eligions duties, such as prayer, converse, meditation,
self-examination, preaching, prefacing, lecturing, baptizing, and
catechising; none more methodical in teaching and instructing,
accompanied with a sweet, charming eloquence, in holding forth Christ,
as the only remedy for lost sinners; none more hated of the world, and
yet none more strengthened and upheld by the everlasting arms of
Jehovah, to be steadfast, and abound in the way of the Lord, to the
death; wherefore he might be justly called "Antipas," Christ's faithful
martyr. And as I lived then to know him to be so of a truth, so, by the
good hand of God, I yet live, thirty-six years after him, to testify
that no man upon just grounds had any thing to lay to his charge. When
all the critical and straitening circumstances of that period are well
considered, save that he was liable to natural and sinful infirmities,
as all men are when in this life, and yet he was as little guilty in
this way as any I ever knew or heard of, he was the liveliest and most
engaging preacher to close with Christ, of any I ever heard. His
converse was pious, prudent, and meek; his reasoning and debating was
the same, carrying almost with it full evidence of the truth of what he
asserted. And for steadfastness in the way of the Lord, few came his
length. He learned the truth and counted the cost, and so sealed it with
his blood. Of all men that ever I knew, I would be in the least danger
of committing a hyperbole when speaking in his commendation. And yet I
speak not this to praise men, but for the glory and honour of God in
Christ, who makes men to differ so much from others, and in some periods
of the Church more than others."

The "LECTURES AND SERMONS" of James Renwick that remain were published
from the notes taken, at the time of their delivery, by some of his
attached hearers and followers. They were not prepared with any view to
future publication; and the trying circumstances in which their devoted
author was placed, wholly prevented any correction or revisal. Yet they
contain not only remarkably clear expositions of the word, and a full
exhibition of the scheme of salvation, but also many passages which, for
searching application to the conscience, and moving eloquence, are
unsurpassed in the discourses of eminent preachers either in ancient or
modern times. As specimens of the matter of Renwick's discourses
delivered in the _Conventicles_, in the fields, amidst all dangers and