Conjugal Connections

By blood and by marriage, as well as spiritual kinship, many of the Puritans and Covenanters were bound together. Few family connections can rival that of the Reformationfrau, Wibrandis Rosenblatt (1504-1564), who had five husbands, four of whom were notable Reformers. But the conjugal connections between English and American Puritans make for a fascinating study as well. Consider the following family ties:

John Welsh of Ayr (1568-1622) married Elizabeth Knox, daughter of John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer (c. 1510-1572). King James I of England once told Elizabeth, "Knox and Welsh! the devil never made such a match as that." To which she replied, "It's right like, sir, for we never asked his advice."

George Hutcheson, Scottish Presbyterian (d. 1678), was among the group of expositors chosen by David Dickson to author a series of Biblical commentaries. He wrote expositions on the Gospel of John, Job, the minor prophets, and 45 sermons on Psalm 130. He wrote a manuscript commentary on the Westminster Confession which is lost to history. He was ejected for nonconformity in 1662 but returned to preaching in 1669 under the terms of an indulgence. He married Andrew Gray's (1634-1656, Hutcheson called Andrew Gray a "spark from heaven") widow, who was also the sister of Robert Baillie of Jerviswood (1599-1662), one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly (James Anderson, Ladies of the Covenant, p. 304). Robert Baillie had another sister who was married to James Kirkton (1622-1699), author of the celebrated The Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland (Ibid, p. 304).

Margaret Mure was married first to Zachary Boyd (c. 1585-1653), a notable minister in the Church of Scotland, and after his passing she married James Durham (1622-1658), one of Scotland's finest (Ibid, p. 118). Her sister Janet Mure was married to John Carstares (Carstairs) (d. 1686), biographer of James Durham and a worthy minister himself (Ibid, p. 124).

John Gordon (1599-1634), Scottish nobleman and beloved friend of Samuel Rutherford, married Lady Jane Campbell, sister of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Covenanter leader and martyr (1607-1661).

William Whitaker, English Puritan divine (1548-1595), married the sister-in-law of Laurence Chaderton, English Puritan (c. 1536-1640) and one of the translators of the King James Bible. Whitaker's second wife was the widow of Dudley Fenner (c. 1558-1587), author of the first Puritan systematic theology.

Richard Alleine, English Puritan divine (1611-1681), was (it is believed) both the uncle and father-in-law of Puritan Joseph Alleine (1634-1668), who married his cousin and Richard's daughter, Theodosia Alleine, who later became Joseph's biographer. The life and letters of Joseph Alleine is a Christian devotional and biographical classic.

Henry Scudder, Westminster Divine (d. 1659?), was the father-in-law of John Tombes (c. 1603-1676), who, although he adhered to Presbyterian church government, was one of the most prolific writers in defense of credo-baptism of his age.

Oliver Heywood, Puritan divine (1630-1702), married (as his first wife) Elizabeth Angier, daughter of John Angier, Puritan divine (1605-1677). Heywood was also Angier's biographer.

Anthony Tuckney, Westminster Divine (1599-1670), was a cousin to Sarah Hawkredge-Story (née Hawkred), the second wife of John Cotton (1584-1652), the famous Puritan of Old and New England, and served as Cotton's assistant, eventually succeeding him as minister at St. Botolph's (Joel Beeke & Randall Pederson, Meet the Puritans, p. 156). "This describes Anthony Tuckney (1599-1670), Cotton's successor as vicar at Boston in 1633. When Tuckney was about eleven years old, his father, William, died, and he was placed in the care of his uncle Anthony Hawkred, husband of his father's sister. Hawkred's daughter, Sarah, in 1632 had become John Cotton's second wife. Thus, Sarah Hawkred and Anthony Tuckney were cousins, raised in the same household. As Cotton implies in calling Tuckney his 'brother of mine (by marriage),' Sarah Cotton apparently thought of Tuckney as her brother" (Sargent Bush, Jr., ed., The Correspondence of John Cotton, p. 210).

Sarah Hawkred-Story-Cotton was also the second wife of Richard Mather (1596-1669), patriarch of the Mather clan and one of the men behind the Bay Psalm Book. Richard's son, Increase Mather (1639-1723), later married his step-sister, Maria Cotton, daughter of Sara and John Cotton.

