Dr. Joel R. Beeke & Rev. Paul Smalley

Robert Traill or Trail (1642–1716) was a significant Christian pastor and theologian, notable for his courage under persecution and for his warm, evangelical sermons.¹ He was born in May 1642 in Elie in Fife, Scotland, where his father, also Robert Traill (1603–1678), had served as pastor since 1639.² By parenting and personal choice, Traill was committed to the Covenanter cause, a heartfelt allegiance to advancing Reformed experiential Christianity as the established religion of Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland. The Scottish Covenanters suffered greatly when the monarchy and the episcopal church were restored to Britain in 1660.

During Traill’s childhood and early adulthood, he saw the travails of war and persecution. In the Civil War, his father enlisted as chaplain with the Scottish army, attending the soldiers at the Battle of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644). He was transferred in 1648 to the Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh. Oliver Cromwell appointed him in 1654 to be a member of the board that certified qualified ministers for the Scottish Lowlands. During this period of time, the younger Traill studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he was a good scholar, graduating in the late 1650s. William Guthrie (1620–1665) of Fenwick, author of The Christian’s Great Interest, became his mentor and close friend.³

When Charles II was restored to the British throne (1660), the elder Traill joined eleven other ministers in writing the king a letter in which they welcomed him home but pressed him to keep the Solemn League and Covenant that he had vowed to uphold in the Treaty of Breda (1650). For this, the Protesters were arrested. Traill’s father was imprisoned for ten months in Edinburgh Castle. Samuel Rutherford, himself no stranger to persecution, wrote to the imprisoned ministers, “Fear not ye. Ye are not, ye shall not be, alone: the Father is with you…. Fear Him who is sovereign.”⁴ Traill was nineteen when he bravely walked with one of the Protesters, James Guthrie of Stirling, to the scaffold where Guthrie was executed. Traill’s father fell ill in prison and was granted some freedom, but then was charged with high treason on December 11, 1662, and banished.⁵ He fled to the Netherlands, leaving behind his wife Jean and six children. One of his letters to his wife was published years later, revealing how he tenderly urged her to use the pain of their separation as an impetus to draw closer to Jesus Christ.⁶ The authorities also imprisoned Traill’s mother in 1665 for corresponding with her exiled
husband.⁷ He later returned to Edinburgh and died on July 12, 1678, being buried at the Greyfriars Church where he once had served.

In the 1660s, the younger Traill served briefly as chaplain to John Scot, Lord Scotstarvet. He also became connected with fellow Covenanter John Welsh of Irongray. Later, Traill and his family had to flee Edinburgh when a banned book was discovered in their home: An Apologetical Relation of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithful Ministers and Professors of the Church of Scotland Since August 1660 by John Brown of Wamphray. In 1666, Traill was implicated in the Pentland Rising, a Covenanter rebellion against the royal and episcopal forces sparked when royalist troops abused an old man in a Scottish village. Consequently, the Privy Council condemned Traill as a traitor and rebel. Anticipating arrest, he went to his father and other British divines who were in the Netherlands taking refuge from Stuart absolutism. Traill continued his theological studies there, assisting Matthias Nethenus, professor of divinity at Utrecht, and helping to prepare Samuel Rutherford’s Examination of Arminianism for print. Nethenus described Traill as “a pious, prudent, learned, and industrious young man.”⁸

In 1669, Traill returned to Britain and settled in London. The following year he was installed in a Presbyterian congregation in Cranbrook, Kent. In 1677, Traill was arrested while visiting Edinburgh, this time for preaching in private homes and assisting in conventicles around the Scottish border with John Welsh. While imprisoned on Bass Rock, an island in the Firth of Forth, he met James Fraser of Brea and Alexander Peden.⁹ He was released from prison a few months later and returned to his flock at Cranbrook. In 1682, Traill preached a powerful sermon at the Morning Exercises in London on 1 Timothy 4:16, addressing the question, “By what means may ministers best win souls?”¹⁰

After the Glorious Revolution (1688), he served as copastor with Nathaniel Mather (1631–1697), son of Richard Mather and brother of Increase Mather of New England, in the congregational church at Paved Alley, Lime Street.

In 1692, he published A Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine of Justification. In this short book, originally written to his oldest brother, William, minister of Borthwick, Midlothian, Traill asserts the classic Reformed view of justification with its spiritual advantages and defends it against the charge of antinomianism.

