Willison’s Testimony:

Prefatory Statement by the Transcriber

The original title of Mr. Willison’s Testimony is transcribed below following this preface in its entirety. The title states that the Testimony is a “Fair and Impartial Testimony.” As such, Mr. Willison presents an account of the events that took place in the history of the Church of Scotland. Not only does he write of the events that took place between the men involved, he also inserts proclamations of praise to God and alludes to the Lord’s providential care over His Church. Mr. Willison demonstrates a highly practical understanding of God’s providence as he demonstrates the infallibility of God’s word in connection with history. He applies the eternal truths of the Holy Writ to the events that took place in a most appropriate manner. Also, as Mr. Willison recounts the sins of the Church, he not only exposes those who promoted error, but also demonstrates that those who stood for truth had a tendency to sin in a way peculiar to individuals who strive to maintain purity in doctrine. The reader may note that the parallels between the Church of Scotland then and the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches of today seem strikingly similar. There is nothing new under the sun.

Concerning the transcribed version certain changes have been made. These changes are minor and were made primarily for ease of reading. They are as follows. In the original text, references made to a king such as Charles I would have a period after the “I.” (ie. king Charles I. did so and so…) . The period has been eliminated after such references so that the text reads “king Charles I did so and so…” in order to prevent the appearance of a sentence ending in mid sentence. Also, all hyphenations placed in hyphenated words have been eliminated and the words kept in tact. Another change was made with quoted data. The original text placed quoted data with quotation marks at the beginning of each line. If a quote was longer than one line, each line would begin with a “ mark. These multiple quotation marks have been removed and modern methods for quoting data have been used in their place. In addition, archaic spellings have not been changed so there are words that appear misspelled according to modern spellings. Finally, when archaic words or words peculiar to Scottish language are used, definitions in brackets often follow. These definitions were derived from Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 2^nd ed., (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983). The scanned transcribed version of the text below may still have errors.

The overall layout of the book is as it was originally printed. In chronological order, the reader will find the Title Page, Preface, Testimony, Advertisement, Adherence, Postscript, Contents, Postscript and a list of Subscribers Names. In addition, the transcriber has added a Subject Index in the Appendix. The reader will please note that the Contents and Subject Index in the Appendix are found at the end of the book. Page numbers for the Contents of the book, Preface, Testimony etc., can be found listed in the Subject Index.

Ron Creech, Transcriber.