After the Death of a Friend.” Access this three-part series and other titles here. View my full audio library here. (And please drop me a note if any link fails: michael at reformedparish dot com).

The following introduction is taken from the James Begg Society.

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THOMAS Halyburton (1674-1712) was born into a family of Scottish Covenanters. His Father, Rev. George Halyburton, was a minister in the Reformed Church of Scotland until his ejection in 1662. Twenty years later George was denounced by the Privy Council of Scotland for holding “conventicles” (church services in the open air, unauthorised by the established church and outlawed by the government in those days). After his father’s death, young Thomas’s family (mother and sister) fled to Rotterdam in order to avoid the fierce persecution which was carried on against the Covenanters, where Thomas had his early education in the school of Erasmus. Following the Revolution, he returned to Scotland and continued his education.

After a period of inner struggle with the philosophy of Deism, God sovereignly and graciously enlighened Thomas’s soul, and gave him saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He became committed to the same Reformed Christian religion as his father, and followed in his footsteps as a minister of the gospel. On completing theological training, Thomas was licenced to preach in the Church of Scotland by Queen Anne, and ordained to the ministry of the church in Ceres, Fife. The church was part of the presbytery of Kirkcaldy.

After faithfully pastoring the church in Ceres for ten years, Rev. Dr. Halyburton became Professor of Theology at St. Leonard’s College in St. Andrews.

He died two years later at the age of 38, following an illness. At his request, his body was buried in St. Andrews next to his favourite Christian minister, Rev. Dr. Samuel Rutherford.

Thomas Halyburton’s theological and apologetic writings are marked by a distinctive thoroughness. The surviving scripts of his sermons show him to have been richly theological, deeply experimental (i.e. dealing with the experiences of the soul) and very practical — a master of the classic Puritan style of preaching.

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