George Lawson of Selkirk. IX: Gathered to his Fathers.

George Lawson served his generation and his church as a minister, a writer and a theological professor. He criticised Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Old Mortality’ for its insult to the Covenanters, and he preached before crowned heads. But at last his flesh failed, worn down by the hard work of his pastorate and theological college. His last sermon was on the death of George III and his text ‘I have said, ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.’ He had to be carried from the manse to the church to preach it, and it was obvious to all that he was preaching his own funeral sermon as well as that of the king. A few days later his soul passed into the presence of God.
As he lay dying one of his sons said to him, “Dearest father, what is the ground of your hope and comfort in this trying hour?”
“All my hope, and all my comfort spring out of the mercy of God, as manifested in the mediation of Christ Jesus. Here are my only stay, and strength, and consolation.”
Someone referred to his useful life, but ‘the Doctor’ shook his head.
No, no; had I been such a man as Mr. Brown of Haddington, or Mr. Johnstone of Ecclefechan [his one-time classics tutor before university], I wouldf have done far more good. I have done little, very little.”
One by one he called his family, blessed them and said farewell. At last he lifted up his hands and said weakly, “The Lord bless you all.” His final words were, “Lord, take me to paradise.” The prayer was answered.

Lawson’s influence lives on in his books, which have been highly valued in the past and are still valued today by discerning readers. Spurgeon writes of Lawson’s ‘Life of Joseph’: “Dr. Lawson had a fertile mind, and a heart alive both to the human and divine side of truth. He writes with pleasing simplicity of style. One of the highest compliments to this book is found in the fact that a distinguished American scholar [Dr. George Bush of New York, no relation to the President (that we know of). The book in question is Bush’s ‘Commentary on Genesis’ which is largely plagirised from Lawson’s ‘Joseph and Andrew Fuller’s commentary on Genesis. This note is included as Bush’s book has been reprinted in the 20th century. Do not buy or read Bush’s commentary. Buy and read Lawson and Fuller - H.H.] issued much of it as his own.” (‘Commenting and Commentaries’ (London, Passmore and Alabaster, 1885) P. 54)

[Note on sources:
J.H. Leckie, ‘Secession Memories’ (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1926). A personal reflection on the United Presbyterian Church by a theological liberal. Despite the theological reflections a good enough book.
Jabez Marrat, ‘Northern Lights: Pen and Pencil Sketches of Modern Scottish Worthies” (Third edition, London, T. Woolmer, 1885). Contains a good biographical sketch of Lawson. Evangelical
C.H. Spurgeon: ‘Commenting and Commentaries’ (London, Passmore and Alabaster, 1885). Remarks on commentaries by both Lawson and Brown of Broughton Place. No Reformed reader should be without this book.
David Woodside, ‘The Soul of a Scottish Church’ (Edinburgh, United Free Church, no date). More of an official publication than Leckie, so not so theologically outspoken. Subtitled ‘The Contribution of the United Presbyterian Church to Scottish life.” Not a history as such, but contains historical matter, including a valuable section on ministerial training.

George Lawson of Selkirk. VIII: ‘The Doctor’

Dr. Lawson was a beloved professor, not just because he did not keep up Brown of Haddington’s custom of visiting students between six and eight in the morning to ensure that they rose early (he carried a stick and was not afraid to prod sleeping students with it). His influence on students was great and there was a clannishness about ‘Selkirk men’ for many years in the denomination. They would meet together to talk about Lawson and ‘Selkirk days’. ‘The Doctor’s’ godliness and good-humour won him the love and respect of his students.
Perhaps the best known of Lawson’s students is John Brown of Broughton Place, Edinburgh, author of many well-known commentaries published by the Banner of Truth Trust. The grandson of John Brown of Haddington, he had been blessed with advantages his gandfather had not. Unhappily he had developed a taste for the flamboyant and metaphysical in preaching, imagining that this would win him acclaim. After one of his ‘class sermons’ he was severely criticised by the other students and by a vising minister. In an interview with ‘the Doctor’ in his study that night Brown confessed that he had deserved all the criticism.
“Yes,” Dr. Lawson agreed, “I fear you have, and if I had gone into criticism I might have been more severe; but, John, we have both good reason to look well to our work, for if you come short in anything, every one will say, how much better you would have turned out if you had studied under your grandfather.”
The faithful admonition was not lost on young Brown, and he learned to preach so that ‘the common people heard him gladly.’ Spurgeon would write of him, “He is a great expositor,” and, “Brown is a modern Puritan. All his expositions are of the utmost value.” Remember, then, as you read Brown’s ‘Discourses and Sayings of Our Lord,’ his ‘Galatians’, his ‘Hebrews’, his ‘Romans’, or any other book of his, that Lawson of Selkirk’s faithful expostulation made Brown of Broughton Place what he was.

