ordained assistant minister at Dunfermline. He homologated the protests which his brother laid on the table of the assembly after being rebuked for his synod sermon, but he did not formally withdraw from the establishment till 1737. He was also present, though not as a member, at the first meeting of the associate presbytery. When the severance took place on account of the oath administered to burgesses, he adhered, along with his brother, to the burgher section. He died after a short illness on the 6th of November 1752.
His works consist of sermons, poetical paraphrases and gospel sonnets. The Gospel Sonnets have frequently appeared separately. His Life and Diary, edited by the Rev. D. Fraser, was published in 1842.
ERSKINE, THOMAS, of Linlathen (1788–1870), Scottish
theologian, youngest son of David Erskine, writer to the signet
in Edinburgh, and of Anne Graham, of the Grahams of Airth,
was born on the 13th of October 1788. He was a descendant of
John, 1st or 6th earl of Mar, regent of Scotland in the reign of
James VI., a grandson of Colonel John Erskine of Carnock.
After being educated at the high school of Edinburgh and at
Durham, he attended the literary and law classes at the university
of Edinburgh, and becoming in 1810 a member of the Edinburgh
faculty of advocates, he for some time enjoyed the intimate
acquaintance of Cockburn, Jeffrey, Scott and other distinguished
men whose talent then lent lustre to the Scottish bar. In 1816
he succeeded to the family estate of Linlathen, near Dundee, and
devoted himself to theology. The writings of Erskine, especially
his published letters, are distinguished by a graceful style, and
possess originality and interest. His theological views have a
considerable similarity to those of Frederick Denison Maurice,
who acknowledges having been indebted to him for his first true
conception of the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice. Erskine had
little interest in the “historical criticism” of Christianity, and
regarded as the only proper criterion of its truth its conformity
or nonconformity with man’s spiritual nature, and its adaptability
or non-adaptability to man’s spiritual needs. He considered
the incarnation of Christ as the necessary manifestation
to man of an eternal sonship in the divine nature, apart from
which those filial qualities which God demands from man could
have no sanction; by faith as used in Scripture he understood
to be meant a certain moral or spiritual activity or energy which
virtually implied salvation, because it implied the existence of
a principle of spiritual life possessed of an immortal power.
This faith, he believed, could be properly awakened only by the
manifestation, through Christ, of love as the law of life, and
as identical with an eternal righteousness which it was God’s
purpose to bestow on every individual soul. As an interpreter
of the mystical side of Calvinism and of the psychological conditions
which correspond with the doctrines of grace Erskine is
unrivalled. During the last thirty-three years of his life Erskine
ceased from literary work. Among his friends were Madame
Vernet, the duchess de Broglie, the younger Mdme de Stael,
M. Vinet of Lausanne, Edward Irving, Frederick D. Maurice,
Dean Stanley, Bishop Ewing, Dr John Brown and Thomas
Carlyle. His wide influence was due to his high character and
unassuming earnestness. He died at Edinburgh on the 20th of
March 1870.
His principal works are Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the Truth of Revealed Religion (1820), an Essay on Faith (1822), and the Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel (1828). These have all passed through several editions, and have also been translated into French. He is also the author of the Brazen Serpent (1831), the Doctrine of Election (1839), several “Introductory Essays” to editions of Christian Authors, and a posthumous work entitled Spiritual Order and Other Papers (1871). Two vols. of his letters, edited by William Hanna, D.D., with reminiscences by Dean Stanley and Principal Shairp, appeared in 1877.
ERSKINE, THOMAS ERSKINE, 1st Baron (1750–1823),
lord chancellor of England, was the third and youngest son of
Henry David, 10th earl of Buchan, and was born in Edinburgh
on the 10th of January 1750. From an early age he showed a
strong desire to enter one of the learned professions; but his
father, owing to his straitened circumstances, was unable to do
more than give him a good school education at the high school
of Edinburgh and the grammar school of St Andrews. In 1764
he was sent as a midshipman on board the “Tartar,” but on
finding, when he returned to this country after four years’
absence in North America and the West Indies, that there was
little immediate chance of his rank of acting lieutenant being
confirmed, he quitted the service and entered the army, purchasing
a commission in the 1st Royals with the meagre patrimony
which had been left to him. But promotion here was as slow as
in the navy; while in 1770 he had added greatly to his difficulties
by marrying the daughter of Daniel Moore, M.P. for Marlow,
an excellent wife, but as poor as himself. However, an accidental
visit to an assize court in the town in which he was quartered,
and an interview with Lord Mansfield, the presiding judge,
confirmed his resolve to quit the army for the law. Accordingly
on the 26th of April 1775 he was admitted a student of Lincoln’s
Inn. He also on the 13th of January following entered himself as
a gentleman commoner on the books of Trinity College, Cambridge,
but merely that by graduating he might be called two
years earlier.
He read in the chambers of Francis Buller (afterwards Mr Justice Buller) and George (afterwards Baron) Wood, and was called to the bar on the 3rd of July 1778. His success was immediate and brilliant. An accident was the means of giving him his first case, Rex v. Baillie, in which he appeared for Captain Thomas Baillie, the lieutenant-governor of Greenwich hospital, who had published a pamphlet animadverting in severe terms upon the abuses which Lord Sandwich, the first lord of the admiralty, had introduced into the management of the hospital, and against whom a rule had been obtained from the court of king’s bench to show cause why a criminal information for libel should not be filed. Erskine was the junior of five counsel; and it was his good fortune that the prolixity of his leaders consumed the whole of the first day, thereby giving the advantage of starting afresh next morning. He made use of this opportunity to deliver a speech of wonderful eloquence, skill and courage, which captivated both the audience and the court. The rule was discharged, and Erskine’s fortune was made. He received, it is said, thirty retainers before he left the court. In 1781 he delivered another remarkable speech, in defence of Lord George Gordon—a speech which gave the death-blow to the doctrine of constructive treason. In 1783, when the Coalition ministry came into power, he was returned to parliament as member for Portsmouth. His first speech in the House of Commons was a failure; and he never in parliamentary debate possessed anything like the influence he had at the bar. He lost his seat at the dissolution in the following year, and remained out of parliament until 1790, when he was again returned for Portsmouth. But his success at the bar continued unimpaired. In 1783 he received a patent of precedence. His first special retainer was in defence of Dr W. D. Shipley, dean of St Asaph, who was tried in 1784 at Shrewsbury for seditious libel—a defence to which was due the passing of the Libel Act 1792, laying down the principle that it is for the jury, and not for the judge to decide the question whether or no a publication is a libel. In 1789 he was counsel for John Stockdale, a bookseller, who was charged with seditious libel in publishing a pamphlet in favour of Warren Hastings, whose trial was then proceeding; and his speech on this occasion, probably his greatest effort, is a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a jury. Three years afterwards he brought down the opposition alike of friends and foes by defending Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man—holding that an advocate has no right, by refusing a brief, to convert himself into a judge. As a consequence he lost the office of attorney-general to the prince of Wales, to which he had been appointed in 1786; the prince, however, subsequently made amends by making him his chancellor. Among Erskine’s later speeches may be mentioned those for Horne Tooke and the other advocates of parliamentary reform, and that for James Hadfield, who was accused of shooting at the king. On the accession of the Grenville ministry in 1806 he was made lord chancellor, an office for which his training had in no way prepared him, but which he fortunately held only during the short period his party was in
