discusses the points at issue with a perspicuity and energy, that have commanded the admiration of the celebrated Mr. Hervey, and others, who had no immediate concern in the contest. Ebenezer, too, defended the conduct of the representing brethren in an able and respectful letter, addressed to a neighbouring clergyman.*

The Assembly, aware of the general offence which their violent condemnation of the Marrow had given, and influenced, perhaps, by the clear and forcible answers returned to the twelve queries, which, in ludicrous allusion to the number of the twelve Representers they had thought proper to propose, were pleased, May 21st, 1722, to pass a large explanatory Act relating to the Marrow, expressed in more moderate terms than the former. Even this new act, however, contained several positions contrary to sound doctrine; it confirmed instead of rescinding the act complained of; and the twelve brethren, instead of receiving the thanks of the Assembly for their seasonable remonstrance, were solemnly rebuked and admonished. Besides, they were reviled in various publications, as men of wild and Antinomian principles,-innovators in religion, who published tenets opposite to the Confession of Faith and Catechisins,-enemies to Christian morality,-troublers of Israel, puffed up with vanity and arrogance, and anxious to exalt themselves at the expense of their brethren. Similar reproaches were often cast on them by the dominant clergy of that age from the pulpit, particularly in sermons preached at the opening of Synods. Their submission, in fine, to the acts of Assembly respecting the Marrow, was urged with rigour; and in several instances, ill-founded complaints against their public discourses were presented before the church courts.

Owing to the vehemence of Principal Haddow of St. Andrews, who took the lead in impugning the Marrow, the five representing brethren of the Synod of Fife, viz. Messrs. Ebenezer Erskine, Hogg, Bathgate, with Ralph Erskine and James Wardlaw of Dunfermline, were treated with the most marked severity. At several meetings of Synod they were denounced as transgressors, and questioned in the most rigorous and inquisitorial manner. Strenuous efforts were employed to induce them to subscribe anew the Confession of Faith, not merely as received by the Church of Scotland, 1647, but as explained by the condemnatory act of 1722-a proposal which they unanimously and justly rejected. At a meeting of the Synod of Fife in September, 1721, some of Ebenezer's discourses were judicially complained of. In May, 1725, he was even publicly arraigned before the Commission of the General Assembly, by the Rev. Andrew Anderson, one of the ministers of St. Andrews, whom he had once numbered amongst his intimate friends. The complaints referred to no less than seven of his sermons, viz. those from 2 Chron. xx.

This letter has been published in the Christian Magazine, Vol. xiii. pp. 376-381.

† See Appendix to "Faith no Fancy," by the Rev. Ralph Erskine, p. 31, 33. Ed. 1745.

20; Psalm lxxxix. 16; cxxxviii. 6; Luke ii. 28; John vi. 66; Tit. iii. 8; Rev. iii. 4. Mr. Erskine was accused in his absence, and ten years had elapsed between the delivery of some of these obnoxious discourses, and the time when the accusations were preferred.

Under all these teasing circumstances, he was helped to discover an invincible zeal for what he prized as divine and important truth, blended with Christian meekness and candour. He was accustomed to speak of the Act 1720 as an oversight. Notwithstanding the protest which he and his brethren had taken, he forbore publicly recommending the book condemned by the Assembly; and even when he spoke favourably of it in private, he qualified his eulogy, by telling the people that it contained some unguarded expressions. Towards those clergymen, too, from whom he had experienced the most injurious and illiberal treatment, he manifested a gentle and forgiving spirit. Nevertheless, as appears from many passages of his writings, or rather from their whole spirit and scope, his attachment to the leading doctrines of the Marrow remained unshaken. On some occasions, too, expressions fell from his lips, that for a time at least overawed and confounded his opposers. Thus at a meeting of Synod at Cupar in Fife, when some members had openly denied the Father's gift of Christ to sinners of mankind, he rose and said; "Moderator, our Lord Jesus says of himself, My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. This he uttered to a promiscuous multitude; and let me see the man who dares to affirm that he said wrong." This short speech, aided by the dignity and energy with which it was delivered, made an uncommon impression on the Synod, and on all that were present.

