under review. This oath pledged the burgesses to the support of ‘the true protestant religion presently professed within this realm, and authorised by the laws thereof,’ in opposition to ‘the Roman religion called papistry.’ It was held by some that the terms of the oath implied an approval of the established church, if not an adhesion to it. The synod was torn by heated debates on this point. On 9 April 1746 a majority at a thin meeting condemned the oath as unlawful. On 9 April 1747 the synod modified its judgment; declaring by a small majority that its previous decision should not be made a term of communion, till it had been referred to the consideration of the presbyteries and kirk-sessions. The dissentient minority, nearly one-half of the synod, regarded this vote as unconstitutional, and immediately separated, taking the name of the ‘general associate synod.’ Popularly it was known as the ‘anti-burgher synod,’ and the original body as the ‘burgher synod.’ The ‘associate synod’ was left without a professor of divinity, and Erskine undertook the duties. His health compelled him to resign this work in 1749. John Brown (1722–1787) [q. v.] of Haddington, the commentator, began his theological studies with him.
Feeling ran so high between the two sections of the secession, that on 4 Aug. 1748, the ‘anti-burgher synod’ passed sentence of deposition from the ministry on Erskine and ten other ministers of the ‘burgher synod.’ The breach was not healed till 8 Sept. 1820, when the two synods joined in forming the ‘united associate synod,’ from which few congregations stood aloof. The Irish seceders were incorporated into the Irish general assembly on 10 July 1840 [see Cooke, Henry, D.D.]. The Scottish seceders amalgamated with the ‘synod of relief’ [see Boston, Thomas, the younger] on 13 May 1847, thus forming the ‘united presbyterian church.’
Erskine died on 2 June 1754. He was twice married: first, on 2 Feb. 1704, to Alison (d. 1720), daughter of Alexander Turpie, writer at Leven, Fifeshire; by her he had ten children, of whom two sons and four daughters reached maturity; Jean, his eldest daughter, married the above-mentioned James Fisher, minister of Kinclaven, Perthshire; secondly, in 1723, to Mary (d. 1751), daughter of James Webster, minister at Edinburgh; by her he had two sons, James and Alexander, a daughter, Mary, and two other daughters. A statue of Erskine is placed in the United Presbyterian Synod Hall, Queen Street, Edinburgh.
Erskine's ‘Works’ were published in 1799, 8vo, 3 vols., and again in 1826, 8vo, 2 vols. They consist almost entirely of sermons, which he began to publish in 1725, with a few controversial pamphlets. The chief collection of his sermons published in his lifetime was: 1. ‘The Sovereignty of Zion's King,’ Edinburgh, 1739, 12mo. Posthumous were: 2. ‘Sermons, mostly preached upon Sacramental Occasions,’ Edinburgh, 1755, 8vo. 3. ‘Discourses,’ Edinburgh, 1757, 8vo, 3 vols. 4. ‘Sermons and Discourses,’ Glasgow, 1762, 8vo, 4 vols.; Edinburgh, 1765, 8vo, a fifth volume (this edition was brought out by the Duchess of Northumberland, in whose family one of Erskine's sons lived as a gardener). He assisted his brother Ralph in drawing up the synod's catechism. Among his manuscripts were six volumes on ‘catechetical doctrine,’ written at Portmoak between 1717 and 1723; several volumes of expository discourses; and forty-six sermon note-books, each containing about thirty-six sermons of an hour's length. Reprints of his single sermons, in rude chapbook style, are among the most curious productions of the early provincial presses of Ulster, at Newry, Lurgan, Omagh, &c.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot.; contemporary pamphlets, especially the Representations of Masters E. Erskine and J. Fisher, &c., 1733; A Review of the Narrative, &c., 1734; the Vision of the two brothers, Ebenezer and Ralph, &c., 1737; the Re-Exhibition of the Testimony, 1779 (contains a revised reprint of most of the original documents relating to the secession); Memoir by James Fisher, in preface to Ralph Erskine's works, 1764; enlarged memoir, by D. Fraser, prefixed to Ebenezer Erskine's works, 1826; Jones's edition of Gillies's memoir of G. Whitefield, 1812, p. 273, &c.; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. 1814, xiii. 306; Thomson's Origin of the Secession Church, 1848; Cat. of Edinburgh Graduates (Bannatyne Club), 1858, p. 156; Grub's Eccles. Hist. of Scotland, 1861, iv. 54 sq.; Reid's Hist. Presb. Ch. in Ireland (Killen), 1867, iii. 241 sq.; Harper's Life of Erskine, quoted in Anderson's Scottish Nation, 1870, ii. 150.]
ERSKINE, EDWARD MORRIS (1817–1883), diplomatist, fourth son of David Montagu, second lord Erskine [q. v.], by Frances, daughter of General John Cadwallader of Philadelphia, was born on 17 March 1817. He entered the diplomic service as attaché to his father at Munich, and after filling subordinate posts was appointed secretary of legation at Turin in 1852. He was transferred to Washington early in 1858, and to Stockholm at the end of that year, in 1860 became secretary of embassy to St. Petersburg, and afterwards to Constantinople, and in 1864 was appointed minister plenipoten-
