On completing his theological studies at the university, Mr Wodrow went to reside with a distant relation of the family, Sir John Maxwell, of Nether Pollook; and, while here, offered himself for trials to the presbytery of Paisley, by whom he was licensed to preach the gospel, in March, 1703. On the 28th of October following, he was ordained minister of the parish of Eastwood, near Glasgow, through the influence of the family with which he resided. Eastwood was, at that period, one of the smallest parishes in Scotland; but it was just such a one as suited Mr Wodrow: for its clerical duties being comparatively light, he was enabled to devote a portion of his time to his favourite studies in history and antiquities, without neglecting the obligations which his sacred office imposed upon him; and of this circumstance he appreciated the value so highly, that he could never be induced, though frequently invited, to accept any other charge. Glasgow, in 1712, made the attempt, in vain, to withdraw him from his obscure, but beloved retreat, and to secure his pastoral services for the city; and Stirling, in 1717, and again in 1726, made similar attempts, but with similar success. The sacrifices which he made, however, by rejecting these overtures, were amply compensated by the affectionate attachment of his little flock, who rejoiced in his ministry, and were made happy by the amiableness of his manners, and the kindliness of his disposition. Although the charge in which he was placed was an obscure one, Mr Wodrow’s talents soon made it sufficiently conspicuous. The eloquence of his sermons, the energy and felicity of the language in which they were composed, and the solemn and impressive manner in which they were delivered, quickly spread his fame as a preacher, and placed him at the head of his brethren in the west of Scotland.

The popularity and reputation of Mr Wodrow, naturally procured for him a prominent place in the ecclesiastical courts which he attended; and in this attendance, whether on presbyteries, synods, or the General Assembly, he was remarkable for his punctuality. Of the latter, he was frequently chosen a member; and on occasions of public interest, was often still more intimately associated with the proceedings of the church, by being nominated to committees. In all these instances he took a lively interest in the matters under discussion, and was in the habit of keeping regular notes of all that passed; a practice which enabled him to leave a mass of manuscript records behind him, containing, with other curious matter, the most authentic and interesting details of the proceedings of the Scottish ecclesiastical courts of his time, now in existence.

In 1707, Mr Wodrow was appointed a member of a committee of presbytery to consult with the brethren of the commission in Edinburgh as to the best means of averting the evils with which it was supposed the Union would visit the church and people of Scotland; and, on the accession of George I., he was the principal adviser of the five clergymen deputed by the Assembly to proceed to London to plead the rights of the former, and to solicit the abolition of the law of patronage, of which he was a decided enemy. In this the deputation did not succeed. The law was continued in force, and Mr Wodrow, with that sense of propriety which pervaded all his sentiments and notions, inculcated a submission to its decisions. He did not deem it becoming the character of a Christian minister to be in any way accessary to acts of insubordination or of resistance to the laws of his country by irregular and unconstitutional means. The same feeling of propriety induced him to continue on friendly terms with those clergymen whose consciences permitted them to take the abjuration oath, although he, in his own case, resisted its imposition. But so far from taking offence at those who did, he exerted all his influence to reconcile the people to them, and to induce them to believe that compliance was no proof of apostasy.

Mr Wodrow’s literary labours did not end with the publication of his History. He afterwards planned and executed the scheme of a complete history of the church of Scotland, in a series of lives of all the eminent men who appeared from the beginning of the Reformation down to the period at which his preceding work commenced. This valuable production, which contains an accurate and comprehensive view of some of the most important and interesting events in the history of the kingdom, has never yet been entirely published. It lies still in manuscript in the library of the university of Glasgow.

