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ERSKINE, RALPH, the well
known author of Gospel Sonnets, and other highly esteemed writings, was a
young son of Henry Erskine, some time minister of Cornhill, in
Northumberland, and, after the revolution, at Chirnside, Berwickshire, and
was born at Monilaws, in Northumberland, on the eighteenth day of March,
1685. Of his childhood, little has been recorded, but that he was thoughtful
and pious, and was most probably by his parents devoted to the work of the
ministry from his earliest years. Of his earlier studies, we know nothing.
Like his brother Ebenezer, he probably learned his letters under the
immediate eye of his father, and like his brother, he went through a regular
course of study in the University of Edinburgh. During the latter years of
his studentship, he resided as tutor and chaplain in the house of Colonel
Erskine, near Culross, where he was gratified with the evangelical
preaching, and very often the edifying conversation of the Rev. Mr Cuthbert,
then minister of Culross. He had here also frequent opportunities of
visiting his brother Ebenezer, but, though younger in years and less
liberally endowed with the gifts of nature, he was a more advanced scholar
in the school of Christ, and his brother, if we may believe his own report,
was more benefited by him than he was by his brother. Residing within its
bounds, he was, by the presbytery of Dunfermline, licensed as a preacher on
the eighth day of June, 1709. He continued to be a probationer nearly two
years, a somewhat lengthened period in the then desolate state of the
church, when the field, at least, was large, whatever might be the harvest,
and the labourers literally few. At length, however, he received a unanimous
call from the parish of Dunfermline, to serve as colleague and successor to
the Rev Mr Buchanan, which he accepted, and to which he was ordained in the
month of August, 1711, his friend Mr Cuthbert of Culross, presiding on the
occasion. In common with all the churches of the reformation, the church of
Scotland was from her earliest dawn of returning light, distinguished for
her attachment to the doctrines of grace. There, as elsewhere, it was the
doctrine of grace in giving thorough righteousness unto eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord, preached in its purity, freedom, and fullness, by
Hamilton, Wishart, and Knox, which shook from his firm base the dagon of
idolatry, and levelled the iron towers of papal superstition with the dust,
and it was in the faith of the same doctrines that the illustrious list of
martyrs and confessors under the two Charleses, and the Jameses sixth and
seventh, endured such a great fight of affliction and resisted unto blood,
striving against sin. At the happy deliverance from the iron yoke of
persecution through the instrumentality of William, prince of Orange, in the
year 1688, the ecclesiastical constitution of the country was happily
restored with the whole system of doctrine entire. When her scattered
ministry began to be assembled, however, it was found that the sword of
persecution, or the scythe of time, had cut off the chief of her strength.
The few that had escaped were men, generally speaking, of inferior
attainments. Some of them had been protected purely by their insignificancy
of character, some by compliances, real or affected, with the system of
prelacy, and not a few of them had actually officiated as the bishops’
underlings, but for the sake of the benefice were induced to transfer their
respect and obedience from the bishop to the presbytery, and to sign the
Confession of Faith as a proof of their sincerity. This was the more
unfortunate that there was among them no commanding spirit, who, imbued with
the love of truth, and living under the powers of the world to come, might
have breathed through the body an amalgamating influence, and have
insensibly assimilated the whole into its own likeness. So far from this,
their leading men, under the direction of the courtly Carstairs, were
chiefly busied in breaking down to the level of plain worldly policy any
thing that bore the shape of really disinterested feeling, and regulating
the pulse of piety by the newly graduated scale of the court thermometer. In
consequence of this state of matters, there was less attention paid, both to
doctrine and discipline than might have been expected; and even with the
better and more serious part of the clergy, considerable confusion of ideas
on the great subject of the gospel, with no inconsiderable portion of
legalism, were prevalent. A spirit of inquiry was, however, at this time
awakened, and the diffusion of Trail’s works, with the works of some of the
more eminent of the English nonconformists, had a powerful effect in
correcting and enlarging the views of not a few of the Scottish clergy,
among whom, was the subject of this memoir, who, from a very early period of
life, seems to have felt strongly, and apprehended clearly, the great scheme
of the gospel. Mr Ralph Erskine had been a most diligent student, and had
made very considerable progress in the different branches of science, which
were commonly studied at that time, but among his people he determined to
know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Having been exercised to
godliness from his earliest years, he, by the grace of God, manifested
himself to be a scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, bringing forth
out of his treasures things new and old. He continued to be a hard student
even to his old age, generally writing out his sermons in full, and for the
most part in the delivery, keeping pretty close to what he had written. For
the pulpit, he possessed excellent talents, having a pleasant voice and an
agreeable winning manner. He peculiarly excelled in the full and free offers
