MEMOIR OF THE LATE REV. JOHN ERSKINE, D. D. IN exhibiting "biographical sketches of eminent christians” we have hitherto taken into view only such as have been burning and shining lights amongst ourselves; our plan, however, does not restrict us to these, but permits us to take the wide range of the whole christian church. Availing ourselves of this advantage we now present our readers with a memoir of the late Rev. Dr. John Erskine, of Lauriston, near Edinburgh, whose name has long been known among us, and is dear to many in America, who either corresponded, or were personally acquainted with him. We are indebted to the Evangelical Magazine for the memoir.

Ir honourable birth and personal endowments; if amiable manners and extensive benevolence; if early and exemplary piety and unremitted zeal, during a long and laborious life; if any, or all these qualities combined, can give weight and interest to character, Dr. John Erskine must be ranked among the most eminent persons of the age in which he lived.

This excellent man was descended from two of the most ancient houses in the peerage of Scotland; and his nearest relations belong to some of the most distinguished and respectable families of that country. His father, Mr. Erskine of Carnock, who will always be mentioned as a man of superior worth and eminent talents, was an advocate at the Scotch bar; and, for some time, professor of Scotch law in the university of Edinburgh. His " Institutes of the Law of Scotland," in five folio volumes, as a book VOL. II. I i

of authority and of profound information, is well known to have placed his name among lawyers of the first rank.

Dr. Erskine was the eldest son of this respectable man; and will be allowed to have added, in no small degree, to the honour of his family. His noble soul animated a feeble and slender body; and yet, through the goodness of providence to the church, and to the world, he was enabled to sustain many severe shocks of adversity; and was preserved, with his faculties unimpaired, till he had outlived almost all his contemporaries.

His original talents were far beyond the ordinary standard. He was distinguished by the unusual extent and comprehension of his understanding; by the acuteness, the accuracy, and the perspicuity of his reasonings, and by the general clearness and solidity of his judgment.

Dr. Erskine feared God from his earliest youth. Even when at school, though he excelled as a scholar, he had a settled delight in the duties of devotion, and in reading and studying the word of God; and as it points out the tendency of his mind, it is not unimportant to mention, that, in these favourite exercises he was frequently employed, while his class-fellows were engaged in their youthful amusements.

In choosing the ministry of the gospel as the profession in which he was ambitious to employ the talents which God had given him, it was manifest that his motives were of the purest kind; and that he sought not the advantages of this world, but " the profit of many, that they might be saved." This choice did not at first meet the views of some of his respectable relations. They recommended to him the study and profession of the law, as more suitable to his rank in life, and as opening to him a surer prospect of acquiring the distinctions to which it entitled him. To enlarge his stock of knowledge, as well as to gratify their wishes, he submitted to receive an education for the bar; and, there is no doubt, that, from this circumstance, he derived considerable advantages, of which he availed himself through life.

But theology was all along his favourite study. He adhered firmly to his purpose, unshaken by the view of any worldly disadvantage he could sustain by means of it; and when he obtained a license to preach the gospel, which was in 1742, one of the first texts from which he preached, was this, " I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness." He was full of this sentiment, and never departed from it; persuaded, not merely that true religion is the only source of substantial and permanent enjoyment, but that the meanest office

of usefulness in the church of God, is in itself highly honourable; and that, in respect of dignity, of utility, and of personal satisfaction, the ministerial function, rightly discharged, is to be placed above the most splendid secular employments.

He was ordained a minister of the gospel, and became minister of the parish of Kirkintilloch in 1744. In 1753, he was translated to the borough of Culross; and was brought from thence to Edinburgh in 1758, where he was appointed minister of the New Greyfriars church, and afterward of the Old Greyfriars, in conjunction with the celebrated Dr. Robertson, who had been his fellow-student.

At these different places he enjoyed the esteem and affections of his people. They were proud of having a man of his rank, piety, and learning for their minister; and deeply lamented his removal from them. They were delighted and improved by his instructions in public and in private; and the poor and distressed, of every condition, who had been relieved by his charity, or consoled by his sympathy and advice, loved him sincerely; and long after spoke of him with gratitude and respect. His attention to the duties of the pastoral office was exemplary; and such as could not but secure the attachment of a discerning people. He was ever ready to assist them with his counsel: he grudged no time, and declined no labour, that could be employed in their service.

No man had a keener relish for the pleasures of conversation; but in these he did not indulge, considering his time as the pro perty of his hearers. At college he had made great attainments in classical learning; and gave proofs of a capacity formed to excel in the walks either of literature or of science. Through the whole of his life, he retained a fondness for these pleasing studies; but he never suffered his pursuit of them to interfere with employments of a nobler and more important nature. He withdrew from company to his closet, not to enrich his mind with the stores of ancient wisdom, or to extend his fame by productions on subjects of taste and genius, but to edify the church with works of piety, and " to bring forth, out of his treasure, things new and old," for the benefit of them that heard him.

Whilst he faithfully discharged the laborious duties of the ministerial office, he was not negligent of literary studies. They were not permitted to engross much of his time; but they did not pass without a proportionable share of regard. Of this, many proofs might be given. We shall, however, only mention two: the first is, That no books of merit, either on the subject of literature or science, were published, which he did not read; and, that as he obtained the earliest information of the state of knowledge abroad, so many foreigners, of eminence for their piety and learning, were indebted to him for copies of new and valuable British works, of whose existence they often received the first intimation by the arrival of his present. But, besides this fact, we have another evidence of the same truth, equally indubitable, and not less to the doctor's honour; namely, his own publications. Between 1742, the year in which he was licensed, and the year 1798, the year in which his sermons appeared, the literature of Scotland had suffered a complete revolution. In nothing was the change more apparent than in the manner in which the services of the pulpit were conducted. At the former period, sermons abounded with diffuse illustrations; and were disgraced by colloquial phrases, and vulgar provincialisms. In these later years, pulpit composition has attained a dignity and elegance, of which our forefathers had no conception. Whoever, therefore, reads the discourses of Dr. Erskine, which, in purity and energy of style, no less than in precision of thought and originality of sentiment, may challenge a comparison with any contemporary sermons, must be sensible that their author, whose education had been completed sixty years before their publication, must have paid no common attention to literary composition, who could watch the variations of taste, keep pace with its improvements, and adapt his productions to the style of the day. Such must be the inference of every one who examines the work in question. But this conclusion, honourable as it is to his memory, is short of the truth.

To his praise, let it be subjoined, that he did not servilely imitate the refinements of others, or allow himself to be passively borne along with the stream of fashion. His labours contributed to accomplish that revolution to which we have just now alluded, and to form that standard which we admire. He indeed had nobler objects in view than the bare information of the literary taste of his countrymen. But he was not, however, by any means indifferent to this object. In the detached sermons which he printed when a country clergyman, there was a propriety and correctness which had never been exhibited in any religious productions of North-Britain, and which was scarcely surpassed in the English language at that time. His Theological Dissertations, which appeared so early as 1765, contain several masterly disquisitions on some highly interesting branches of divinity. The subjects indeed did not admit a display of eloquence; but throughout the whole, he has shown great soundness of judgment, as well as an intimate acquaintance with the doctrines of the gospel, and history of the christian church.