With regard to the charges preferred against his discourses by Mr. Anderson, whilst he disavowed such expressions as were falsely or erroneously imputed to him, he never shrunk from attesting and maintaining those scriptural sentiments which he had really uttered. For his own vindication, too, he published the sermons objected to; and in prefaces prefixed to the first editions, he refuted the censures of his accusers. The wisdom of Providence strikingly appears in thus rendering those very imputations, which wore so dark and ruinous an aspect towards Mr. Erskine, the occasion of increasing his celebrity, and extending his usefulness. To this providential arrangement, he himself devoutly adverts in the following terms: "It is very probable, that this," viz. the Sermon on Rev. iii. 4, "and some other sermons now designed for the press, had slept in perpetual silence among my short-hand manuscripts, if holy and wise Providence, which overrules us in our designs and inclinations, had not in a manner forced me to yield to their publication, for my own necessary defence; when the earnest entreaty of some, dear to the Lord, could not prevail with me to fall in with any such proposal."*

• Whoever wishes to be thoroughly acquainted with the controversy relating to the Marrow, would do well to peruse Mr. Brown's Gospel Truth

The same undaunted courage in defending the truth by which the subject of this Memoir signalized himself during the agitation of the controversy regarding the Marrow, was manifested on occasion of the process instituted against the Rev. John Simpson, Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, for denying the necessary existence and supreme divinity of the Son of God. It was in the year 1729, that the General Assembly, after a discussion of eight days, came to a final decision, in that interesting cause. Although a sentence of deposition was generally expected, and had been urged by the greater number of presbyteries, the Professor was not deposed, but merely suspended from the discharge of his office. Mr. Erskine was not a member of Assembly that year, but expressed his cordial approbation of the dissent from that unduly lenient decision, which Mr. Boston with singular intrepidity declared. He only regretted that his learned and godly friend did not insist on his dissent and protest being entered on the records of the court, for the honour of Christ and the instruction of posterity. Several years before the matter was brought to this termination, he composed an excellent paper, entitled, "A Testimony to the true Deity of the Son of God, by the Session of Portmoak, to be laid before the Presbytery, for transmission to the General Assembly." In his public discourses, in fine, he deemed it his duty to give solemn and repeated warnings to his hearers, to beware lest any man rob them of this momentous doctrine of revealed religion. One of these warnings occurs, for example, in the Sermon from Exod. xx. 2.

Mr. Erskine was distinguished by generous and active zeal as well for the rights and liberties of the Christian people, as for the purity and simplicity of evangelical doctrine. Every one acquainted with the ecclesiastical history of Scotland is aware, that the Secession, in which he took the lead, was occasioned no less by measures hostile to religious liberty, than by the opposition made, or indifference shown, to the peculiar doctrines of the gospel. But fully to state the grounds of the Secession, or minutely to detail the various circumstances which issued in his complete separation from the national establishment, and in the regular organization of the Secession Church, would not suit the limits of this Memoir; nor is such a statement or detail necessary. The revival of patronage by Queen Anne's ministry in 1712; the rigour with which that act was, in different instances, enforced; the contempt thrown by the Assembly in 1732, on one Petition subscribed by forty-two ministers, and on another subscribed by many hundreds of elders and people, who united in humbly representing the growing defections of the Church, and earnestly soliciting redress; the act of the same Assembly decreeing that, where an accepted presentation did not take place, the decisive power of electing ministers for the supply of vacant congregations is competent only to a conjunct meeting of heritors and elders,

accurately stated and defended, &c. The Marrow of Modern Divinity itself, with Boston's judicious Notes, ought also to be carefully read.