of Christ which he made to his hearers, and in the persuasive and winning
manner in which he urged their acceptance of the offer so graciously made to
them on the authority of the divine word. He possessed also, from his own
varied and extensive experience, a great knowledge of the human heart, and
had a singular gift of speaking to the varied circumstances of his hearers,
which rendered him more than ordinarily popular. On sacramental occasions,
he was always waited upon by large audiences, who listened to his discourses
with more than ordinary earnestness. During his incumbency, Dunfermline, at
the time of dispensing the sacrament was crowded by strangers from all parts
of the kingdom, many of whom, to the day of their death, spoke with
transport of the enlargement of heart they had there experienced. To all the
other duties of the ministry he was equally attentive as to those of the
pulpit. His diligence in exhorting from house to house was most unwearied,
his diets of public catechising, regular; and he was never wanting at the
side of the sick bed when his presence was desired. Ardently attached to
divine truth, he was on all occasions its dauntless advocate. In the case of
professor Simpson, he stood up manfully for the regular exercise of
discipline, both in his first and second process; and in the case of the
Marrow, had his own share of the toil, trouble, and opprobrium cast upon the
few ministers who at that time had the hardihood to make an open appearance
for the genuine faith of the Gospel. Before the commencement of the
secession, he was engaged, along with his copresbyters of the presbytery of
Dunfermline, in a dispute with the general assembly, in behalf of the
liberties of the presbyterian church of Scotland, in which, however, they
failed. This was in the case of Mr Stark, who had been most shamefully
intruded upon the burgh and parish of Kinross, and whom, in consequence, the
presbytery of Dunfermline refused to admit as one of their members. The case
was brought before the assembly, 1732, and summarily decided by ordering the
presbytery to assemble immediately, and enrol Mr Stark as one of their
members, give him the right hand of fellowship, and by all means in their
power, to strengthen his hands, and hold him up against the opposition that
was raised against him by the parish, under the pain of being visited with
the church’s highest displeasure. Against this decision, protests were
offered by Mr Ralph Erskine and others, but they were peremptorily refused.
Another act of the same assembly became the ostensible cause of the
secession. In this controversy, however, Mr Ralph Erskine had no share,
farther than that he adhered to the protests that were offered in behalf of
the four brethren who carried it on, took their part on all occasions,
attended many of their meetings, and maintained the closest communion with
them, both christian and ministerial; but he did not withdraw from the
judicatures of the established church, till the month of February, 1737,
when seeing no hope of any reformation in that quarter, he gave in a
declaration of secession to the presbytery of Dunfermline, and joined the
associate presbytery.
The fame of Mr Ralph Erskine was
now, by his taking part with the secession, considerably extended; for the
circumstances attending it were making a great noise in every corner of the
country. It particularly attracted the notice of Wesley and Whitefield, who at
this time were laying the foundations of Methodism in England. The latter of
these gentlemen entered shortly after this period into correspondence with Mr
Ralph Erskine, in consequence of which he came to Scotland, paid a visit to him,
and preached the first sermon he delivered in this country from that gentleman’s
pulpit in Dunfermline. The professed object of Mr Whitefield was the same as
that of the secession, namely, the reformation of the church, and the promoting
of the interests of holiness; and one mode of doing so he held in common with
seceders, which was the preaching of the doctrines of the cross; in every thing
else they were directly opposed to each other. Equally or even more decidedly
attached to the doctrines of free grace, the seceders considered the settlement
of nations and churches as of the last importance for preserving, promoting, and
perpetuating true and undefiled religion. Nations, in consequence of the
baptismal engagements of the individuals of which they may be composed, they
held to be under indispensible obligations to make a national profession of
religion; to cause that all their laws be made to accord with its spirit, and to
provide for the due celebration of all its ordinances. Oaths, bonds, and civil
associations, they held to be, in their own proper places, legitimate means of
attaining, promoting, and preserving reformation. Hence they maintained the
inviolable obligations of the national covenant of Scotland, and of the solemn
league and covenant of the three kingdoms, and issued their testimony as a
declaration for the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the church
of Scotland. Of all these matters, Whitefield was utterly ignorant, and utterly
careless. He had received priest’s orders in the English church, and had sworn
the oath of supremacy, which one would suppose a pretty strong declaration of
his being episcopal in his views. Of government in the church, however, he made
little account, for he wandered about from land to land, acknowledging no
superior, and seems to have regarded all the forms in which christianity has
been embodied with equal favour, or rather, perhaps, with equal contempt. Of
course, Mr Whitefield and Mr Erskine had no sooner met, and begun to explain
their views, than they were mutually disgusted, and they parted in a manner
which we think, has left no credit to either of the parties.