George Lawson of Selkirk. VII: The Pastor of Pastors

When John Brown of Haddington died in 1787 the Synod’s choice for a successor fell on Brown’s old student, Lawson of Selkirk. It was a good choice, since Lawson was a kindred spirit to Brown. John Cairns wrote of Lawson: “So wonderful was his memory that he could nearly have reproduced the English Bible, on which he habitually lectured [old Scots term for expository preaching, H.H.] to his congregation with the book shut. He had also by heart large portions both of Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, as well as of the classics. He had studied the Fathers more as a divine of the seventeenth century that of the eighteenth, and his range of information in modern divinity and Church history was equally extensive.” (Cairns, ‘Memoir of John Brown, D.D.’ P. 33. Quoted by David Woodside, ‘The Soul of a Scottish Church’ (Edinburgh, United Free Church, no date) P. 131). Since Lawson would have to teach every single subject this was just as well!
Selkirk now became a town with a noted college. Every year the good people of the Secession Church put up divinity students in their spare rooms, and the Secession Church became a class-room. Once the church heating broke down and Lawson was forced to use his manse for the classes, a terrible thing as there was no single room large enough. Students sat in several rooms and the professor stood in the hall and lectured. We are not told what Mrs. Lawson and the children thought of that!
Students were also required to preach on week-nights in Lawson’s church (thus giving him more time to prepare for lectures), and as a result they were something of an extension of the Selkirk Secession Church ‘family’. While there must have been several drawbacks to this one-man professoriate this was one of the advantages, as Church and college were joined so closely.
Lawson’s students remembered their time at Selkirk with affection, both the lovely market town and the brilliant, loveable professor, whom they affectionately called ‘the Doctor’ (he had been granted a D.D. from Aberdeen).

Of which more, God willing, next time.

George Lawson of Selkirk. VI: ‘Josiah Cargill’

‘Josiah Cargill’ is the name that Sir Walter Scott gives Lawson in his novel. A close student, sometimes absent-minded, indifferent to the concerns of the house (although in those days it was normal for the wife to be rtesponsible for those), plain and frugal in his lifestyle and not a little careless in his dress, Lawson certainly provided a tempting model for a novelist. Our subject in this post is George Lawson as a 'character.'
A kindly man, he was never more kindly than in his reproofs. On one occasion, soon after his settlement, a member of the congregation said to him that the people were very well pleased with his sermons, but that they did not like the texts. Lawson gave the person a hard look and said: “I should not have wondered if they had found fault with my discourses, but why should they find fault with the Word of God?”
“I do not know, but that’s what they say, and I aye like to speak all my mind.” the busybody replied.
“Do you know what Solomon says of such as you?” the young minister asked.
“No, what does Solomon say?”
“He says, ‘A fool uttereth all his mind.’” was the cutting reply.
On another occasion he was at dinner with a friend where another guest was fond of using the curse ‘the devil take me.’ Dinner had only just begun when Lawson rose and ordered his horse. His friend was puzzled and asked what was the matter.
“That gentleman has been praying pretty often this afternoon that the devil would take him, and as I have no desire to be present when it happens I beg leave to depart.” Lawson explained.
Suffering at another time from poor health, Lawson consulted a noted Edinburgh doctor. The doctor frequently used the Name of God in a profane manner. On leaving Lawson said to him: “Sir, it is written, ‘Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.”
And George Lawson did not hold back when brother ministers were at fault. To one who behaved in a manner that Lawson thought was unseemly he said: “Sir, your predecessor was a grave, good, godly man.”
“You do not mean to insinuate that I am not?”
“I only say emphatically that your predecessor was an eminently godly man,” was all the reply Lawson gave.

So much, then, for George Lawson as a ‘character’. But his character was, as an old writer quaintly puts it, ‘bright as St. Mary’s Loch when the sun shine falls upon it.” He was beloved by all, and known as a scholar. The result of that we shall see, God willing, next time.