His dependence upon Christ is evident from his confession:

I have no name to come to God but in Christ. My own name is abominable to myself…. No other name is given under heaven, but that of Jesus Christ, in which a sinner may safely approach unto God. Since the Father is well pleased with this name, and the Son commands me to ask in it, and the Holy Ghost hath brought this name to me, and made it as ointment poured forth (Song 1:3), and since its savor hath reached my soul, I will try to lift it up as incense to perfume the altar enthroned above; since all that ever come in this name are made welcome, I will come also, having no plea but Christ’s name, no covering but his borrowed and gifted robe of righteousness. I need nothing, I will ask nothing, but what his blood hath bought (and all that I will ask); I will expect answers of peace and acceptance only in that blessed Beloved—beloved of the Father, both as His Son and our Savior, and beloved of all that ever saw but a little of His grace and glory.¹¹

The book was occasioned by the controversy that broke out among dissenting ministers after the writings of Tobias Crisp were published. Traill opposes antinomianism on one side and Arminianism and the neonomianism of Daniel Williams and Richard Baxter on the other. “All my design in publishing this is, plainly and briefly, to give some information to ordinary plain people who lack either time or judgment to peruse large and learned tractates about this point of justification, wherein every one is equally concerned,” Traill wrote.¹²

In 1696, Traill published Thirteen Sermons on the Throne of Grace (on Heb. 4:16). After Mather’s death in 1697, Traill left the church and pastored another congregation in London. In 1705, he published Sixteen Sermons on the Prayer of Our Saviour (on John 17:24). Traill died in 1716, at age seventy-four. He never married.¹³

Traill’s exposition of John 17:24 is a masterpiece of Puritan experiential doctrine. The text reads, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” Traill analyzes it with the following exegetical outline, with his main doctrinal topic noted for each point:

I. The Manner of Our Lord’s Asking: “I will”—the doctrine of the intercession of Christ

II. The Matter of Christ’s Prayer

A. The Party He Prays For: “they whom thou hast given me”—the doctrine of election in Christ

B. The Blessing He Prays for Them: “that they may be with me where I am”—the doctrine of heaven with Christ

C. The End Why He Prays This for Them: “that they may behold my glory”—the doctrine of the glory of Christ (over half the book!)

D. The Argument that He Prays: “for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” —the Father’s eternal love for Christ

Each point contains many applications for life, and Traill addresses both believers and unbelievers in his exposition. His practical focus throughout the book is summed up in his statement in the original preface:

Three things are simply necessary unto any man’s having of true religion and godliness: sound principles of divine truth known, the savor of that knowledge in the heart, and the power of that savor in a man’s worship and walk. There are no sound principles of saving truth, but in and from God’s written word. There is no right savor of those principles, but in and by “faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:13; cf. 3:15). It is by this savor of the knowledge of Christ, as it is called (2 Cor. 2:14), that the power of godliness is impressed on the heart, and expressed in the life of a believer.

If the principles of truth be not from God’s word, there can be no true religion. If the truth professed be consonant to God’s word, and faith and love be wanting, it may be a man’s notion and opinion, but it is not the man’s religion. And if the power of known truth be not in his walk and conversation, neither should he himself, nor ought any other think, that such a man hath any religion at all.¹⁴

This was the last work published by Traill in his lifetime, and it amply testifies to his Christ-centered, Reformed, experiential preaching.

After his death, Traill’s writings continued to be published and were well received. His twenty-one sermons on Hebrews 10:20–24, originally preached in 1694, were published posthumously as A Steadfast Adherence to the Profession of our Faith (1718). Traill’s writings were highly valued by the defenders of the Marrow of Modern Divinity, such as Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, in the controversy that erupted in Scotland in the 1720s ¹⁵

His published Works were printed in two volumes (Edinburgh, 1754), and then in three volumes (Glasgow, 1775). Later other sermon manuscripts by Traill would come into print: Eleven Sermons on 1 Peter 1:1–4 (1778) and Six Sermons on Galatians 2:21 (1779). These were incorporated into a new, four-volume edition of his Works (Glasgow, 1795–1796). Another edition of the Works followed (Edinburgh, 1810), which is the basis of the 1975 reprint of The Works of Robert Traill by the Banner of Truth Trust, consisting of four volumes bound as two.

A volume of his Select Practical Writings was also published (Edinburgh, 1852), which does not contain the full selection of previous published writings, but does supplement them with ten formerly unpublished sermons on Hebrews 12:29, Isaiah 63:16, Matthew 7:13–14, Ephesians 3:8, Philippians 2:12–13, 1 Corinthians 2:10, and Hebrews 6:4–6. One wonders how many more manuscripts of Traill’s valuable sermons remain hidden in libraries and personal family collections in Scotland.

God continues to use Traill’s faithful witness centuries after his voice resounded on the earth. In the late nineteenth century, J. C. Ryle quoted over a dozen times from Traill’s writings in Ryle’s classic, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots (1877/1879), using his clear distinctions between justification and sanctification and insights into assurance to defend the church against the Holiness Movement led by Pearsall and Hannah Smith. However, justification by faith alone is a doctrine assaulted in every age. Traill’s book on justification has also been reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust as one of their Puritan Paperbacks,¹⁶ and it remains relevant and helpful today.

