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DICKSON, DAVID, an eminent
Presbyterian divine of the seventeenth century, of whom Wodrow remarks,
that, "if ever a Scots Biography and the lives of our eminent
ministers and Christians be published, he will shine there as a star of
the first magnitude." Remarkable not merely for the part he took in
public affairs—his preaching produced the most astonishing effects in
the early part of the century in which he lived. Fleming, in his work on
the "Fulfilling of the Scriptures," says of Dickson’s pulpit
ministrations, "that for a considerable time few Sabbaths did pass
without some evidently converted, or some convincing proof of the power of
God accompanying his Word. And truly (he adds) this great spring-tide, as
I may call it, of the gospel, was not of a short time, but of some years’
continuance; yea, thus like a spreading moor-burn, the power of godliness
did advance from one place to another, which put a marvellous lustre on
those parts of the country, the savour whereof brought many from other
parts of the land to see its truth." We may be permitted to devote a
few pages to the history of a man thus recommended by his great public
usefulness, his talents, and virtues.
The subject of our
narrative was a native of Glasgow, in which city his father, John Dick, or
Dickson, was a merchant. The latter was possessed of considerable wealth,
and the proprietor of the lands of the Kirk of the Muir, in the parish of
St Ninian’s, and barony of Fintry. He and his wife, both persons of
eminent piety, had been several years married without children, when they
entered into a solemn vow, that, if the Lord would give them a son, they
would devote him to the service of his church. A day was appointed, and
their Christian townsmen were requested to join with them in fasting and
prayer. Without further detail of this story, we shall merely say, that Mr
David Dickson, their son, was born in the Tron street (or Trongate) of
Glasgow, in 1583; but the vow was so far forgot, that he was educated for
mercantile pursuits, in which he was eminently unsuccessful, and the cause
of much pecuniary loss to his parents. This circumstance, added to a
severe illness of their son, led his parents to remember their vow; Mr
Dickson was then "put to his studyes, and what eminent service he did
in his generation is knowen." [Wodrow’s Analecta, MS Advocates’
Library, I. 128. Wodrow’s Live of Dickson, prefixed in Truth’s victory
over Error, p. x.]
Soon after taking the
degree of master of arts, Mr Dickson was appointed one of the regents or
professors of philosophy in the university of Glasgow; a situation held at
that period in all the Scottish colleges by young men, who had just
finished their academical career, and were destined for the church.
"The course of study which it was their duty to conduct, was
calculated to form habits of severe application in early life, and
to give them great facility both in writing and in speaking. The
universities had the advantage of their services during the vigour of
life; when they were unencumbered by domestic cares, and when they felt
how much their reputation and interest depended on the exertions which
they made. After serving a few years, (seldom more than eight, or less
than four,) they generally obtained appointments in the church, and thus
transferred to another field the intellectual industry and aptitude for
communicating knowledge by which they had distinguished themselves in the
university. It may well be conceived, that by stimulating and exemplifying
diligence, their influence on their brethren in the ministry was not less
considerable than on the parishioners, who more directly enjoyed the
benefit of attainments and experience, more mature than can be expected
from such as have never had access to similar means of
improvement." [Report of the royal commission for visiting the
Scottish universities, 1831, p. 221. Another practice at this period was,
that the regents, when they took the oath of office, should engage to
vacate their charge in the event of marrying. Mr James Dalrymple
(afterwards the viscount of Stair) having married while a regent at
Glasgow in 1643, demitted, but was reappointed. – Ibid.] But we
must return from a digression, which seemed necessary in order to explain
a system which is no longer pursued.
Mr Dickson remained several
years at Glasgow, and was eminently useful in teaching the different
branches of literature and science, and in directing the minds of his
students to the end to which all such attainments should lead them—time
cultivation of true piety. But in accordance with the custom already
noticed, he was now removed to a more honourable, though certainly more
hazardous calling. In the year 1618, he was ordained minister of Irvine.