George Lawson of Selkirk. V: Pastor in Selkirk

George Lawson took his his pastorate with great earnestness - and he was blessed in it. The second child brought to him for baptism was a little boy, son of the Park family. They named the lad Mungo, and Lawson watched the boy become a man, and the man become a missionary to Africa who brought the Gospel to lands where no European had ever been before. And George Lawson heard at last that the boy he had baptized had laid down his life for the sake of Christ. What minister could have asked for a better ‘first-fruits’ of his ministry?
Lawson could be seen daily making his pastoral visits around the winding streets of Selkirk and in the scattered hill-farms round about. The rest of his time he spent in his study, and his congregation found those hours in the study were as much for them as the hours he spent visiting.
Lawson could also be rather an absent-minded and meditative man, sometimes losing himself in thought. One day in later life he was going out, and his daughter had hung her bonnet on the peg on which he usually hung his hat. Lawson took down the bonnet and put it on! Fortunately for him one of the family spotted the mistake before the people of Selkirk were treated to the sight of the town’s Secession minister walking through the streets with a woman’s bonnet on!
On another occasion the kitchen chimney of his manse caught fire. The servant, understandably alarmed by this, ran into the study yelling that the chinmey was on fire. Lawson looked at her and said sternly: “Go and tell your mistress; you know I have no charge of household matters.” It is said that Sir Walter Scott, whose mansion at Abbotsford was not far from Selkirk and who was a local magistrate who often sat in the noble courthouse in Selkirk’s marketplace, based the character of an eccentric minister in his novel ‘St. Ronan’s Well.’ The cap certainly fits!
He was a great preacher; his books (all of which are really volumes of sermons) are enough evidence of that. But his ability with the Word of God was remarked on in his own day. We shall, God willing, continue with his Selkirk ministry next time.

George Lawson of Selkirk. IV: The Itinerant

George Lawson had finished his theological training and been licenced to preach by his Presbytery. His next step was to seek out a settlement. As it does today, this meant travelling around and preaching in vacant churches. Unlike today, however, when a man travels in the relative comfort of a car, train, ‘bus or coach, in the late 18th century he either had to walk or, if he could afford it, ride a horse.
Lawson was blessed with an industrious and comfortably-off father who gave him a horse to ride. The young preacher’s Bible and other necessities were loaded into saddlebags and Lawson went forth to preach the Gospel. Then, as now, he was provided with free board and lodging for himself and for his horse, and paid a small amount in ‘expenses’; half-a-guinea for each engagement was the amount set by the Synod in those days.
And George Lawson was appreciated. Not only was his conduct such as is becoming to a minister of the Gospel, but his sermons were rich, solid yet transparent. He had a message to deliver and God’s people heard him gladly. He was not the sort of man who could stay unsettled for long.
One of his engagements was in a market town in the Southern Uplands called Selkirk. Then a small town, Selkirk is surrounded by splendid scenery and hallowed by notable associations. It was at Riskinhope Farm at the top of the Loch of the Lowes that the Martyr Renwick preached his last sermon. It was at nearby Ettrick that Thomas Boston had laboured in those barren days before the Great Awakening.
And it was to Selkirk that George Lawson was called. He accepted and was ordained to the pastorate of Selkirk. There he was to spend the rest of his life and ministry until his death in 1820.

Next time, God willing, we shall speak of the opening of the Selkirk ministry.

George Lawson of Selkirk. III: The School of the Prophets

George Lawson entered the Secession Divinity Hall in 1766 while John Swanton was Professor. But Lawson would only sit under Swanton’s instruction for one session, for the Professor died soon after. John Swanton’s last words were: “I would not now return to life for ten thousand worlds; for though my heart and my flesh fail me, ‘God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.’”

The Synod of the church appointed a well-known man, Rev. John Brown of Haddington, as Swanton’s successor. Brown was by any standard a genius. He had struggled against poverty and hardship, teaching himself Greek as he tended the sheep and walking barefoot to St. Andrews for a Greek Testament. John Brown had become one of the greatest scholars of his age, familiar with Latin, Greek and Hebrew and able to read Syriac (Aramaic), Arabic, Persian and Ethiopic. Author of the justly-famed ‘Self-Interpreting Bible’ (responsible for my doing my back in on Friday) and an excellent ‘Systematic Theology’ based on his lectures, Brown was one of the pillars in the denomination.
As was the custom in the Secession the whole Divinity Hall moved to Haddington. There was no building that could be called ‘the Divinity Hall’, it was an institution that was located where the Professor was. The Professor was always a working pastor, an arrangement that ensured that there would be no speculative or dry theology taught in the Hall. What was taught there was historic experimental Calvinism.
Brown believed in discipline. He had himself risen from his humble rank be sheer hard work and he taught his students the value of hard work. He believed that it was important students develop the habit of rising early, and between six and eight in the morning Brown would visit the students in the houses where they were lodging to ensure that they were awake and studying. Any student found in bed would be awoken by a poke delivered with the professor's walking-stick! Stories are told of students sleeping under their beds to avoid this fate. Brown apparently never looked there. Other students, when they heard the professor's tread on the stairs, would spring out of bed and pick up a book so that he would find them apparently hard at work. George Lawson was NOT one of these men - he was always wide awake and studying when the professor made his rounds.
Lawson was immediately attracted to his Professor, who combined a brilliant mind with a deeply Christian heart. The young student drank in the instruction of the great scholar and afterwards John Brown would say that one of the greatest services he had done to his generation was in training George Lawson.