The associate presbytery was at
this time preparing for what they considered the practical completion of their
testimony, the renewal of the national covenants, in a bond suited to their
circumstances, which they did at Stirling, in the month of December, 1743; Mr
Ralph Erskine being the second name that was subscribed to the bond. The
swearing of this bond necessarily introduced the discussion of the religious
clause of some burgess oaths, which led to a breach in the secession body, an
account of which the reader will find in a previous article (the life of
Ebenezer Erskine). In this controversy Mr Ralph Erskine took a decided part,
being a violent advocate for the lawfulness of the oath. He, however, did not
long survive that unhappy rupture, being seized with a nervous fever, of which
he died after eight days’ illness, on the 6th of November, 1752,
being in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the forty-second of his ministry.
Mr Ralph Erskine was twice
married; first, to Margaret Dewar, daughter to the laird of Lassodie, who
died in the month of November, 1730; having lived with him sixteen years, and
born him ten children. He married, secondly, Margaret Simpson, daughter to Mr
Simpson, writer to the signet, Edinburgh, who bore him four children, and
survived him several years. Three of his sons lived to be ministers of the
secession church, but they all died in the prime of life, to the grief of their
relatives and friends, who had formed the highest expectations of their future
usefulness.
Of the character of Mr Ralph
Erskine there can be, and, in fact, we believe there is, but one opinion. Few
greater names belong to the church of Scotland, of which, notwithstanding of his
secession, he considered himself, and must by every fair and impartial man, be
considered to have been a most dutiful son to the day of his death. During the
days of Ralph Erskine, dissenterism was a name and thing unknown in the
secession. Seceders had dissented from some unconstitutional acts of the
judicature of the established church, and were compelled to secede, but they
held fast her whole constitution, entered their appeal to her first free and
reforming assembly, to which every genuine seceder long looked forward with deep
anxiety, ready to plead his cause before it, and willing to stand or fall by its
judgment. Of Mr Ralph Erskine’s writings, it is scarcely necessary to speak, any
more than of his character. They have already, several of them, stood a century
of criticism, and are just as much valued by pious and discerning readers, as
they were on the day when they were first published. Models of composition they
are not, nor do we believe that they ever were; but they are rich with the ore
of divine truth, and contain many passages that are uncommonly vigorous and
happy. Of his poetical works we have not room to say much; some of them are all
that the author intended, which is more than can be said of many poetical
productions that have a much higher reputation in the world. His Gospel Sonnets,
by far the best of his poems, he composed when he had but newly entered on his
ministry, as a compend of the scheme of the gospel, and we know few books that
in a smaller compass contain one more perfect. The composition is very homely,
but it is just so much better fitted for the serious and not highly instructed
reader whose benefit alone the author had in view. Of his versions of the Song
of Solomon, of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and of the Book of Job, it must be
admitted that they are utterly unworthy of the gloriously divine originals; but
it ought to be remembered, that he was put upon these labours by the urgency of
his brethren, with a view to their being added to the psalmody, and that in this
case, plainness and simplicity has always been aimed at, to a degree bordering
on the bold, not to say the profane. Nor are these attempts, after all, beneath
several of the same kind by the greatest names in English poetry. |
