John Brown of Haddington (1722 – 19 June 1787), was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 divine and author. His works include “The Self-Interpreting Bible”, “The Dictionary of the Bible”, and “A General History of the Christian Church”.

Career

John Brown was born at Carpow in the parish of Abernethy, in Perthshire

Perthshire

Perthshire, officially the County of Perth , is a registration county in central Scotland. It extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south...

, Scotland, the son of a self-educated weaver and river-fisherman, also called John Brown. His own formal education was scant, but it awakened his desire for learning. Both of his parents died when he was about twelve, and he had to support himself by work as a shepherd. After a teenage marked by ill health and religiosity he had a Christian conversion

Conversion to Christianity

Conversion to Christianity is the religious conversion of a previously non-Christian person to some form of Christianity. It has been called the foundational experience of Christian life...

, which he later described in a letter correspondence: "But thanks be to God, He passed by me, and looked upon me, and said unto me, 'LIVE'".

Induced by his fervent desire for learning, he taught himself Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 and Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 by comparing texts and scripts. In 1738, after hearing that the Greek New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 was available in a bookshop, he left his sheep with a friend and walked the 24 miles to St Andrews

St Andrews

St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....

 to buy a copy. There were several professors of Greek in the bookshop. As they watch this ragged shepherd boy gingerly handle the book, one of them, Francis Pringle, challenged him to read it, saying that he would buy it for him if he could do so. That afternoon he returned with his gift to resume his shepherding duties. But his learning led to controversy among the members of the Secession Church

First Secession

The First Secession was an exodus of ministers and members from the Church of Scotland in 1733. Those who took part formed the Associate Presbytery and later the United Secession Church....

 which he belonged to, as some asserted that he got his learning from the devil

Devil

The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...

. Only with difficulty was he able to free himself of this charge.

The next few years saw him work as a pedlar and a schoolmaster, with an interlude as a volunteer soldier in defence against the Jacobites

Jacobitism

Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 in the Forty-Five rebellion. He volunteered with his best friend Tim Knab, a loyalist to the anti-Jacoban cause.

Following division in the Secession Church there was a need for preachers in the Burgher branch, and Brown was the first new divinity student. He was ordained as a minister at Haddington

Haddington, East Lothian

The Royal Burgh of Haddington is a town in East Lothian, Scotland. It is the main administrative, cultural and geographical centre for East Lothian, which was known officially as Haddingtonshire before 1921. It lies about east of Edinburgh. The name Haddington is Anglo-Saxon, dating from the 6th...

, East Lothian

East Lothian

East Lothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy Area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Midlothian. Its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh....

, on 4 July 1751, and that was his home for the rest of his life. He gained a just reputation for learning and piety.

He was called to occupy the position of Moderator of the Synod

Synod

A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...

 for the year from November 1753, a remarkable tribute to the talents of someone ordained so recently. His first publication was in 1758, and he published regularly from that date until the end of his life.

He also, while continuing his duties as a minister, took up the position of professor of divinity by the unanimous agreement of the Synod from 1768. One student reported later, "He was among us as a father among his children; he loved them and studied their good; they loved him, and regarded his counsel".

From 1768 until the year of his death he also had the permanent post of clerk of the synod.

His contacts with three famous contemporaries have been recorded.

In 1771 he commenced a long an animated correspondence with Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, which encouraged them mutually in their Christian endeavour.

In 1772 Brown was walking in Haddington Cemetery when he met Robert Fergusson

Robert Fergusson

Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson followed an essentially bohemian life course in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish enlightenment...

, the poet, in a dark mood. His biographer, Robert Mackenzie, says that his counsel awoke for a time the spiritual fires in Fergusson; Robert Louis Stevenson was less complimentary: both however were writing many years after the event.

The philosopher David Hume

David Hume

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...

 commented that Brown preached "as if he were conscious that Christ was at his elbow".

Brown's most notable work, the Self Interpreting Bible, was published in 1778.

Brown died at his home in Haddington on 19 June 1787. He had six sons, from two marriages, of whom four became ministers, and another the provost of Haddington. Other members of the family were notable, particularly his great-grandson John Brown

John Brown (physician)

John Brown FRSE FRCPE was a Scottish physician and essayist. He was the son of the clergyman John Brown , and was born in Biggar, Scotland. He is best known for his 3 volume collection Horae Subsecivae—"Leisure Hours" , including essays and papers on art, medical history and biography...

, a physician and essayist who wrote, Rab and his Friends.

Works

John Brown wrote numerous books, of which the most notable are described here.

Only one dictionary of the Bible, by then long out of print, had preceded Brown's The Dictionary of the Bible. It therefore met a need and after the initial edition published in 1769 numerous editions, variously amended, were issued until 1868.

A General History of the Christian Church was issued in two volumes in 1771.

The Self Interpreting Bible was Brown's most significant work, and it remained in print (edited by others), until well into the twentieth century. The objective of providing a commentary for ordinary people was very successful. The idea that the Bible was "self-interpreting" involved copious marginal references, especially comparing one scriptural statement with another. Brown also provided a substantial introduction to the Bible, and added an explication and "reflections" for each chapter.

A measure of its popularity is that it was translated into Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

, and its appearance in Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

's "Epistle to James Tennant",

My shins, my lane, I sit here roastin'
Perusing Bunyan

John Bunyan

John Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...

, Brown and Boston,

John Brown’s works

• 1758, A Help for the Ignorant
• 1765, The Christian Journal
• 1766, An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Secession
• 1767, Letter on the Constitution, Government, and Discipline of the Christian Church
• 1768, Sacred Typology
• 1769, A Dictionary of the Bible
• 1771, A General History of the Christian Church
• 1778, The Self-interpreting Bible
• 1780, The Duty of Raising up Spiritual Children to Christ
• 1782, The Young Christian
• 1783, Practical Piety exemplified in the Lives of Thirteen Eminent Christians
• 1784, A Compendious History of the British Churches

Others

• John Brown of Haddington Robert Mackenzie 1918 (Paperback 1964 The Banner of Truth Trust)
• Memoir of the Rev. John Brown Rev. J Brown Patterson