Besides these works, Mr Wodrow has left behind him six small but closely written volumes of traditionary and other memoranda regarding the lives and labours of remarkable ministers, and comprising all the occurrences of the period which he thought worth recording. These volumes are designated by the general name of Analecta, and the entries extend over a space of twenty-seven years, viz., from 1705 to 1732. The Analecta contains much curious information regarding the times of its author, and is full of anecdote, and amusing and interesting notices of the remarkable persons of the day. It is preserved in the original manuscript in the Advocates’ library at Edinburgh, where it is often consulted by the curious inquirer into the times to which it relates; so often indeed, that the greater part of it has found its way to the public, though in a disguised and unacknowledged shape, through the medium of various publications in which its matter has been wrought up with other materials.

A large portion of Mr Wodrow’s time, all of which was laboriously and usefully employed in the discharge of his various duties, was occupied in an extensive epistolary correspondence with acquaintances and friends in different parts of the world, but this was no idle correspondence. He made it in all cases subservient to the purposes of improving his general knowledge, and of adding to his stores of information; and with this view he was in the habit of transmitting to his correspondents lists of queries, on subjects of general and public interest, and particularly on matters connected with religion, as they stood in their several localities. With all this labour, he regularly devoted two days in every week to his preparation for the pulpit, and bestowed besides the most assiduous attention on all the other duties of his parish.

In the case of professor Simpson of Glasgow, the successor of Mr Wodrow’s father, who was suspended from his office by the General Assembly for his Arian sentiments, Mr Wodrow felt himself called upon as a minister of the gospel, and a friend to evangelical truth, to take an active part with his brethren against the professor. The latter, as already said, was suspended, but through a feeling of compassion the emoluments of his office were reserved to him; a kindness for which, it is not improbable, he may have been indebted, at least in some measure, to the benevolent and amiable disposition of the subject of this memoir. Soon after this occurrence Mr Wodrow took occasion, when preaching on the days of the 10th and 11th June, 1727, in the Barony church of Glasgow, to illustrate the divinity of the Saviour in opposition to the sentiments of the Arians and Socinians. These sermons had the effect of rousing the religious zeal of one of the former sect, a Mr William Paul, a student of theology, to such a pitch as to induce him, on the day following, to challenge Mr Wodrow to a public or private disputation or to a written controversy. This challenge, however, the latter did not think it prudent to accept.

In the affair of the celebrated Marrow Controversy, which opened the way to the Secession in 1733, Mr Wodrow decided and acted with his usual prudence, propriety, and liberality. He thought that those who approved of the sentiments and doctrines contained in the work from which the controversy took its name, viz., the "Marrow of Modern Divinity," went too far in their attempts to vindicate them, and that the Assembly, on the other hand, had been too active and too forward in their condemnation. On the great question about subscription to articles of faith, he took a more decided part, and ever looked upon the nonsubseribers as enemies to the cause of evangelical Christianity.

On this subject he corresponded largely with various intelligent and some eminent men in different parts of the three kingdoms, especially in Ireland, from whom he collected a mass of opinion and information regarding presbyterianisin in that country, which for interest and importance cannot be equalled.

The valuable and laborious life of the author of the History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, was now, however, drawing to a close. His constitution had been naturally good, and during the earlier part of his life he had enjoyed uninterrupted health; but the severity of his studious habits at length began to bear him down. He was first seriously affected in 1726, and from this period continued gradually to decline till 1734, an interval of pain and suffering of no less than eight years, when he expired, on the 21st March, in the 55th year of his age; dying, as he had lived, in the faith of the gospel, and love to all mankind. His remains were interred in the church-yard of Eastwood, where his memory has lately been commemorated by the erection of a monument.

Mr Wodrow was married in the end of the year 1708, to Margaret Warner, grand-daughter of William Guthrie of Fenwick, author of the "Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ," and daughter of the reverend Patrick Warner of Ardeer, Ayrshire, and minister of Irvine. He left at his death four sons, and five daughters. The eldest of the former succeeded his father in the parish of Eastwood, but was compelled to retire from it by an infirm state of health.

