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Select Practical Writings Of Robert Traill

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Let me start with the edition. This Kessinger reprint is about average for their quality. There are a few pages with smeared text, but all are still readable. And there is one page missing. This is a reprint of an 1845 edition, which had updated the language for that time. So this book uses modern grammar and spelling.

Traill, 1642-1716, was the second of that name to serve as a Covenanter minister in Scotland. His father had been banished to Holland, and the younger Traill joined him there briefly, before going to England. He was ordained by Presbyterians in London, and served in a congregation in Kent. During a visit to Scotland, he preached to a small gathering of visitors in his home, and was arrested for holding a conventicle (a private religious meeting, a capital offense during that period). He spent three months at the Bass Rock, before being released after the intercession of friends in England. He then returned to Kent, but was later transferred to London.

This book is a collection of Communion sermons from his Kent and London days. He preaches form an orthodox Calvinist perspective from Galatians, Hebrews, Isaiah, Matthew, Ephesians, Philippians, and I Corinthians. He uses the very searching style of preaching that was standard for that time. Also according to that standard, he is also very wordy, and is a little tedious to the modern reader. However, the teaching is well-ordered and profitable, filled with pithy analogies and quotable passages. I recommend putting in the effort to read him.