BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Lawson’s prayer and homily-a proceeding which was prevented by Mr. Erskine
withdrawing the appeal.’
Mr. Lawson again appeared in the Assembly in 1779, as appellant from a
sentence of the Presbytery of the 4th of May of that year, when the Assembly
“ remitted the cause to the Presbytery, and appointed them to take Mr. Lawson
on trials before the meeting of next Assembly ; and in case any objections are
offered to his discourses, or to his conduct, they shall give him an opportunity
of being heard on these objections before passing any judgment upon them.”
This remit did not benefit Mr. Lawson ; and in the next Assembly he again
appeared as a ‘‘ persevering petitioner” against the Presbytery of Auchterarder.
In this new petition he complains that on ad of February 1780 the Presbytery
prescribed to him a homily on a passage in Matthew, which the petitioner
delivered on the 4th of April, and upon which the Presbytery did not give
judgment, but prescribed to him another portion of Scripture for a lecture.
The lecture he also delivered on the 25th of April, when the Presbytery again,
without giving judgment, prescribed another portion of Scripture for an
exercise and addition ; but being thus (‘ exercised” out of all patience, the student
once more claimed the protection of the Supreme Court. On hearing the petition
the Assembly appointed a committee to meet with the parties, with the
view of an amicable adjustment, and afterwards ‘‘ remitted to the hesbytery to
proceed to the remainder of Mr. Lawson’s trials, to finish the same, and pronounce
their final judgment thereon, between and the first Wednesday of May
next.”
The Presbytery, thus pushed to extremities, had no resource but to pronounce
a final opinion, which was done within the period assigned ; and we need
scarcely add, after what had passed, that it was condemnatory of the petitioner.
On the meeting of the Assembly in 1781, the committee which had been
appointed to consider Mr. Lawson’s discourses gave in a report (to which the
Assembly agreed) of the following tenor :-“ Edinburgh, May 31, 1781.-The
committee report that having heard three of Mr. Lawson’s discoumes, and a
letter of his to the Presbytery of Auchterarder, in answer to a question of the
Presbytery put to him respecting his communicating, they found in the
discourses such proofs of incapacity, and, in the letter such a spirit, as in their
unanimous opinion fully justified the sentence of the Presbytery refusing to
grant him a license.” The Rev. Mr. Cowan of Glndsmuir dissented from this
judgment of the Assembly.
The final result certainly exonerates the Presbytery from all other blame,
excepting that of having unnecessarily delayed a decision for so long a period.
This proceeding on the part of his counsel certainly creates a strong presuniption that, although
the Presbytery might originally have erred in postponing consideration of the claim, the latter remit
of Mr. Lawson to his trials was a very proper one. If the prayer and homily were unexceptionable,
why not have submitted them to the consideration of the Assenibly ! In that case, after considering
these productions, had the members of that venerable court been satisfied of his fitness for the
ministry, the sentence complained of would have been reversed.