The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution
By the Rev. Robert Wodrow of the Gospel at Eastwood with an original memoir of the author, extracts from his correspondence, a preliminary dissertation, and notes by the Rev. Robert Burns, D.D., F.A.S.E. (1828) in four volumes (new edition)

ADVERTISEMENT BY THE PUBLISHERS

The character of "The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland," by the Reverend and Venerable Rebert Wodrow, is »o universally known and so fully established as to render any culoghlin upon its merits altogether superfluous. Perhaps no history ever gave a more complete view of the period nor, in most instances, a more graphic description of the events which it professed to embrace. Possessing, at once, a fulness of detail that Inis left itrle to be supplied, and an accuracy with regard to [natters of lad that during the lapse of a century has never been successfully called in question, it has always been regarded as die grand depository of those maxims of justice and of truth which the invincible baud of Scottish Patriots, Confessors and Martyrs, watered with their blond, and roitseerated with their dying hearth, as the unalienable inheritance of their posterity. 1'rom this work, since the era of its publication, as from n common source, have been drawn all Ilie more respectable narratives approaching the men of those times; and to the information it contains, the most diligent compilers have been able to add almost nothing..

The first and only edition of this invaluable work appeared in 1721—72, in two large folio volumes; and it Is now entirely out of print. The present edition, while in respect of typography and convenient size, it is vastly superior to the original one, is printed from it word for word, nothing being either added or omitted; Only, the original papers which In that edition form so many appendixes to each volume, are in this, printed at the font of (he pages to which they refer, and this has been done principally for the advantage of the reader in the way of easy reference. Typographical and other errors, in the names of persona and. places, particularly, have been corrected; and the “additions and amendments" inserted by the author at the beginning of his second volume, have been inserted in the places to which they severally belong. A few notes are added, partly original, and partly selected from extemporary authors, and millers of a later date, to which Wodrow could not be supposed to have accost. In these, brevity has been studied, and nothing has been hazarded either in the way of original remark or quotation, that did not seem necessary for the purposes of historical evidence and illustration.

The interesting Memoir of the author has been drawn up by the Rev. Dr. Burns of Paisley, a gentleman, whose literary talents, access to the author’s unpublished manuscripts, and opportunities of communicating with the surviving branches of his family, eminently qualified him for the task. To this Memoir are appended some valuable specimens of the Correspondence of Wodrow, from original MSS. These form a very appropriate and pleasing introduction to the History.

There has been lately published in London a new and improved edition of the works of Archbishop Leighton, preceded by a Life of the Author, by the Rev. John Norman Pearson, A. M., a clergyman of the Church of England, who now holds, we believe, the important attention of Principal to the Church Mission College- In that publication, Mr. Pearson, has been pleased to characterize Mr. Wodrxw as “a disingenuous Historian" and has in various instances given what we consider an unfair representation of the Covenanters and their times. We trust that the Parliamentary Dissertation to thia work, by Dr. Burns, will be found io contain a sufficient vindication of Wodrow and the Covenanters; and we request the attention of Mr Pearson hud his readers to the following Testimonies in favour of Wodrow: the reader will perceive that they are not all Presbyterians who so favourably characterize his work.

Mr. Chalmers, the learned author of the Biographical Dictionary, says of It: “It is written with a fidelity that has seldom been disputed; and confirmed, at the end of each volume, by a large mass of public and private records."

Saya Mr. Dibdin, whose accurate knowledge of books has been rarely equalled: “I proceed not only to the notice, but to the strong recommendation of Wodrow’s History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland. Considering that these volumes have long richly deserved republication, one Is surprised that so valuable a work in so repulsive a garb (for it is most wretchedly printed) has been suffered to remain without improvement."

Dr. Robert Watt, the laborious and learned author of the Bibliotheca Britannica, says ol Wodrow’s History, “This History is written 'with a fidelity seldom equalled.”

Mr. Fox, in his History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II, thus expresses himself: "No historical facts are better ascertained than the accounts of them which are to he found in Wodrow. In every instance where there has been an opportunity of comparing these accounts with the records, and other authentic monuments, they appear to be quite correct.”