On September 15, 1702, two other notable American Puritan families became interwined through the marriage of Samuel Sewall, Jr. (1678-1751), son of Judge Samuel Sewall, Sr., American Puritan diarist (1652-1730), to Rebecca Dudley (1681-1761), daughter of Massachusetts colonial Governor Joseph Dudley (1647-1720). Joseph Dudley was the son of Massachusetts colonial Governor Thomas Dudley (1576-1653), as well as the brother of Anne Dudley, who married to Massachusetts colonial Governor Simon Bradstreet (1603-1697). Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-1672) was one of the most famous colonial American poets.

Thomas Hooker, English-American Puritan and founder of Connecticut (1586-1647), was the father of Johanna Hooker, who would marry Thomas Shepard, English-American Puritan minister (1605-1649). Hooker's great-granddaughter, Sarah Pierpont, married Jonathan Edwards, New England Puritan (1703-1758).C

A Covenanter's Study

"Life of the Author" in James Durham, The Dying Man's Testament to the Church of Scotland: or, A Treatise Concerning Scandal (1740), p. xviii:

[James Durham] gave himself much to reading, for which Cause and that he might be free of all Disturbance of the Family, &c. he caused build a Study for himself on the Head of the Stair of his House in the Country, which yet remains standing, tho' all the rest of that great House be pulled down. In this little Chamber he gave himself continually to Prayer, Reading and Meditation, and was so close a Student there, that he oft forgot to eat his Bread; and was sometimes so intent on his Studies, that Servants who were sent to call him down, have often returned without Answer, yea, his Lady was frequently obliged to call on him with Tears to open and come down, before he would come; such sweet Communion he had with the Lord in that Place at sometimes.

Just War

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. (Rev. 19.11)

James Durham's comments on this text (Commentary on Revelation, p. 890) are worthy of consideration by magistrates who must decide whether and how to manage war justly:

And then, secondly, it is added, that in righteousness he doth judge and make war: which implieth, that there is a right end in His undertaking, a right cause, and a right manner of proceeding in it.

Every Man Dies, But Not Every Man Truly Lives

Ascribed to Walt Whitman or William Wallace (Braveheart):

Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.

The story of Similis, captain of the guard for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, is illustrative of this point. I would add for clarification that it is not cloistering oneself from the world which is to be commended, but rather the life redeemed and, forsaking vanity, spent for God in this world.

Charles Buck, Anecdotes: Religious, Moral, and Entertaining, p. 93:

Similis, captain of the guards to Adrian, got leave to quit that emperor's service, and spent the last seven years of his life in rural retirement. At his death, he ordered the following inscription on his tomb: "Here lies Similis, who lived but seven years, though he died at sixty-seven." Our true age, and our real life, are to be dated from the time of our abstraction from the world, and of our conversation to God.

Onward (Vol. 2, 1869), p. 95:

Life is not always to be estimated by years. "Here he lies who was so many years, but lived only seven," was the inscription on the tomb of Similis of Xiphilim. The writer of the epitaph correctly estimated the life of Similis, for the great man lived usefully but seven years.

John Carstares (Carstairs), Preface, p. xii, to James Durham, The Blessed Death of Those Who Die in the Lord:

The story is told of one Similis, captain of the Roman emperor Hadrian's guard, who had lived long in the city and at court, and had some seven years before his death retired to a private country house, where he thought that he had enjoyed himself more, being freed from the avocations, distractions, noise, and cumbersome converse of a court life. He commanded that after his death it should be written over his grave, "Here lies Similis who was many years old, but lived only seven." How many professors of religion are there, I say, who may thus sadly and sorrowfully complain of themselves when they come to die, "Ah! we have been here many years, but have either none at all, or but very few years." For that life that is not lived to God, and to the honor and glory of Jesus Christ, is not at all worthy of the denomination of "life," since we are, all the time we live so, but dead while we live.

Thomas Adams, Sermon XXXI: "The Two Sons; or, The Dissolute Conferred With the Hypocrite," in Works, Vol. 2, p. 89:

I have read of a courtier that, wearied with that few in these days will be wearied of, -- glorious vanities, gallant miseries, -- retired himself into the country, where he lived privately seven years. Dying, he caused this epitaph to be engraven on his tomb: Hic jacet Similis, cujus aetas multorum annorum fuit: ipse duntaxat septem annos virit; --

'Here lies Similis, whose age
Saw many years on this world's stage.
His own account is far less given,
He says he only lived seven;'

esteeming the compass of his life no longer than his retiring himself from worldly vanities. So it may be said of a wicked old man: Non dia vixit, sed diu fuit, -- He hath not lived long, but been long upon the earth. After this rule many good men have reckoned their years: not from the time of their birth, but of their new birth; accounting only from that day when they were supernaturally born again, not when naturally born into the world: as if all that time were lost which an unsanctified life took up.

