Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/53

Rh ference 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 plans 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 or 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 December, 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, 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.