Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Logan, George

by Gordon Goodwin

LOGAN, GEORGE (1678–1755), controversialist, born in 1678, was son of George Logan of the Ayrshire family, by his wife, a daughter of A. Cunningham, minister of Old Cumnock. He was educated at Glasgow University, and graduated M.A. in 1696. On 4 March 1703 he was licensed as a preacher in the church of Scotland, and became chaplain to John, earl of Lauderdale. He was successively minister of Lauder, Berwickshire, 1707; Sprouston, Roxburghshire, 1718; Dunbar, Haddingtonshire, 1721; and Trinity College Church, Edinburgh, 1732. On 8 May 1740 he was elected by a large majority moderator of the general assembly, and in that capacity solemnly deposed Ebenezer Erskine [q. v.] and seven other seceding brethren a week later. He strenuously supported the Hanoverian accession, and on the approach of the Jacobite army towards Edinburgh in 1745, was a warm but unsuccessful advocate for placing it in a state of defence. During the occupation of the town by the rebels his house near the Castle Hill, whence he had fled, was occupied by them as a guard-house. His views on hereditary right involved him in a lively contest with Thomas Ruddiman, the Earl of Cromarty, Sir George Mackenzie, John Sage, and other prominent Jacobites. He died on 13 Oct. 1755, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He married, first, a sister of Sir Alexander Home of Eccles, by whom he had a son, George, minister of Ormiston, Haddingtonshire, and a daughter. His second wife was Lilias Weir.

In person Logan was ‘a little neat man;’ his capacity was slender, and his writings subjected him to much ridicule (Chalmers, Life of Ruddiman; see, however, Chambers, Eminent Scotsmen, ii. 541). He wrote:

1. ‘An Essay upon Gospel and Legal Preaching,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1723.
2. ‘A modest and humble Inquiry concerning the Right and Power of electing and calling Ministers to vacant Churches,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1732.
3. ‘A Continuation of the Inquiry,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1732.
4. ‘A Vindication of the Inquiry,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1733.
5. ‘An Overture for a right Constitution of the General Assembly, and an Illustration of it,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1736.
6. ‘The Lawfulness and Necessity of Ministers, their reading the Act of Parliament for bringing to Justice the Murderers of Captain John Porteous,’ 12mo, Edinburgh, 1737.
7. ‘A Treatise on Government: shewing that the right of the Kings of Scotland to the Crown was not strictly … hereditary,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1746, which was answered by Ruddiman.
8. ‘A Second Treatise on Government,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1747.
9. ‘The Finishing Stroke; or, Mr. Ruddiman self-condemned, being a Reply to Mr. Ruddiman's Answer,’ &c., 8vo, Edinburgh, 1748.
10. ‘The Doctrine of the jure-divino-ship of hereditary indefensible Monarchy enquired into and exploded, in a Letter to Mr. Thomas Ruddiman,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1749.
11. ‘A Second Letter to Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, vindicating Mr. Alexander Henderson from the vile Aspersions cast upon him by Messieurs Sage and Ruddiman,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1749.

[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. vol. i. pt. i. pp. 37–8, 302, 369, pt. ii. pp. 473, 520; Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 689; Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Cat. of Advocates' Library.]

G. G.