A Covenanter's 200th Birthday

James M. Willson, American Reformed Presbyterian Covenanter, was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania on November 17, 1809 -- the son of another influential Covenanter minister, James R. Willson (1780-1853) -- and died there on August 31, 1866.

He graduated Union College in 1829; served as principal of a high school in Troy, New York; pastored the First Congregation of Philadelphia from 1834 to 1862; served as Professor of Theology at Allegheny Theological Seminary from 1859 onward; and edited both the The Covenanter starting in 1845 and the (joint) Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter magazines starting in 1863 until his death. He wrote treatises on the diaconate, psalmody, social covenanting, civil government and a variety of other subjects. He was awarded a doctorate of divinity by Westminster College in 1865. He was influential in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America for three decades while he lived, and his writings have continued to bear witness to the Crown and Covenant of Christ, and the distinctives of his church. See W.M. Glasgow, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, pp. 723-727, for more detailed biographical information.

Earlier this year, Crown & Covenant Publications published a collection of essays by the senior Willson on subjects ranging from slavery to the doctrine of the Mediatorial Kingship of Christ and its implications for American society entitled Political Danger.