At this period, it would appear he had paid but little attention to the
subject of church government; a circumstance, the more remarkable, when we
consider the keen discussions between the presbyterians and episcopalians
on such questions. But the year in which he had entered on his ministry,
was too eventful to be overlooked. The general assembly had agreed to the
five ceremonies now known as the Perth articles, and a close examination
convinced Mr Dickson that they were unscriptural. Soon afterwards, when a
severe illness brought him near death, he openly declared against them;
and, no sooner had Law, the archbishop of Glasgow, heard of it, than he
was summoned before the court of high commission. He accordingly appeared,
but declined the jurisdiction of the court, on account of which, sentence
of deprivation and confinement to Turriff was passed upon him. His friends
prevailed upon the archbishop to restore him, on condition that he would
withdraw his declinature; a condition with which he would not comply. Soon
after, Law yielded so far as to allow him to return to his parish, if he
would come to his castle, and withdraw the paper from the hall-table
without seeing him; terms which Mr Dickson spurned, as being "but
juggling in such a weighty matter." At length, he was permitted in
July, 1623, to return unconditionally. [Wodrow’s memoir of Dickson, p.
12, 13. Livingston’s Characteristics, edit. 1773. p. 81.]
After noticing the deep
impression Mr Dickson made upon the minds of his hearers, Mr Wodrow gives
us the following account of his ministerial labours at Irvine:—"Mr
Dickson had his week-day sermon upon the Mondays, the market days then at
Irvine. Upon the Sabbath evenings, many persons under soul distress, used
to resort to his house after sermon, when usually he spent an hour or two
in answering their cases, and directing and comforting these who were cast
down; in all which he had an extraordinary talent, indeed, he had the
tongue of the learned, and knew how to speak a word in season to the weary
soul. In a large hall he had in his house at Irvine, there would
have been, as I am informed by old christians, several scores of serious
christians waiting for him when he came from the church. Those, with the
people round the town, who came in to the market at Irvine, made the
church as throng, if not thronger, on the Mondays, as on the Lord’s day,
by these week-day sermons. The famous Stewarton Sickness was begun about
the year 1630; and spread from house to house for many miles in the strath
where Stewarton water runs on both sides of it. Satan endeavoured to bring
a reproach upon the serious persons who were at this time under the
convincing work of the Spirit, by running some, seemingly under serious
concern, to excesses, both in time of sermon, and in families. But the
Lord enabled Mr Dickson, and other ministers who dealt with them, to act
so prudent a part, as Satan’s design was much disappointed, and solid,
serious, practical religion flourished mightily in the west of Scotland
about this time, even under the hardships of prelacy."
About the year 1630, some
of the Scottish clergymen settled among their countrymen, who had
emigrated to the north of Ireland. While they were permitted to preach,
they had been highly useful; but the Irish prelates did not long allow
them to remain unmolested: they felt the progress of their opinions, and
with a zeal, which, in attempting to promote, often defeats its own cause,
determined to silence, or oblige the presbyterians to conform. In 1637,
Robert Blair and John Livingston, against whom warrants had been issued,
after secreting themselves near the coast, came over to Scotland. They
were received by Mr Dickson at Irvine, and were employed occasionally in
preaching for him. He had been warned that this would be seized upon by
the bishops as a pretext for deposing him, but he would not deviate from
what he considered his duty. He was, therefore, again called before the
high commission court; but we are only told, that "he soon got rid of
this trouble, the bishops’ power being now on the decline."
In the summer of the same
year, several ministers were charged to buy and receive the Service Book;
a measure which produced the most important consequences. Mr John
Livingston, in his autobiography, has truly said that the subsequent
changes in the church took their rise from two petitions presented upon
this occasion. Many others followed, and their prayer being refused,
increased the number and demands of the petitioners; they required the
abolition of the high commission, and exemption from the Perth articles.
These were still refused, and their number was now so great as to form a
large majority of the ministers and people. The presbytery of Irvine
joined in the petition, at the instigation of Mr Dickson, and throughout
the whole of the proceedings which followed upon it, we shall find him
taking an active, but moderate part.
When the general assembly
of 1638 was convoked, David Dickson, Robert Baillie, and William Russell,
minister at Kilbirnie, were appointed to represent the presbytery at
Irvine, and "to propone, reason, vote, and conclude according to the
word of God, and confession approved by sundry general assemblies."