Daily Meditations

"Tomorrow is promised to no man." James Durham taught that "Death, and the happiness of them that die in the Lord, is a suitable and profitable subject of the meditation of God's people, especially in times of difficulty and trouble" (The Blessed Death of Those Who Die in the Lord, p. 96). The Puritan refrain was that we should keep in mind often "the four last things": "death, judgment, hell and heaven." The New England Primer is full of reminders that death is near to all, young and old, that we might apply our hearts to wisdom and seek after God while he may be found. Death is far removed from the thoughts of modern man in our society, except for passing news reports and the occasional wake, but it comes to all men and it behooves us to pause while we live and contemplate our end before the end comes.

Little is known about the life of Philip Pain, a New England Puritan who himself died in a shipwreck soon before the posthumous publication of his Daily Meditations: or, Quotidian Preparations for and Considerations of Death and Eternity, Begun July 19, 1666 (1668). Oscar Wegelin, Early American Poetry, p. 60, writes that "[t]his work is the earliest known specimen of original American verse printed in the English colonies." His poetic meditations on death ought to be better known today than they are.

Many know the famous prayer from The New England Primer (first published between 1687-1690):

Now I lay me down to take my sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Pain's meditations are accompanied by an evening prayer at the bottom of each page which includes these lines:

This day is past; but tell me, who can say
That I shall surely live another day.

Think every day thy last, and ready be;
And so the uncertain hour shall welcome thee.

I now lie down to rest, but do not know
Where by morning God will me bestow.
...
Lord, if my Soul this night away thou take,
Let me by morning then in Heaven awake.

Here follow a few of his 17th century meditations for our own contemplation and edification.

Meditation 1.

Great God, how short's man's time! each minute speaks
He is but dust, and this his Vessel leaks.
Each moment of my momentary time,
Does plainly tell me 'tis not mine, but Thine.
He gives me time to live, and verily
Ere long I shall have likewise time to die.

Meditation 4.

This World a Sea of trouble is, and Man
Is swimming through this vast wide Ocean,
The Billows beat, the Waves are angry, and
'Tis seldom that he spies a helping hand
To buoy his head up. O great God, let me
Be kept from sinking into misery.

Meditation 9.

Man's life is like a Rose, that in the Spring
Begins to blossom, fragrant smells to bring;
Within a day or two, behold Death's sent,
A public Messenger of discontent.
Lord, grant that when my Rose begins to fade,
I may behold an Everlasting shade.

Meditation 10.

Alas, what is the world? a Sea of Glass.
Alas, what's Earth? it's but an Hour-Glass.
The Sea dissolves; the Glass is quickly run;
Behold, with speed man's Life is quickly done.
Let me so swim in this Sea, that I may
With thee live happy in another day.

Come Lord Jesus

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Rev. 22.20

James Durham, Sermon II on the latter portion of Rev. 22.20, appended to Arthur Dent, The Ruin of Rome (1798 ed.) (modernized typeface):

That which we are now to speak of, is the latter part of the verse, which whether John's words or the bride's, or particular believers, it is all one. If they be John's words, it is spoken in name o believers. If the bride's words, it takes in John and all believers. If particular believers words, it is as they are a part of the bride, who will give a hearty Amen to this truth, and what he promiseth, they turn it over into a prayer, and will not be long in doing of it, but will take the opportunity, and as they are desirous to have it, they will wrestle and long for it.
...
The words hold out a lively frame in believers, a frame they should be in: and would God we were all in such a frame to hear and speak of him. This being the sum and scope of all religion, to bring us to a comfortable meeting with Christ, they give us these three doctrines. 1. That Christ's second coming is a most desirable thing to believers, nothing they welcome sooner, no tidings so glad to them. 2. When believers are in a good frame, there is nothing they more long and pray for. 3. This petition hath more than ordinary seriousness in it, and wrestling in believers to be at it: for though the petition be short, the two words prefixed shew their seriousness that present it.

