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THE AFFLICTED MAN'S COMPANION: A Directory for Persons and Families Afflicted with Sickness or Any Other Distress
John Willison (1680-1750)
THE AFFLICTED MAN'S COMPANION was written with the benevolent intention (according to the author) "that the afflicted may have a book in their houses, and at their bed-sides, as a monitor to preach to them in private, when they are restrained from hearing sermons in public;" and the work is admirably calculated to have the soothing effect intended by its able and amiable author.
"John Willison (1680-1750), an influential evangelical minister of the Church of Scotland, was renowned as a prolific writer of practical Christian literature. 'The Afflicted Man's Companion,' a veritable treasure-house on coping with sickness, dying, and other afflictions, was one of his most frequently reprinted titles. While being led through the valley of affliction some years ago, I frequently perused this volume with great profit. I know of no book so biblical, God-honoring, and practical for times of suffering, for the believer and the unconverted alike. Here is practical theology at its best. Give a copy to every suffering friend you have." --Dr. Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan
"John Willison ranks with the great Scottish preachers and writers of long ago. Scotland has given us Knox, Durham, Boston, Colquhoun, among many others, and John Willison. His 'Afflicted Man's Companion' is a must-have book for those under God's afflicting hand. If you or someone you know is going through a time of dark providence, then give them this title. Read it; then read it again; and then read it again. The silver lining behind the cloud will begin to show itself to you eventually as God reveals Himself. " - Dr. Don Kistler, founder of The Northampton Press
Originally published in 1737, it was revised and reprinted numerous times in the 19th century by the American Tract Society. The eight chapters that make up this remarkable volume are as follows:
1- General Directions to All Families and Persons Visited with Sickness
2- Particular Directions to Those who are Sharply Afflicted with Sickness or Long Trouble
3- Special Directions to the Children of God when under Sickness or any other Affliction
4- Special Directions to Unregenerate Persons when under Sickness or any other Affliction
5- Directions to the People of God when the Lord is Pleased to Recover them from Sickness and Distress
6- Directions to the Unregenerate when Recovered from Sickness and Restored to Health
7- Directions to the Sick who are Apparently in a Dying Condition, and Drawing Near to Another World
8- Directions to the Friends and Neighbors of the Sick, who are Themselves in Health for the Time Being
As much as Job's Companion's were miserable comforters, this volume is one that would have been of great comfort and consolation to that deeply afflicted man so long ago. We live in a world of sin and misery, and any book that can help those visited by affliction is worth its weight in gold. Such is this work by the eminent Scottish Divine John Willison.
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• BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
John Willison - (1680-1750), minister of the Church of Scotland and writer of Christian literature
Willison's father was laird of a small property near Stirling, where John was born. He was inducted to the parish of Brechin in 1703. In 1718 he moved to a charge in Dundee.
His treatise on the sanctification of the Lord's day was in response to the policies of James VI and the Episcopalian clergy. It provoked a reply from James Small, an Episcopalian, which was answered by Willison in his Letter from a Parochial Bishop to a Prelatical Gentleman. After this, he wrote a devotional work: A Sacramental Directory. Small replied to his earlier Letter, upon which Willison published An Apology for the Church of Scotland. He then moved on to political topics with A Letter to an English Member of Parliament.
After the ejection of Ebenezer Erskine and his fellow-ministers for opposition to patronage, Willison attacked their exclusion in a sermon to the Synod of Angus and Mearns in 1733 (published as "The Church's Danger"). He tried to win them back and a majority was gained in the General Assembly of 1734 as a healing measure. As a result Willison was sent to London as part of a deputation to labor for the repeal of patronage, but they were only successful insofar as they gained some important concessions. Erskine and his colleagues were not satisfied and formed a separate presbytery in 1739.
In 1737 he wrote one of his most famous and most reprinted works The Afflicted Man's Companion, and also an explanation of the Shorter Catechism called An Example of Plain Catechising. Other catechetical pieces published by Willison at different times were The Mother's Catechism (a famous and much used young children's catechism) and The Young Communicant's Catechism. In 1742 he published another much printed work, The Balm of Gilead which includes twenty-four discourses, twelve of them relating to The Lord's Supper. In 1744 there followed his Fair and Impartial Testimony on the state of the Church of Scotland.
During the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, having published in the same year Popery Another Gospel, he was threatened by soldiers of the Highland army while conducting service in the church building and for a few weeks had to preach in private houses.
His last publication was Sacramental Meditations and Advices (1747).
