David Dickson (1583–1663) was a Church of Scotland minister and theologian.
Life
David Dickson of Busby was born in Glasgow in 1583. He was the son of John Dickson, a wealthy local merchant with premises on the Trongate. He was at first intended for the mercantile profession, but instead studied for the Church. After studying at Glasgow University he gained an M.A. around 1601. He was then appointed Regent of Philosophy in the University. On 31 March 1618. he was ordained as minister of Irvine. He declared against the Perth Articles, and was summoned before the Court of High Commission. Declining its authority, he was deprived of office. In 1622 he was allowed to return to his parish.
During the visitation of religious zeal in 1630, known as "the Stewarton Sickness," his prudence was notable, and the interests of practical religion were maintained. For employing in 1637 two of his countrymen, who were under the ban of Episcopal authority in Ireland, he was again called before the High Commission. As its authority, however, was then on the decline, he was no further troubled. In the same year an attempt was made to enforce the Service-Book, which he and his Presbytery moderately but firmly opposed.
In 1637, having given shelter to Robert Blair and John Livingston, driven from their charges in Ireland by the interference of the bishops there, he was again cited before the High Commission Court.
He took an active part in the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, and in 1639 acted as chaplain to an Ayrshire regiment commanded by the Earl of Loudoun. He was appointed the first Professor of Divinity at Glasgow University in January 1640 and later that year was elected Moderator of the General Assembly.
In 1650 he took a new post as Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh University. He was appointed to St Giles Cathedral (second charge) by the Town Council 12 April 1650, and admitted shortly after. Dickson was for a second time Moderator of Assembly 21 July 1652. In October 1662 he was deprived, and by the end of the year he was dead (buried 31 December).
He was a popular preacher, and highly instrumental in promoting the notable revival at Stewarton about 1625. Nor was he less zealous and useful in the overthrow of Episcopacy, having taken a prominent part in the business of the Assembly at Glasgow. When the Church unhappily divided into Resolutioners and Protesters, he became a leader in the party of the former.
He was the only son of John Dick or Dickson, a merchant in the Trongate of Glasgow, whose father was an old feuar of some lands called the Kirk of Muir, in the parish of St. Ninians, Stirlingshire. He was born in Glasgow about 1583, and educated at the university, where he graduated M.A., and was appointed one of the regents or professors of philosophy, a position limited to eight years. On the conclusion of his term of office Dickson was in 1618 ordained minister of the parish of Irvine. In 1620 he was named in a leet of seven to be a minister in Edinburgh, but since he was suspected of nonconformity his nomination was not pressed.
Having publicly testified against the Five Articles of Perth, he was at the instance of James Law, archbishop of Glasgow, summoned to appear before the high court of commission at Edinburgh on 9 January 1622; but having declined the jurisdiction of the court, he was subsequently deprived of his ministry in Irvine, and ordered to proceed to Turriff, Aberdeenshire, within twenty days. When he was about to set off northward, the Archbishop of Glasgow, at the request of the Earl of Eglinton, permitted him to remain in Ayrshire, at Eglinton, where for about two months he preached in the hall and courtyard of the castle. As great crowds went from Irvine to hear him, he was then ordered to set out for Turriff, but about the end of July 1623 was permitted to return to his charge at Irvine, and remained there unmolested till 1637.