Of Periwigs and Puritans

When one views 17th and 18th century portraits it is apparent that at least some Puritans wore powdered hair or wigs, and the modern stereotype of a stern Puritan magistrate wearing a wig (often imagined presiding over a witch trial) is powerful, vivid image in our minds today. The modern European custom of wearing periwigs, or wigs for short, developed in France in the 1620s when King Louis XIII, who was going bald, began to wear a wig. Likewise in England, it was during the Restoration with the royal patronage of King Charles II that male wigs became popular. Before this, Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, had both employed them, but the practice became a symbol of social status for men in Restoration-era England. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary the first time he wore a wig to church in 1664: "I found that my coming in a periwig did not prove so strange as I was afraid it would..."

But while the custom caught on quickly, there were those among the Puritans who opposed it. William Prynne took an early stand in 1628 when he wrote that "the wearing of counterfeite, false, and suppositious Haire, is utterly unlawfull" (The Unlovelinesse of Lovelockes). The Scottish Covenanter John Carstares wrote in his preface to the reader to James Durham's Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments (1665, 2002):

To over-costly, curious, vain and conceity dressing and decking of the body, and setting of the hair now after one mode, now after another. (Wherein, as in other vanities, many men, somewhat unmanning themselves, do now contend with women, partly by their unnaturally nourished long hair, and horrid bushes of vanity, as Mr. [Robert] Bolton calls them, and partly by their variously and strangely metamorphosing modes and colors of periwigs) --

James Durham goes on to say further (quoting Robert Bolton again at one point), pp. 334-337:

And therefore we say that in men and women both, there is condemned by the Lord:
...
2. Strangeness in the ever-changing fashions, and extravagant modes of apparel; whileas the Lord by nature has continued the shape of men's bodies to be the same. For what is meant else by strange apparel, so often forbidden in Scripture, but that which is commonly called the fashion, or new fashion, a new and uncouth garb?...There is a lightness in clothing as to color, mounting as they call it, etc, and in dressing of the body, which may be seen in these dressings of the hair, powderings, laces, ribbons, points, etc, which are so much in use with gallants of the time; this, especially in women, is insisted on and condemned (Isa. 3:16-17, etc.) Some things indeed there mentioned are not simply unlawful, especially to persons of higher quality, and at all times; but the following particulars are condemned....

There is in clothes a base effeminateness amongst men (which someway emasculates or un-mans them) who delight in those things which women dote upon, as dressing of hair, powderings, washing, (when exceeded in) rings, jewels, etc, which are spoken of, and reproved in the daughters of Zion (Isa. 3), and so must be much more unsuitable to men. Also interchanging of apparel is condemned; men putting on women's, and women men's clothes, which is unsuitable to that distinction of sexes which the Lord hath made, and is condemned in the word, as a confusion, an absurd, unnatural thing, and an inlet to much wickedness. Whereof the Dutch annotators, as several fathers did long before them, on 1 Cor. 11:14, make men’s nourishing and wearing of long hair to be some degree, it being given to women, not only for an ornament and covering, but also in part for distinction of the female sex from the male.

And here, having touched a little on this vain dressing of the hair (now almost in as many various modes as thee are fashions of apparel), especially incident to women; it will not be impertinent to subjoin a strange story, which learned, pious, and grave Mr. Bolton, in his Four Last Things, p. 40, repeats from his author the famous Herculus Saxonia, professor of physic in Padua:

The Plica (saith he) is a most loathsome and horrible disease in the hair, unheard of on former times, as morbus gallicus, and fudor anglicus, bred by modern luxury and excess; it seizeth especially upon women, and by reason of a viscuous, venomous humour, glueth together, as it were, the hairs of the head, with a prodigious ugly implication and entanglement, sometimes taking the form of a great snake, sometimes of many little serpents, full of nastiness, vermin, and noisome smell: And that which is most to be admired, and never eye saw before, these being pricked with a needle, they yield bloody drops. And at the first spreading of this dreadful disease in Poland, all that did cut off their horrible and snaky hair, lost their eyes, or the humour falling down upon other parts of the body, tortured them extremely. It began first, not many years ago, in Poland, it is now entered into many parts of Germany. And methinks (says Mr. Bolton) our monstrous fashionists, both male and female, the one for nourishing their horrid bushes of vanity, the other for their most unnatural and cursed cutting their hair, should every hour fear and tremble, lest they bring it on their own heads, and amongst us in this kingdom.

