Melville, Diary, p. 236; Calderwood, History, v. 435). At a meeting of the synod of Fife, held at Cupar in February 1597–8, in regard to a proposal to give ministers a vote in parliament, Ferguson, the eldest minister at that time in Scotland, after relating the difficulties of the church in the past in contending against the efforts to introduce episcopacy, strongly opposed the proposal, which he compared to the ‘busking up of the brave horse’ for the overthrow of Troy (Melville, p. 288; Calderwood, v. 681). He died 13 Aug. 1598.
Spotiswood calls Ferguson ‘a good preacher, wise, and of jocund and pleasant disposition’ (History, i. 129), and Wodrow says that by ‘his pleasant and facetious conversation he often pleased and pacified the king when he was in a fury’ (Analecta, p. 120). The well-known epithet ‘Tulchan’ applied to the bishops (supra, xv. 317) is usually ascribed to him. His humour appears in his reply to a question of the king as to the reason why the master of Gray's house shook during the night: ‘Why should not the devil rock his ain bairns?’ He was famed for his skill in the vernacular language, which is celebrated by John Davidson, then one of the regents at St. Andrews, in Latin verses, quoted in Appendix R R to M'Crie's ‘Life of Knox.’ His love of pithy sayings led him to make a collection of Scottish proverbs, now of almost unique value. They were published in 1641 under the title, ‘Scottish Proverbs gathered together by David Fergusone, sometime minister at Dunfermline, and put ordine alphabetico when he departed this life anno 1598.’ There is a copy of this edition in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, and an imperfect copy in the library of the British Museum. Other editions appeared in 1659, 1675, 1699, and 1706, the latter bearing the title, ‘Nine Hundred and Forty Scottish Proverbs, the greater part of which were first gathered together by David Ferguson, the rest since added.’ He was also the author of ‘Epithalamium Mysticum Solomonis Regis, sive analysis critico-poetica Cantici Canticorum,’ Edinburgh, 1677. He left a diary containing a record of the principal ecclesiastical events of his time, which has been lost, but which probably his son-in-law, John Row (1568–1646) [q. v.], incorporated in his ‘History.’ By his wife, Isabel Durham, he had five sons and four daughters, one of whom, Grizzel, married Row. A portrait of Ferguson, done on timber, of a small oval form, was presented by Row to the university library of Edinburgh; but, owing probably to the careless manner in which the collections of the library have frequently been superintended, it cannot now be traced.
[Histories of Calderwood, Keith, Spotiswood, and Row; Wodrow's Analecta; James Melville's Diary; Booke of the Universal Kirk; m'Crie's Lives of Knox and Melville; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot. vol. ii. pt. ii. 565–6; Laing's Introduction to Tracts by David Ferguson (Bannatyne Club, 1860).]
FERGUSON, JAMES (1621–1667), Scotch divine, born in 1621, belonged to the Fergusons of Kilkerran. He graduated at Glasgow University in 1638, and was ordained minister of Kilwinning, Ayrshire, in 1643. He was a member of the assembly of 1648, and declined calls to both Edinburgh and Glasgow. He was so highly esteemed by the Earl of Eglintoun that, though appointed to the chair of divinity at Glasgow in 1661, he never left Kilwinning to enter on that office. He was a man of eminent piety, and at the same time ‘much admired,’ as a writer of his life in Wodrow's ‘Analecta’ says, ‘for his great and singular wisdom and prudence, being reckoned one of the wisest men in a nation, most fit to be a counsellor to any monarch in Europe.’ In the controversy between the resolutioners and protesters he adopted the side of the former, but it is recorded that he confessed before his death that he was wrong. Probably in consequence of the support of Lord Eglintoun, he was not interfered with at the Restoration in his ministry at Kilwinning. He died 13 March 1667. Ferguson is remembered and esteemed at this day as the author of a series of excellent commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles. In Charteris's ‘Catalogue of Scotch Divines’ he is called an author ‘of great reputation.’ Spurgeon characterises his commentaries as those of ‘a grand, gracious, savoury divine.’ His works are:
- ‘Expositions of the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians,’ Edinburgh, 1656.
- ‘Expositions of the Epistles to Galatians and Ephesians,’ Edinburgh, 1659.
- ‘Exposition of the Epistles to the Thessalonians,’ Glasgow, 1675.
- ‘Refutation of the Errors of Toleration, Erastianism, Independency, and Separation,’ Edinburgh, 1692.
He also issued several sermons, and left in manuscript an essay on singing the psalms.
He married Jean Inglis (d. 1687), by whom he had two sons, James and Hew, and a daughter, Mary, wife of Robert Cheislie, an Edinburgh merchant.
[Scott's Fasti, pt. iii. 181; Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iii.; Wodrow's Church Hist.; Baillie's Letters, iii.; Candlish's Prefatory Note to republication of Refutation of Erastianism.]
FERGUSON, JAMES (d. 1705), of Balmakelly and Kirtonhill, Kincardineshire, major-general, colonel of the Cameronian