Mr Dickson and a few others were objected to by the king’s party, as
being under the censure of the high commission, but they proved the
injustice of the proceedings against them, and were therefore admitted
members. He seems to have borne a zealous and useful part in this great
ecclesiastical council: his speech, when the commissioner threatened to
leave them, is mentioned by Wodrow with much approbation; but the
historian has not inserted it in his memoir, as it was too long, and yet
too important and nervous to be abridged. A discourse upon Arminianism,
delivered at their eleventh session, is also noticed, of which, principal
Baillie says, that he "refuted all those errors in a new way of his
own, as some years ago he had conceived it in a number of Sermons on the
new Covenant. Mr David’s discourse was much as all his things,
extempore; so he could give no double of it, and his labour went away with
his speech." [Baillie’s printed Letters and Journals, i. 125.]
An effort was made at this period by John Bell, one of the ministers
of Glasgow, to obtain Mr Dickson for an assistant, but the opposition of
lord Eglinton and that of Mr Baillie in behalf of the presbytery of
Irvine, were sufficient to delay, though not to prevent, the appointment.
In the short campaign of
1639, a regiment of 1200 men, of which the earl of Loudon was appointed
coroner (or colonel), and Mr Dickson, chaplain, was raised in Ayrshire.
The unsatisfactory pacification at Berwick, however, required that the
Scots should disband their army, and leave the adjustment of civil and
ecclesiastical differences to a parliament and assembly. Of the latter
court, Mr Dickson was, by a large majority, chosen moderator; a situation
which he filled with great judgment and moderation. In the tenth session,
a call was presented to him from the town of Glasgow, but the vigorous
interference of lord Eglinton, and of his own parishioners, contributed
still to delay his removal. His speech at the conclusion of the assembly,
as given by Stevenson, displays much mildness, and forms a striking
contrast to the deep laid plan formed by the king’s party, to deceive
and ensnare the Scottish clergy.
Soon afterwards (1640), Mr
Dickson received an appointment of a much more public and important nature
than any he had yet held. A commission for visiting the university of
Glasgow had been appointed by the assembly of 1638, to the members of
which, the principal had made himself obnoxious, by a strong leaning
towards episcopacy. It was renewed in subsequent years, and introduced
several important changes. Among these was the institution of a separate
professorship of divinity, to which, a competent lodging and a salary of
£800 Scots was attached. This situation had been long destined for Mr
Dickson, and when he entered upon the duties of it, he did not disappoint
the expectations of the nation. Not only did he interpret the scriptures,
teach casuistical divinity, and hear the discourses of his students, but
Wodrow informs us, that he preached every Sunday forenoon in the high
church.
We find Mr Dickson taking
an active part in the assembly of 1643. Some complaints had been made of
the continuance of episcopal ceremonies, such as, repeating the doxology,
and kneeling, and Alexander Henderson the moderator, David Calderwood, and
Mr Dickson, were appointed to prepare the draught of a directory for
public worship. It had, we are informed, the effect of quieting the
spirits of the discontented. This is the only public transaction in which
we find him employed while he remained at Glasgow.
The remaining events in Mr
Dickson’s life may be soon enumerated. In 1650, he was appointed
professor of divinity in the university of Edinburgh, where he dictated in
Latin to his students, what has since been published in English, under the
title of "Truth’s victory over Error." Mr Wodrow mentions,
that the greater part of the ministers in the west, south, and east of
Scotland, had been educated under him, either at Glasgow or Edinburgh.
There Mr Dickson continued till the Restoration, when he was ejected for
refusing to take the oath of supremacy. The great change which took place
so rapidly in the ecclesiastical establishment of the country, preyed upon
him, and undermined his constitution.