And John Eliot was one who viewed afflictions upon New England society as attributable in part to God's wrath against men wearing wigs, and prayed against the practice.

Convers Francis, Life of John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians (1836), pp. 322-323:

Mr. Eliot had a few whims, to which he was pertinaciously attached. One of these was an unsparing hostility to the practice of wearing long hair and wigs. He could not endure it; he regarded it as an iniquity not to be tolerated. The man, and especially the minister of the Gospel, who wore a wig, he considered as committing an offence, not only against decency, but against religion. His zeal about "prolix locks" was warm, but unavailing. He lived to see the practice prevail in spite of his remonstrances, and at last gave over his warfare against it with the despairing remark, "The lust has become insuperable!" The readers of New England history will remember, that in 1649 an association was formed, and a solemn protest published, against wearing long hair, by Governor Endicot and the other magistrates.

In this punctiliousness we see the influence of sympathy with the English Roundheads carried even into trifles. In England periwigs were permitted quietly to cover the head soon after the restoration of Charles. But for more than thirty years after that time, they were deemed by many a sore grievance in New England. Gradually during that period they were coming into use; but they need all the authority derived from the practice of such divines as [John] Owen, [William] Bates, and [Joseph] Mede, to find protection at last. The intolerance they experienced from Mr. Eliot was not, therefore, a singularity in the good man; he only persevered in his stern hostility against them longer than many others.

In 1675, as a response to the devastating consequences of the King Philip's War, the General Court of Massachusetts legislated against the sin of pride in wearing wigs:

Whereas there is manifest Pride openly appearing amongst us in that long Hair, like Womens Hair, is worn by some men, either their own or others Hair, made into Perewigs: And by some Women wearing Borders of Hair, and their Cutting, Curling, and Immodest laying out their Hair; which practice doth prevail and increase, especially among the younger sort.

This Court doth Declare against this ill custome as Offensive to them, and divers sober Christians amongst us, and therefore do hereby exhort and advise all persons to use moderation in this respect; And further do impower all Grand juries to present to the County Court such Persons, whether Male, or Female, whom they shall judge to exceed in the Premises; and the County Court being authorized to proceed against such Delinquents either by Admonition, Fine, or Correction, according to their good discretion.

Increase Mather, likewise, saw the wrath of God poured out against men wearing wigs and took note of them in a sermon following the burning of Boston, Burnings Bewailed: in a Sermon, Occasioned by the Lamentable Fire Which was in Boston, Octob. 2, 1711. In which the Sins which Provoke the Lord to Kindle Fires, are Enquired into. (1711):

Monstrous Perriwigs, such as some of our Church-Members indulge in, which make them resemble ye Locusts that come out of ye bottomless Pit. Rev. ix. 7,8, -- and as an eminent Divine calls them, Horrid Bushes of Vanity; such strange apparel as is contrary to the light of Nature and to express Scripture. I Cor. xi. 14, 15. Such pride is enough to provoke the Lord to kindle fires in all the towns in the country.

However, his son "Cotton Mather first wigged in 1691" (Bruce C. Daniels, Puritans at Play, p. 198) and defended the practice against those "who preached against an innocent fashion, taken and used by the best of men."

Cotton Mather's chief opponent on this score was Samuel Sewall, whose opposition to periwigs, as recorded in his diary, is legendary. He himself did wear a skull cap in his old age to keep his head warm, but he inveighed against the rising custom of wearing wigs in his day with great fervency. His diary (Vol. 1, p. 342) records his opinion of one sermon by Cotton Mather on hypocrisy:

In his proem said, Totus mundus agi histrionem. Said one sign of a hypocrit was for a man to strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel. Sign in's Throat discovered him to be zealous against an innocent fashion, taken up and used by the best of men; and yet make no conscience of being guilty of great Immoralities. 'T is supposed means wearing of Perriwigs: said would deny themselves in any thing but parting with an opportunity to do God service; that so might not offend good Christians. Meaning, I suppose, was fain to wear a Perriwig for his health. I expected not to hear a vindication of Perriwigs in Boston Pulpit by Mr. Mather; however, not from that Text. The Lord give me a good Heart and help to know, and not only to know but also doe his Will; that my Heart and Head may be his."