Lawson profited greatly from his theological training, and when the course ended he was sent out a scholar and a preacher.

Next time, God willing, we shall look at Lawson’s entry into the ministry.

George Lawson of Selkirk. II: The Halls of Learning

At the age of fifteen George Lawson entered Edinburgh University. The principal at the time was Dr. Robertson, a noted historian but also the uncrowned head of the ‘Moderate’ (i.e. non-evangelical) party in the Church of Scotland. Although the staff were for the most part of the same stamp there were students there who were evangelical and Lawson found many friends. Chief among them was the godly Michael Bruce whose evagelical fervour found its greatest outflow in poetry. Today he is best known for his contribution to the cause of sacred song in his metrical paraphrase of Isaiah 2.2-6, of which we give the first three verses:

Behold the mountain of the Lord
In latter days shall rise
On mountain tops above the hills,
And draw the wondering eyes.

To this the joyful nations round,
All tribes and tongues shall flow;
Up to the hill of God, they’ll say,
And to His house we’ll go.

The beam that shines from Zion’s hill
Shall lighten every land;
The King who reigns in Salem’s towers
Shall all the world command.

Not that Michael Bruce intended to be a poet. Fasr from it, like a later student at Edinburgh, Robert Murray M'Cheyne, he had a longing to see Scotland made once again 'like the garden of the Lord'. Like Lawson Bruce intended to become a minister, but it was not so intended. He dies of Tuberculosis before he had completed his Divinity course. Lawson was deeply affected by his friend’s triumph in death and he saw that a true faith in Christ had to hold up in sickness and death and in the face of God’s frustrating a man’s best and holiest desires.

In the summer of 1766 Lawson entered the Divinity Hall of his own denomination, which at the time was located in Kinross, in the church of Rev. John Swanton, who was both principal and sole professor of the Hall. George Lawson was determined, by God’s will, to enter the Secession ministry and to do what God had not allowed Bruce to do, to teach Scotland the Gospel again.

And his preparations for that work will be, God willing, our subject next time.

George Lawson of Selkirk. I: A Godly heritage

Today the lowlands of Scotland have a reputation for barrenness as far as the Gospel is concerned, yet in the past the situation was far otherwise. Thomas Boston and the Covenanters all hailed from south of Edinburgh. Our subject in this series will be, God willing, another of these lowland worthies, George Lawson (popularly called ‘of Selkirk’). Lawson is known today by such volumes as his Life of Joseph and his Esther. A great reformed preacher it is fitting that today he is remembered for books that began as volumes of sermons.
George Lawson was born in 1749 at the small farm of Boghouse in Peebleshire, the son of a hard-working farmer and carpenter who had by his industry secured himself a noble reputation. Better, he and his wife were devout Christians, members of the West Linton Secession congregation. They pertook of the spirit that animated Knox in his stand against Queen Mary, and that led the Covenanters to die for ‘the Crown Rights of King Jesus’. The deadening ‘Moderatism’ of the Church of Scotland had driven them forth from the parish Kirk to seek Christ elsewhere. And they found him among the hardy folk of the Secession, the party of Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine. Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day they were to be found in the humble edifice in East Linton, and each day of hard labour on the farm was sanctified and sweetened by prayer and praise.
Young George Lawson was early brought to the little church to be baptised and dedicated to God, and his parents took their responsibility seriously. He learned true religion, and the theology of Owen, Manton and Boston. His father and his friends loved to talk about ‘the deep things of God’, and young George listened intensely. Nor weas his early education neglected. By his industry Mr. Lawson was able to employ a young man called Johnson, a future Secession minister, as a private tutor to teach young George the classics. George Lawson loved his tutor, and to the end of their days they kept up a warm friendship.

And then the day came around when young George must go to university - but more of that, God willing, next time.