Thomas Erskine in Retrospect

“[Thomas] Erskine presents a fascinating theological figure, and one whose stature and influence within the stream of British theology in the nineteenth century is too rarely appreciated. . . . [He was] above all a ‘biblical’ theologian, one whose reflection is shaped by close engagement with the stories and theologies of the Old and New Testaments. By all contemporary accounts, he was, throughout his life, also a man of such a sort who might convince a person of the reality of the gospel which he proclaimed by the sheer aura of its reality which surrounded him, and by the conformity of his own personality to its essential shape.”¹ –Trevor A. Hart

“I regard [Thomas Erskine’s and his close friend, John McLeod Campbell’s] ideas as the best contribution to dogmatics which British theology has produced in the present century.”² –Otto Pfleiderer, nineteenth century German church historian.

“Quick as was the pace of thought in England between the years 1820 and 1830, it was hardly less so in Scotland. Thomas Erskine began his career as a religious writer in 1820; and the more his writings are studied the more remarkable will be found to have been their influence.”³ –John Tullock

“Erskine in his rediscovering of The Divine Fatherhood brought to the solution of religious questions a new spirit of inquiry. Mists surrounding the Divine Being were dispersed, and, by the implications of Fatherhood, there arose a reason for a review of the contents and meaning of The Trinity; further it became necessary to face the problem of Election, the nature of the Atonement, the meaning of Total Depravity, Imputation and Substitution. On all these topics Erskine casts new light. Further, Erskine, consciously or unconsciously, anticipated the age of scientific inquiry and criticism with their application also to religious thought, and furnished scientific and popular thought with a line of defense for ‘the faith once delivered to the saints.’”⁴ —Robert A. Reid

“Scotland, like England, was the scene of a theological awakening between 1820 and 1830, and in this movement the foremost figure is Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (1788–1870).”⁵ —V. F. Storr

“The most significant figure in Scottish theological thought in the quarter of a century preceding the Disruption⁶—and perhaps in the nineteenth century—was a layman, Thomas Erskine of Linlathen . . . Scotland has never given Erskine the attention he deserves, and his books, especially The Brazen Serpent, are almost unobtainable.”⁷—A. L. Drummond, James Bulloch

“Erskine was one of the first of his generation in Scotland to articulate effectively genuine popular spiritual unrest, and voice alternatives to orthodox interpretations of soteriology, by engaging creatively with contemporary theological issues, and by questioning and clarifying what he felt had been obscured by accepted Calvinist orthodoxy—notably the nature and character of God, the atonement, biblicism, conditional salvation, and determinism.”⁸—Don Horrocks

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1. Hart, Trevor A. “Erskine, Thomas (1788–1870).” In The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 192. ↩︎
2. Pfleiderer, Otto. The Development of Theology in Germany Since Kant and its Progress in Great Britain Since 1825, 382. ↩︎
3. Tulloch, John. Movements of Religious Thought in Britain During the Nineteenth Century, 126–7. ↩︎
4. Reid, Robert A. “The Influence, Direct and Indirect, of the Writings of Erskine of Linlathen on Religious Thought in Scotland.” PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1–2. ↩︎
5. Storr, V. F. The Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 353. ↩︎
6. The Great Disruption of 1843 was a significant event in the history of the Church of Scotland. In that year, 450 evangelical ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland following a ten year long conflict over the right of patronage—the question of whether the patron of a parish had the right to install a minister of his choice even against the wishes of the parishioners. Those who left believed that this right granted by the British Parliament infringed on the spiritual independence of the church.   ↩︎
7. Drummond, A. L. and Bulloch, J. The Scottish Church 1688-1843, 194, 199. ↩︎
8. Horrocks, Don. Laws of the Spiritual Order: Innovation and Reconstruction in the Soteriology of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, 9. ↩︎