One authority he cited against the practice was a sermon by Vincent Alsop, which appeared in the Cripplegate Morning Exercises, "What Distance Ought We to Keep, in Following the Strange Fashions of Apparel, Which Come Up in the Days Wherein We Live?", published in Puritan Sermons, 1659-1689, Vol. 3, pp. 488-530, and appended to the Soli Deo Gloria edition of Vincent Alsop's Practical Godliness: The Ornament of All Religion. While acknowledging that social status is lawful factor in the selection of one's apparel, Alsop saw little to no value in the use of wigs. Alsop even quoted Increase Mather against their use, which was likely known to Sewall.

INFER. II. All youthful periwigs and paintings, which are sinful in youth, are doubly sinful in the aged. (p. 507)
...
How do our gallants expect reverence, if not adoration, for their whistling silks and ruffling periwigs; and that all should rise and bow to their state, port, and grandeur! Thy silks and periwigs are but excrements; and the latter, perhaps, of one that died of the foul disease, or at the gallows. Tertullian nips this humour severely: Ne exuvias alieni, forsan immundi, forsan nocentis et gehennae destinati, sancto et Christiano capiti suppares.* "O, do not," says he, "wear on thy sacred and Christian head the hair of another, perhaps some foul-diseased fellow, perhaps one that was a malefactor and is now in everlasting burnings!"

* Tertullianus De Cultu Feminarum. (p. 513)
...
I know, both paintings and periwigs have their palliations and excuses: --

(1.) They that ruffle in their waving perukes, and look like the locusts that "came out of the smoke of the bottomless pit," whose "faces were as the faces of men, and they had hair as the hair of women," (Rev. ix.8;) do plead that they wear them upon good advice, for their health's sake, to divert catarrhs, to prevent consumptions.

ANSWER (i.) And is it indeed so, that the nation is become almost one great hospital? Are the generality of men among us just dropping into consumption? Then what other lust, what debauchery, has introduced a sinful necessity, and then taught them to plead it? But is it not evident, that the corruption is much larger than the pretended occasion? (ii.) But if cutting off the hair be in some degree useful for that end, are periwigs therefore so? Can no other thing substitute for the place of hair, but such a vanity? (iii.) But if this vanity be any ways useful, what does the curling contribute to it? and what does the change of the colour conduce to that effect? Is it no colour but one contrary to the natural, that will do the deed? Or if it must be so, what does the immoderate length signify to that end? How much more ingenuous had it been, to have confessed the sin, and yet persisted in it, than to palliate it with such slender, thin excuses? (pp. 526-527)

Solomon Stoddard also took a hard line against wigs in a letter to Samuel Sewall dated July 29, 1701:

I cannot condemn them universally. Yet there is abundance of sin in this country, in wearing wigs. Some cut off their hair, because it is red or gray; some, because it is straight; some, frizzled; and some, because it is their own. Some of the wigs are of an unreasonable length, and generally they are extravagant as to their business. They are wasteful as to cost. The wearing of them is pride, to make a vain show. It is contrary to gravity -- is light and effeminate. It makes the wearers of them look as if they were more disposed to court a maid than to bear upon their hearts the weighty concernments of God's kingdom.

There were those Puritans then who viewed wigs as an innocent fashion, and those who saw them as unnatural, effeminate, and vain, mixed with much that is sinful. Although we see some Puritans wearing them in portraits, even the Mather family itself was divided on the practice, and, lest we fall into stereotypes, we should recognize that not all Puritans approved of wigs, and some argued vehemently against them, with some nuances not to be overlooked (and I have here quoted from the opponents of wigs more extensively for the purpose of breaking that stereotype). Fashions are curious things, and while it is fashionable to view the Puritans as monolithic, the periwig controversy of the 17th and 18th centuries shows otherwise.

Scottish Puritan Commentary Series

N.B. The use of the term 'Puritan' as applied to Scottish Presbyterians in the Covenanter era is discussed ably by Margo Todd, "The problem of Scotland's Puritans," in John Coffey and Paul C.H. Lim, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism (2008).

Robert Rollock (1555-1598) was a Scottish Presbyterian among whose works are found to include certain commentaries on books of the Bible, such as Commentaries on the Epistles to the Ephesians (1590) and Thessalonians (1598) and Hebrews (1605), the book of Daniel (1591), the Gospel of St. John (1599) and some of the Psalms (1598), an analysis of the Epistle to the Romans (1594), and Galatians (1602). Later, his pupil, Robert Boyd (1578-1627) wrote a massive commentary on Ephesians. David Dickson (1583-1662), Scottish Presbyterian and co-author (with James Durham) of The Sum of Saving Knowledge, then conceived a project whose aim was to provide a series of commentaries on books of the Bible which could be profitably read by the average layman.