His last illness is thus
noticed by Wodrow. "In Decemuber, 1662, he felt extremely weak. Mr
John Livingston, now suffering for the same cause with him, and under a
sentence of banishment for refusing the foresaid oath, came to visit Mr
Dickson on his death-bed. They had been intimate friends near fifty years,
and now rejoiced together, as fellow confessors. When Mr Livingston asked
the professor how he found himself, his answer was, ‘I have taken all my
good deeds and all my bad deeds, and cast them through each other in a
heap before the Lord, and fled from both, and betaken myself to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace.’ Mr Dickson’s youngest
son gave my informer, a worthy minister yet alive, this account of his
father’s death. Having been very weak and low for some days, he called
all his family together, and spoke in particular to each of them, and when
he had gone through them all, he pronounced the words of apostolical
blessing, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, with much gravity and solemnity, and then put
up his hand, and closed his own eyes, and without any struggle or apparent
pain immediately expired in the arms of his son, my brother’s informer,
[Wodrow’s Memoir of Dickson, p. xiii.] in the year
1663." This period has been noticed by some of our historians as
particularly calamitous. In the course of a few years, when the church
most required their support, the deaths of Dickson, Durham, Baillie,
Ramsay, Rutherford, and many others are recorded. [Law’s Memorialls, p.
13.]
Of Mr. Dickson’s works
the indefatigable Wodrow has given a minute account. By these he is best
known, and it is perhaps the best eulogium that could be pronounced upon
them, that they have stood the test of nearly two hundred years, and are
still highly valued.
His Commentaries on the
Psalms, on the Gospel of St Matthew, on the Epistles, and on that to the
Hebrews, which was printed separately, were the results of a plan formed
among some of the most eminent ministers of the Scottish church of
publishing "short, plain, and practical expositions of the whole
Bible." To the same source we are indebted for some of the works of
Durham, Ferguson, Hutchison, &c., but the plan was never fully carried
into effect, and several of the expositions in Wodrow’s time still
remained in manuscript. Mr Dickson’s Treatise on the Promises, published
at Dublin in 1630, 12mo, is the only other work printed during his life,
with the exception of some ephemeral productions, arising out of the
controversy with the doctors of Aberdeen, and the disputes between the
resolutioners and protesters. A few poems on religious subjects are
mentioned by Wodrow, but they are long since quite forgotten.
Mr Dickson’s "Therapeutica
Sacra, or cases of conscience resolved," has been printed both in
Latin and English. On the 25th of July, 1661, he applied to the
privy council for liberty to publish the English version, and Fairfoul,
afterwards archbishop of Glasgow, was appointed to examine and report upon
it. "Now, indeed," says Wodrow, sarcastically, "the world
was changed in Scotland, when Mr Fairfoul is pitched upon to revise Mr
David Dickson, professor of divinity, his books." What was the result
of this application is not known; it is only certain that no farther
progress was made in the attainment of this object till 1663, after the
author’s death. On the 23d of March that year, his son, Mr Alexander
Dickson, professor of Hebrew at the university of Edinburgh, again applied
to the lords of the council, who in October granted license to print it
without restriction. [History of the suff. of the church of Scotland, ed.
1828.] It was accordingly published in 1664.
The last work which we have
to notice is "Truth’s victory over Error," which was
translated by the eccentric George Sinclair, and published as his own in
1684. What his object in doing so was, Wodrow does not determine, but only
remarks that if (and we think there is no doubt in the matter) it
was "with the poor view of a little glory to himself, it happened to
him as it generally does to self-seeking and private spirited persons even
in this present state." In accordance with the prevailing custom of
the times, many of Mr Dickson’s students had copied his Dictates, and
Sinclair’s trick was soon and easily detected. One of them inserted in
the running title the lines,
"No errors in this book
I see,
But G.S. where D.D. should be."
The first edition, with the author’s
name, was printed at Glasgow, in 1725, and has prefixed to it a memoir of
the author, by Wodrow, to which we have already alluded, and to which we
are indebted for many of the facts mentioned in this article. [Wodrow, in
his Analecta, MS. Advocates’ Library, sets down the following
characteristic anecdote of Mr Dickson: "I heard that when Mr David
Dickson came in to see the lady Eglintoune, who at the time had with her
the lady Wigon, Culross, &c., and they all caressed him very much, he
said, ‘Ladies, if all this kindness be to me as Mr David Dickson, I cun
(render) you noe thanks, but if it be to me as a servant of my master, and
for his sake, I take it all weel.’"]
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