The Reverend George Lawson | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born | 13 Mar 1749 |
Died | 21 Feb 1820 |
Nationality | Scottish |
Denomination | |
Occupation | Minister |
George Lawson D.D. (1749–1820) was a Scottish minister of the Secession Church, known as a biblical scholar. Thomas Carlyle, in an 1870 letter to Lawson's biographer John Macfarlane, called him "a most superlative steel-grey Scottish peasant (and Scottish Socrates of the period)".[1]
Born at the farm of Boghouse, in the parish of West Linton, Peeblesshire, on 13 March 1749, he was the second son of Charles Lawson, a farmer and carpenter, and his wife Margaret Noble: he was the only one of six sons who survived childhood. His father taught George, who was studious. His parents then sent him to John Johnston(e), Secession Church minister at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire.[2]
Lawson went to the University of Edinburgh, and later studied divinity under John Swanston of Kinross, and John Brown of Haddington, successive professors of theology in the Associate Secession (Burgher) church. At age 21 he was licensed as a preacher, and receiving a call from the congregation of Burgher seceders at Selkirk, was ordained their pastor on 17 April 1771. Mungo Park was one of his congregation.[2]
Belying his wide reading, Lawson preached extempore with facility and simplicity. On the death of Brown, Lawson was chosen his successor in the Burgher chair of theology (2 May 1787). He held it until his death on 21 February 1820. In 1806 the University of Aberdeen conferred on him the degree of D.D. His habit of life was simple; he was absent-minded, and was said to have forgotten the day fixed for his marriage.[2]
The Divinity Hall at Selkirk was an institution rather than a building, in that students lived in lodging, and lectures took place in the church and manse.[3] Annual theology courses ran for two months (nine weeks), during university vacations, and required five such courses to cover the syllabus. The lectures involved close reading of Bible passages in the original Hebrew and Greek.[4] Students taught there by Lawson included (chronological list):
Lawson's major works published in his lifetime were:[2]
After his death were published:[2]
Lawson knew the Scriptures by heart, and much of them in Hebrew and Greek. He left at his death some 80 large volumes in manuscript, forming a commentary on the Bible. He contributed articles to the Christian Repository, a Burgher church evangelical periodical started in London in 1815; and other papers appeared in the United Secession Magazine.[2]
Lawson married, first, Miss Roger, the daughter of a Selkirk banker, who died within a year of the marriage; and secondly, the daughter of Andrew Moir, his predecessor at Selkirk. She was the widow of the Rev. Alexander Dickson of Berwick.[2][23] They were brought together through James Peddie in Edinburgh.[24] With her Lawson had five daughters and three sons; two of the sons, George and Andrew, were their father's successors at Selkirk.[2]
Lawson is supposed to have been the original of Josiah Cargill in Walter Scott's Saint Ronan's Well.[2]