Andrew Woolsey, Biographical Introduction to the Select Works of Robert Rollock (2008 ed.), p. 21, quoting editor W.M. Gunn and Iain Murray:

"It is Rollock's greatest glory that he introduced into Scotland the expository system, which had already so much benefited religion on the Continent." Both in speaking to the students and in his pulpit ministry, Rollock systematically expounded books of the Bible. Studies like these formed the substance of the commentaries that were later published. I think it is also safe to say that, through the influence of Robert Boyd, they provided ongoing inspiration for the series of commentaries produced later in the seventeenth century by David Dickson, George Hutcheson, James Ferguson, and Alexander Nisbet -- which, as Iain Murry says, "for many years served to make the study of the Bible a common household employment."

Iain Murray, The Puritan Hope, pp. 26-27:

One more future leader who as a regent, or professor, in the university was associated with Boyd was David Dickson. It is to Dickson that the English-speaking world owes the conception of a whole series of commentaries which for many years served to make the study of the Bible a common household employment. Boyd produced a Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians of stupendous size; as James Walker writes, this ‘led to the calamitous result of a great divine being buried under his own erudition’. The series of popular volumes which Dickson envisaged avoided this pitfall as the subsequent reprinting of a number of them has proved. To the series Dickson contributed expositions of Hebrews, 1635, Matthew, 1647, and Psalms, 1653—1654. George Hutcheson followed with rich folios on The Minor Prophets, 1653—1655, John, 1657, and Job, 1669. James Fergusson, ‘after the pattern held forth by those reverend brethren, Mr. David Dickson and Mr. George Hutcheson’, added his Brief Exposition of the Epistles of Paul (Galatians to Thessalonians), and Alexander Nisbet supplied A Brief Exposition of the First and Second Epistles General of Peter. The manuscript of Samuel Rutherford’s work on Isaiah was lost and never printed. James Durham’s volumes on The Song of Solomon, Revelation, and Job, were not designed as part of the same series, being published posthumously, as was the fine work of John Brown of Wamphray on Romans. ‘Nor are Dickson and his fellow-interpreters to be despised,’ writes James Walker. ‘They want the scholarship of the present day, though they were scholars. But though they want our scholarship, they were, more than our equals in theology.’ C. H. Spurgeon reached a similar verdict in his Commenting and Commentaries.

Here is a list of all the works produced in (what now may be referred to as) the Scottish Puritan Commentary Series:

Job -- James Durham, George Hutcheson
Psalms -- David Dickson
Psalm 130 -- George Hutcheson (sermons)
Proverbs -- Robert Blair (MSS, never published)
Ecclesiastes -- Alexander Nisbet
Song of Solomon -- James Durham
Isaiah -- Samuel Rutherford (lost, never published)
Hosea -- George Hutcheson
Joel -- George Hutcheson
Amos -- George Hutcheson
Obadiah -- George Hutcheson
Jonah -- George Hutechson
Michah -- George Hutcheson
Nahum -- George Hutcheson
Habakkuk -- George Hutcheson
Zephaniah -- George Hutcheson
Haggai -- George Hutcheson
Zechariah -- George Hutcheson
Malachi -- George Hutcheson
Matthew -- David Dickson
John -- George Hutcheson
Romans -- David Dickson, John Brown of Wamphray
1 Corinthians -- David Dickson
2 Corinthians -- David Dickson
Galatians -- David Dickson, James Ferguson
Ephesians -- David Dickson, James Ferguson
Philippians -- David Dickson, James Ferguson
Colossians -- David Dickson, James Ferguson
1 Thessalonians -- David Dickson, James Ferguson
2 Thessalonians -- David Dickson, James Ferguson
1 Timothy -- David Dickson
2 Timothy -- David Dickson
Titus -- David Dickson
Philemon -- David Dickson
Hebrews -- David Dickson
James -- David Dickson
1 Peter -- David Dickson, Alexander Nisbet
2 Peter -- David Dickson, Alexander Nisbet
1 John -- David Dickson
2 John -- David Dickson
3 John -- David Dickson
Jude -- David Dickson
Revelation -- James Durham