Traill was a great contributor to the Puritan age. His name is linked to the best in Scottish, Dutch, and English Puritan traditions. Not only Presbyterians but Christians of various denominations “have recognized the vigour of his intellect, the conclusiveness of his reasoning, the clearness of his ideas,… the zeal, the sincerity, and fervent piety with which his writings are pervaded.”¹⁷ Howie said of him, “The simplicity and evangelical strain of the works of Mr. Traill have been savoury to many, and will ever be so, while religion and Scripture doctrine are in request.”¹⁸

May God use this rich, broadsweeping exposition of the glorious text of John 17:24 to nourish many as much as proofreading this work nourished us.

Endnotes

1. On Traill’s biography, see “An Account of the Life and Character of the Author,” in The Works of Robert Traill (1810; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1975), 1:iii–viii; Samuel Dunn, Memoirs of the Seventy-Five Eminent Divines: Whose Discourses Form the Morning Exercises (London: John Snow, 1844), 164–67; “Traill and His Writings,” in Robert Traill, Select Practical Writings (Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter, 1852), v–xii; D. B. Calhoun, “Traill (Trail), Robert,” in Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology, ed. Nigel M. de S. Cameron, et al (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993), 827; A. S. Wayne Pearce, “Trail, Robert (1642–1716),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 55:211–12.

2. On the life of Traill’s father, see Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, new ed. (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1915), 1:38.

3. Robert Traill, preface to William Guthrie, The Christians Great Interest (Philadelphia: W. Young, 1789), 8–11. Traill’s preface is dated at 1705.

4. Samuel Rutherford, Letters, ed. Andrew A. Bonar (1891; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1984), 693.

5. William Row, The Life of Mr. Robert Blair, ed. Thomas M’Crie (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1848), 364, 430; James King Hewison, The Covenanters: A History of the Church in Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution (Glasgow: John Smith and Son, 1980), 2:162–63.

6. A Letter from the Rev. Mr Robert Traill, Late Minister at Edinburgh, To His Wife; as also One to His Children (Edinburgh: by E. and J. Roberstons, for J. Traill, 1762). This letter is included in the younger Traill’s Works (4:234–42), but it was written by his father. It refers to “Margaret, your youngest daughter” (4:236), and the youngest child of the elder Robert Traill and Jean was named Margaret (1648–1717), who married James Scott of Bristo. Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 1:38. The letter to the children is from Rotterdam and dated 1665 (Works, 4:238), but the younger Traill was still in Scotland at that time. Therefore, the letters are from the father, not the son. Cf. “Traill and His Writings,” in Traill, Select Practical Writings, vi.

7. Robert Wodrow, History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland (1835), 1:423.

8. Quoted in “Account of the Life,” in Works, 1:v. The text says “doctus, pius, prudens et industrius juvenis vir. D. Robertus Traillus.” Samuel Rutherford, Examen Arminianismi, ed. Matthia Netheno (Utrecht: Antonii Smytegelt, 1668), sig. ***3r.

9. “Traill and His Writings,” in Traill, Select Practical Writings, viii.

10. Robert Traill, “By what means may Ministers best win souls?” in A Continuation of Morning-Exercise Questions and Cases of Conscience… in October, 1682, ed. Samuel Annesley (London: by J. A. for John Dunton, 1683), 195–216. See Trail, Works, 1:235–51.

11. Quoted in “Account of the Life,” in Works, 1:vi.

12. Robert Traill, A Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine of Justification, in Works, 1:288.

13. On the letters to wife and children attributed to him in his Works, see note 6 above.

14. Robert Traill, preface to Sixteen Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer, in Works, 2:iii. The paragraph break is added.

15. John Brown, ed., Gospel Truth Accurately Stated and Illustrated, by the Reverend Messrs. James Hog, Thomas Boston, Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, and Others; Occasioned by the Republication of the Marrow of Modern Divinity (Canonsburgh: Andrew Munro, 1827), 36; Donald Fraser, The Life and Diary of the Reverend Ebenezer Erskine (Edinburgh: William Oliphant, 1831), 140.

16. Robert Traill, Justification Vindicated, Puritan Paperbacks (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2002).

17. “Traill and His Writings,” in Robert Traill, Select Practical Writings, x.

18. John Howie, The Scots Worthies, ed. W. H. Carslaw (Edinburgh: Banner
of Truth, 1995), 625.

_______________________________________
Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics
at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage
Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rev. Paul

M. Smalley serves as Dr. Beeke’s Teacher’s Assistant (TA). He graduated with a
Th.M. degree from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. This co-authored
article is the preface to Reformation Heritage Books’ forthcoming reprint of
Traill’s exposition of John 17:24.

Published by The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, used with permission.