It was Mr. Dickson who brought over the presbytery of Irvine to supplicate the council in 1637, for a suspension of the service-book. At this time four supplications, from different quarters, met at the council-house-door, to their mutual surprize and encouragement; which were the small beginnings of that happy turn of affairs, that next year ensued: In which great revolution Mr. Dickson had no small share. He was sent to Aberdeen, with Messrs Henderson and Cant, by the covenanters, to persuade that town and country to join in renewing the covenant; this brought him to bear a great part in the debates with the learned doctors Forbes, Barrow, Sibbald, &c. at Aberdeen; which, being in print, needs no further notice at present.
And when the king was prevailed with to allow a free general assembly at Glasgow, Nov. 1638, Mr. Dickson and Mr. Bailey, from the presbytery, made no small figure there in all the important matters before that grave assembly. Here Mr. Dickson signalized himself in a most seasonable and prudent speech he had, when his majesty's commissioner threatened to leave the assembly; as also in the 11th session Dec. 5th, he had another most learned discourse against Arminianism[122].
By this time the Lord's eminent countenancing of Mr. Dickson's ministry at Irvine, not only spread abroad, but his eminent prudence, learning, and holy zeal came to be universally known, especially to ministers, from the part he bore in the assembly of Glasgow, so that he was almost unanimously chosen moderator to the next general assembly at Edinburgh in Aug. 1639, in the 10th session whereof the city of Glasgow presented a call to him; but partly because of his own aversion, and the vigorous appearance of the earl of Eglinton, and his loving people, and mostly for the remarkable usefulness of his ministry in that corner, the general assembly continued him still at Irvine.
Not long after this about 1641, he was transported to be professor in the university of Glasgow, where he did great service to the church, by training up young men for the holy ministry; and yet notwithstanding of his laborious work, he preached on the forenoon of every sabbath, in the high church there; where for some time he had the learned Mr. Patrick Gillespie for his colleague.
Anno 1643, the church laid a very great work upon him, together with Mr. Calderwood and Mr. Henderson to form a draught of a directory for a public worship, as appears by an act of the general assembly. When the pestilence was raging at Glasgow in 1647, the masters and students, upon Mr. Dickson's motion, removed to Irvine. There it was that the learned Mr. Durham passed his trials, and was earnestly recommended by the professor to the presbytery and magistrates of Glasgow. A very strict friendship subsisted between those two great lights of the church, and, among other effects of their religious conversation, we have the sum of saving knowledge, which hath been so often printed with our confession of faith and catechisms. This, after several conversations upon the subject, and manner of handling it, so that it might be useful to vulgar capacities, was, by Messrs. Dickson and Durham, dictated to a reverend minister about the year 1650, and though never judicially approven by this church, yet it deserves to be much more read and practised than what it at present is.
About this time he was transported from the profession of divinity at Glasgow, to the same work at Edinburgh. At which time he published his prelectiones in confessionem fidei (now published in English), which he dictated in latin to his scholars. There he continued his laborious care of students in divinity, the growing hopes of a church; and either at Glasgow or at Edinburgh, the most part of the presbyterian ministers, at least in the west, south and east parts of Scotland, from 1640, were under his inspection; and from the forementioned book, we may perceive his care to educate them in the form of sound words, and to ground them in the excellent standards of doctrine agreed to by the once famous church of Scotland; and happy had their successors been, had they preserved and handed down to posterity the scriptural doctrines pure and entire, as they were delivered by our first reformers, to Mr. Dickson and his contemporaries, and from him and them handed down without corruption to their successors.
All this time, viz. in 1650 and 1651, Mr. Dickson had a great share in the printed pamphlets upon the unhappy debates betwixt the resolutioners and the protestors, he was in his opinions for the public resolutioners: and most of the papers on that side were wrote by him, Mr. Bailey and Mr. Douglas; as those on the other side were wrote by Mr. James Guthrie, Mr. Patrick Gillespie, and a few others.
Mr. Dickson continued at Edinburgh, discharging his trust with great diligence and faithfulness, until the melancholy turn by the restoration of prelacy upon the return of Charles II.; when, for refusing the oath of supremacy, he was with many other worthies, turned out; so that his heart was broken with this heavy change on the beautiful face of that once famed reformed church.
He had married Margaret Robertson daughter to Archibald Robertson of Stone-hall, a younger brother of the house of Ernock, in the shire of Lanerk; by her he had three sons, John, clerk to the exchequer in Scotland; Alexander, professor of Hebrew in the college of Edinburgh; and Archibald, who lived with his family afterward in the parish of Irvine.
On December 1662, he fell extremely sick, at which time worthy Mr. Livingston, now suffering for the same cause, though he had then but forty-eight hours liberty to stay in Edinburgh, came to see him on his death-bed. They had been intimately acquainted near forty years, and now rejoiced as fellow-confessors together. When Mr. Livingston asked the professor, What were his thoughts of the present affairs, and how it was with himself? His answer was, "That he was sure Jesus Christ would not put up with the indignities done against his work and people:" and as for himself, said he, "I have taken all my good deeds and all my bad deeds, and have cast them together in a heap before the Lord, and have fled from both to Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace[123]."