Mention The History of Protestantism and immediately the name Rev J. A.Wylie, the author of the monumental book by that title, springs to mind. Though a prolific writer Wylie is most remembered for this work born out of years of experience and painstaking research.
The author gives us little by way of biography and even less in the History. It bears no preface, no introduction and no biographical notes, going instead straight into his subject, the great passion of his life, tracing the history of Protestantism through Europe and covering all ages.
James Aitken Wylie was born in the village of Kirremuir, Angus, just north of Dundee, in 1808. Born into a godly home he said later, “I bless God that I was born in the Original Secession Church”
He studied at Aberdeen University and at Edinburgh University under Dr Chalmers, was licensed to preach on December 1st, 1829 and ordained into Dollar Original Secession Church in 1831. Here he ministered with much acceptance for the next fifteen years.
In 1846 he resigned his charge in order to take up the post of assistant editor, under Hugh Miller, of the Witness newspaper. There he remained until the magazine finally closed, by which time he had contributed upwards of eight hundred lead articles besides other articles as were called for.
After much heart searching Wylie joined the Free Church of Scotland in 1852. At the end of the difficult time he had concluded that the Gospel could be best served by this move. From 1853 he edited the Free Church Record.
In 1860, the Free Church appointed him to the professorship of the Protestant Institute of Scotland where he laboured alongside Dr James Begg.
In his long busy life he wrote thousands of articles including books, lectures, pamphlets, magazine articles etc., as well as lecturing where opportunity arose.
Of his book on the Papacy, which ran into many thousands and was translated into several languages, the Evangelical magazine wrote “with all we have read on popery we have yet met with nothing in the English language which we regard to be so complete and so overwhelmingly destructive to Romanism.”.
The Gospel Ministry, another essay, published in 1857, brings out his warm and urgent spirit on behalf of the Gospel. Above all he was a lover of Christ.
His edition of Scots Worthies engaged him in another subject close to his heart, the great struggle of the Covenanters. He was joined in this venture by his life-long friend James Anderson. Both men hailed from Kirremuir, both received license in the same church in the same year, and both resigned to pursue literary work. Ladies of the Reformation, Ladies of the Covenant, Ladies of the Puritan Times and his work on the Bass Rock are Anderson’s best known works today.
When Wylie’s History of Protestantism appeared in 1874 it caused a sensation and sold in tens of thousands, upwards of eighty thousand copies sold in England alone. It was full of good, solid, well researched, matter and written in a manner easily read by ordinary people. Added to this Wylie had chosen his publisher well in John Cassell. Cassell had spent no pains in collecting an immense array of illustrations which he used freely in his published works. Wylie was keen to make use of illustrations to enhance his monumental work and it was therefor a hugely successful combination which helped the book gain a wider readership.That popularity has stood the test of time and the History is still the standard work on the subject, republished many times over.
Wylie had a great antipathy towards the Papacy but a warm and aching heart for those caught up in its erroneous system. In The Papacy is the Antichrist, published in 1888 two years before his death, in 1890, he concluded, “If Jesus of Nazareth be the Christ, the Roman Papacy is the Antichrist.”
Dr. Wylie died May 1st 1890 and was buried beside his wife Euphemia Gray in East Preston Burial Ground , (Newington Old Burial Ground), Edinburgh, where an upright stone in the south east section marks his grave.
