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Significant Scots
George Logan |
LOGAN, GEORGE, chiefly celebrated as the
controversial opponent of Ruddiman, was born in the year 1678, and is
supposed to have been the son of George Logan, a descendant of the family of
Logan of Logan, in Ayrshire, who married Miss Cunningham, a daughter of the
clergyman of Old Cumnock, and sister to Mr Alexander Cunningham, professor
of civil law in the university of Edinburgh, towards the latter end of the
16th century. [Chalmers’ Life of Ruddiman, 190.] George Logan was
educated at the university of Glasgow, of which he entered the Greek class
in 1693, and became a master of arts in 1696. Being destined for the church,
he was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Glasgow about the year
1702, and on the 7th of April, 1707, he was ordained a minister by the same
presbytery, in pursuance of a popular call to the parish of Lauder, the
ministry of which he obtained in preference to two other candidates, Mr
Stephen Oliver and Mr George Hall. He remained at Lauder until the 22nd
January, 1719, when, in consequence of another call, which was unanimous on
the part of the parishioners, he was appointed to the ministry of Sprouston,
in the presbytery of Kelso. A second time inducements were held forth, which
prompted him to change his sphere of duty, and on the 22nd January, 1722, he
was inducted as minister of Dunbar. Here he married his first wife, the
sister of Sir Alexander Home of Eccles in the Merse, a lady who left him a
son and daughter, both of whom survived him. His ministry appears to have
secured much popularity, for advancement was again held forth to him; and on
the 14th December, 1732, he was admitted one of the ministers of Edinburgh.
He whose fame and fortune had been so much advanced by the popular voice,
now published a treatise "On the Right of Electing Ministers," and it may
safely be presumed, that the libera1 opinions thus commenced and continued
through the rest of his life, were at least fostered by the influence which
the exercise of a popular right had produced on his own fortune. It is
probable that this tract was published just before his appointment to the
charge in Edinburgh, being dated in the same year. When the act for bringing
to punishment those connected with the Porteous mob, in 1736, was ordered to
be read in all the churches, on the last Sunday of every month during a
year, "all the ministers," says Mr Chalmers, rather enigmatically, "did not
think with Logan that the will of the legislature ought, on this occasion,
to be obeyed. And he was carried, by the activity of his temper, into a
contest, in 1737, with the Rev. Dr Alexander Webster, one of the ministers
of Edinburgh, on the propriety of refusing obedience to an act of
parliament, in a point wherein it is not easy to perceive how either
conscience or religion could be concerned." On the 8th of May, 1740, Logan
was appointed moderator of the general assembly. During the occupation of
Edinburgh by the Highlanders, in 1745, Logan, in common with most of the
other ministers of Edinburgh, thought it prudent to secure his personal
safety by quitting the town. His house, being near the weigh-house, where
the Highlanders had a guard to prevent communication between the city and
castle, was occupied by them as a guard-house. After their retirement, he
inserted in the newspapers an advertisement for the recovery of some
articles abstracted by his late guests, a document containing more satire
upon the tory party than his political pamphlets. His controversy with
Ruddiman originated in the edition of Buchanan’s works, edited by that
eminent scholar in 1715. He had become a member of a society of critics,
whose ostensible purpose was to rescue the memory of Buchanan from the
prejudicial opinions of his editor, but whose labours, though they appear to
have reached a considerable extent of matter, were never published. In 1746,
Logan published "A Treatise on Government: showing that the right of the
kings of Scotland to the crown was not strictly and absolutely hereditary;"
and, in 1747, he subjoined "A Second Treatise on Government, showing that
the right to the crown of Scotland was not hereditary in the sense of
Jacobites." The first answer he received was in an anonymous letter, written
in a spirit of airy ridicule, and in July, 1747, appeared the graver
discussion of the grounds of his opinions by Ruddiman. Logan, in company
with many men who have supported liberal and enlightened political
sentiments, had the misfortune to be more anxious to establish them on
historical precedent, than on their native merits, and the history of
Scotland was peculiarly barren in ascertained facts for such a purpose. His
principles appear to have been somewhat akin to those of Grotius, which
admitted nothing in hereditary right but a continuation to the descendants
of the permission given to their ancestor to govern. To show that the crown
of Scotland did not descend through the Stewarts in a pure legitimate
stream, he discussed the well-known subject of the legitimacy of Robert
III., and the question, certainly at one time debateable, whether the
Pretender was or was not the son of James II. The former of these points has
now been pretty satisfactorily established by the labours of Innes, Hay,
Stewart, and Ruddiman, and the latter is no longer a matter of doubt. But
Logan is accused of having gone to other and more frail sources; a fabulous
list of kings had been added to the number of the tenants of the Scottish
throne, by Boece and the other early chroniclers. Buchanan, if he did not
know the list to be fabricated, knew the circumstances of the lives of these
persons to rest on so unstable a foundation, that he found himself enabled
to twist their characters to his theories. On the events connected with the
reigns of these persons, Logan likewise comments; but after having done so,
turning to the writings of Innes and Stillingfleet, he remarked—"But I shall
be so good as to yield it to Lloyd, Stillingfleet, and Innes: but then let
our Scottish Jacobites and the young chevalier give over their boasting of
hereditary succession by a longer race of kings in Scotland than in any
kingdom in the known world." [First Treatise, 50.] Ruddiman employed his
usual labour in clearing the questions about Robert III. and the birth of
the Pretender; but in another point—the wish to prove that Robert the Bruce
was a nearer heir to the Scottish crown by feudal usages than John Baliol—he
failed. Chalmers, who can see neither talent nor honesty in Logan, and no
defect in Ruddiman, observes, that "it required not, indeed, the vigour of
Ruddiman to overthrow the weakness of Logan, who laid the foundations of the
government which he affected, either on the wild fables of Boece, or on the
more despicable fallacies of Buchanan;" but the fables, which were
satirically noticed by Logan, were subjects of serious consideration to the
grave critic. Ruddiman brings against his opponent the charge, frequently
made on such occasions, of "despising dominions, speaking evil of dignities,
and throwing out railing accusations against kings, though the archangel
Michael durst not bring one against the devil himself, whom our author, I
hope, will allow to be worse than the worst of our kings." [Ruddiman’s
Answer, 27.] This was, at least, in some degree, complimentary to Logan, and
the critic, proceeding, tries to preserve, for the ancestors of Charles II.,
both their length of line and their virtues, and is anxious to show that, at
least, such as cannot be easily saved from the censures of Buchanan and
Logan, were not lineal ancestors of the great Charles II. In point of
philosophy, Ruddiman’s work cannot well be compared with the several
pamphlets of Logan, although even the arguments of the latter against divine
right, would now be considered too serious and uncalled for, by any power of
defence. The different pamphlets will be found accurately enumerated in "Chalmers’s
Life of Ruddiman." Logan was the more restless and determined of the two,
and continued his attacks until 1749, when both had reached a period of life
fitted for more peaceful pursuits. Logan died at Edinburgh on the 13th of
October, 1755, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. |
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