Among modern writers of distinguished eminence we have to quote the sentiments of Dr. M'Crie, author of the Lives of Knox nud Melville, &c. as stated in a letter to the Rev. Dr. Burns:- "You are too well acquainted with my opinion of Mr. Wodrow's valuable History uf the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, to make it necessary for me to say any thing on that head. It gave me great satisfaction to hear that a new Edition of the work, in a more portable form, and at a moderate price, was about to be printed at Glasgow. I have just seen the first number of that edition, and am much pleased with its neatness, and, so far as 1 have examined it, with its correctness. The information that you have agreed to superintend the publication; is to me all the pledge which 1 could desire for the accuracy with which it will be executed. Accept of my best thanks for the pleasure I have derived from reading your interesting Memoir of the worthy Author, which, together with the selections from his original Letters, must prove an acceptable and mast appropriate addition to the work.

“THOMAS M'CRIE, D.D.
“Edinburgh 26th March, 1828."

We have also been favoured with the following testimony from the Rev. Dr. Cook, the eminent historian of the *Reformation,' and of the 'Church of Scotland: "From a very careful examination of Wodrow's History of the Sufferings uf the Church of Scotland, to which I was led in the prosecution of my own historical researches, l can, with confidence, state, that it is a most valuable work. It comprehends a period deeply interesting; and the industrious and, highly intelligent Author has not only, with great clearance, and often with much feeling, detailed the sad events which it was his province to record; but he has collected an immense number of precious documents which are now nowhere else to be found, and which throw great light upon the opinions and manners of the age with which they arc connected. As the work had become so scarce as to be inaccessible to the generality of readers, the republication of it is, in my opinion, an essential service to the public.

“GEORGE COOK, D. D.
“29th February, 1828.“

We shall close this series of testimonies with one which has been politely presented to us by the Rev. James Kidd, D. D. Professor of Oriental Languages In Marischal College, Aberdeen — “The interval from 1660 till 1688 is not exceeded in interest by any other in the Annals of our country. The public affairs of this period, both in Church and State, are the most momentous that Scotland ever saw. To the struggles of our Protestant forefathers, during this time, we owe almost all tha liberty and light which we now enjoy; while the ruinous tendency of the Interference of wicked men with the affairs of the Church of Christ appears very evident, in the conduct of the rulers nf Britain in those eventful times.

“Wodruw, the distinguished Historian of this period, is pre-eminently careful in search of Truth, wherever it can be found; he writes like a man who witnessed every circumstance which he relates, and his descriptions are given with singular accuracy and unadorned simplicity. The subtilty and perfidlousness of Archbishop Sharp are related with a plainness that indicates, neither hatred nor asperity on the part of the writer; while the tale is so recorded, as so awaken all the sympathies of the reader’s heart for the hapless victims of persecution. Indeed, were there nothing to recommend Wodrows History but his description of the behaviour of ihe Marquis of Argyip and the Rev. Mr. James Guthrie, the Work ought tu be possesed and read by every true Presbyterian, and by all to whom the memory of the covenanted cause is dear.

“Such are the subjects which comprise the records of this Interesting History. The edition now offered to the public is the cheapest ever published, and I account it a privilege to recommend to my fellow-citizens and countrymen this faithful Narrative of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.

"JAMES KIDD, D.D. F.R.A.S.
“Aberdeen, January 25th, 1828."

We hope the plates In this edition will be considered as a valuable appendage. They are all derived from the most authentic sources, and are executed in the best style. We have been exceedingly anxious to obtain a true portrait nf the historian himself; but after a laborious search among the descendants of his family still in Scotland, we have been disappointed in our wishes. It is not impossible that such a thing may be in the possession of those descendants of the family now in America and who have been written to on that point: if so, our readers shall be favoured with it as soon as it reaches us.

Glasgow, May 20th, 1828