no other qualification of those heritors being required but that they be Protestants; the remonstrances of Mr. E. Erskine in his celebrated sermon from Psalm cxviii. 22; preached at Perth, October 10th, 1732, at the opening of the Synod of Perth and Stirling; the accusations preferred against him for those bold remonstrances by the Rev. Mr. Mercer, of Aberfalgie, and others, with the act of Synod finding him censurable; his protest and appeal, and consequent appearance before the Assembly in 1733, by whom he was rebuked; his protest against the decision of the General Assembly, to which the Rev. William Wilson, of Perth, Alexander Moncrieff, of Abernethy, and James Fisher, then of Kinclaven, gave in a written adherence; the suspension of the four brethren by the Commission of Assembly in August following, notwithstanding numerous petitions in their favour; the still severer measures adopted by the Commission at their meeting in November the same year, when, by the casting vote of Mr. John Goldie, the Moderator, it was carried, that they should proceed immediately to inflict a higher censure, and it was consequently decreed by a great majority, to "loose the relation of the said four ministers to their respective charges, and declare them no longer ministers of this church;" the meeting of these four excommunicated brethren, December 25th, 1733, at the bridge of Gairney near Kinross, where they resolved to constitute themselves into a Presbytery, and "Mr. Ebenezer Erskine was, with their unanimous consent, desired to be their mouth to the Lord in this solemn action, and was enabled, with much enlargement of soul, to consecrate and dedicate them to the Lord, and to the service of his church;" the conciliatory methods to which the Assembly 1734 had recourse; the resolution of the brethren not to accede to the national church at that time, being convinced that the ends of their separation were not yet gained; the libel, consisting of ten articles, with which they were served by the Assembly 1738; the determination of the Seceding ministers altogether to decline the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts; their formal deposition by the Assembly, May 15th, 1740;-these and other occurrences relative to the origin and progress of the Associate body, are narrated in different publications, to which the curious reader may have easy access.†

It may be right, however, to contemplate Mr. Erskine's character, as it is affected by his attitude and behaviour as the standard-bearer of the Secession. How fair his reputation as a Christian, a minister, and a member of society, stood in the eyes of those who had the best opportunities of knowing him, when he commenced his career in that capacity, will clearly appear the following quotations taken from the petitions on his behalf,

from

The Rev. William Wilson's Continuation of the Defence of Reformation Principles, pp. 152, 153.

See the Re-exhibition of the Testimony; Brown's History of the Secession; Jaffray of Kilmarnock's excellent "Essay on the Reasons of Secession from the National Church of Scotland;" and the Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. Seceder.

transmitted from Stirling, where he then exercised his ministry. The Presbytery of Stirling assure the Commission, "that Mr. Erskine's character is so established in that part of the church, that the authority of the Assembly condemning cannot lessen it, and that in the present case, such condemnation will tend to heighten it." "We beg leave to observe," say the Kirk session of Stirling, "that having had a trial of Mr. Erskine's ministerial gifts and labours these two years bygone, we cannot but own, according to our discerning and experience, his Lord and Master hath endowed him with a very edifying gift of teaching and preaching the gospel, and many other good qualifications, every way fitting him for the office of the ministry, and particularly in this city and congregation; which, together with the great pains he has taken in the other parts of his ministerial labours, and we hope not without success, and all attended with a very tender walk, wise and prudent behaviour, have made him most acceptable to us, and persons of all distinctions in this place." In fine, the Magistrates and town-Council of that place inform the Commission, "That after two full years' acquaintance with Mr. Erskine, they find him to be a man of a peaceable disposition, of a religious walk and conversation, to be every way fitted and qualified for discharging the work of the ministry among them, and that he has discharged the same to their great satisfaction." They conclude with deprecating the suspension of Mr. Erskine, as a measure calculated only to "alienate our people's hearts from the Assembly."

This venerable man has been severely censured for declaiming in public discourses against those proceedings of the church courts which met his disapprobation. Candour and impartiality, however, require us to observe, that in resorting to that method of resisting error and vindicating truth, he and his associates were by no means singular. The Rev. Messrs. Currie of Kinglassie, Willison of Dundee, Bisset of Aberdeen, and several others who never joined the Secession, were accustomed to take the same liberties. It is but fair also to hear and consider the reasons assigned by himself, for this part of his conduct, as the Preface to his Sermon at Perth, which gave occasion to his prosecution, and which he deemed it requisite to publish soon after it was preached. "If any think," says he, "upon the reading of the following discourse, that there is too great freedom used with respect to the present steps of defection, let it be remembered, that there is now no other way left to bear testimony against such things, but by warning the world against them from press or pulpit; representations and petitions from ministers or church members at the bar being utterly disregarded, and no access to enter any protest or dissent against those proceedings in the public records, for the exoneration of conscience, or the information of our posterity that such things did not pass in our day without a struggle and testimony against them."

With unfeigned regret we observe, that a highly respectable clergyman, and one who for many years has been considered as