Thomas Halyburton 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.

Life

He was born at Dupplin, near Perth

Perth, Scotland

Perth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...

. His father George Halyburton, one of the ejected ministers, having died in 1682, he was taken by his mother in 1685 to Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

 to escape persecution, where he for some time attended the school founded by Erasmus. On his return to Scotland in 1687 he completed his elementary education at Perth and Edinburgh, and in 1696 graduated at the University of St Andrews

University of St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...

.

In 1700 he was ordained minister of the parish of Ceres, and in 1710 he was recommended by the synod of Fife for the chair of theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 in St Leonard's College, St Andrews, to which accordingly he was appointed by Queen Anne

Anne of Great Britain

Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...

. After a brief term of active professorial life he died from the effects of overwork in 1712.

Works

his works were all published after his death. John Wesley

John Wesley

John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...

 and George Whitefield

George Whitefield

George Whitefield , also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican priest who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain, and especially in the British North American colonies. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally...

 used to commend them to their followers. They were published as follows:

• Natural Religion Insufficient, and Revealed Religion Necessary, to Man's Happiness in his Present State (1714), an able statement of the orthodox Calvinistic criticism of the deism of Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Charles Blount
  Charles Blount (deist)
  Charles Blount was a British deist and controversialist who published several anonymous essays critical of the existing English order.-Life:...
  
  
• Memoirs of the Life of Mr Thomas Halyburton (1715), three parts by his own hand, the fourth from his diary by another hand
• The Great Concern of Salvation (1721), with a word of commendation by Isaac Watts
  Isaac Watts
  Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
  
  
• Ten Sermons Preached Before and After the Lord's Supper (1722)
• The Unpardonable Sin Against the Holy Ghost (1784)