# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Logan, George

​LOGAN, GEORGE (1678–1755), controversialist, born in 1678, was son of George Logan of the Ayrshire family, by his wife, a daughter of A. Cunningham, minister of Old Cumnock. He was educated at Glasgow University, and graduated M.A. in 1696. On 4 March 1703 he was licensed as a preacher in the church of Scotland, and became chaplain to John, earl of Lauderdale. He was successively minister of Lauder, Berwickshire, 1707; Sprouston, Roxburghshire, 1718; Dunbar, Haddingtonshire, 1721; and Trinity College Church, Edinburgh, 1732. On 8 May 1740 he was elected by a large majority moderator of the general assembly, and in that capacity solemnly deposed Ebenezer Erskine [q. v.] and seven other seceding brethren a week later. He strenuously supported the Hanoverian accession, and on the approach of the Jacobite army towards Edinburgh in 1745, was a warm but unsuccessful advocate for placing it in a state of defence. During the occupation of the town by the rebels his house near the Castle Hill, whence he had fled, was occupied by them as a guard-house. His views on hereditary right involved him in a lively contest with Thomas Ruddiman, the Earl of Cromarty, Sir George Mackenzie, John Sage, and other prominent Jacobites. He died on 13 Oct. 1755, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He married, first, a sister of Sir Alexander Home of Eccles, by whom he had a son, George, minister of Ormiston, Haddingtonshire, and a daughter. His second wife was Lilias Weir.
In person Logan was ‘a little neat man;’ his capacity was slender, and his writings subjected him to much ridicule (Chalmers, Life of Ruddiman; see, however, Chambers, Eminent Scotsmen, ii. 541). He wrote:
* ‘An Essay upon Gospel and Legal Preaching,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1723.
* ‘A modest and humble Inquiry concerning the Right and Power of electing and calling Ministers to vacant Churches,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1732.
* ‘A Continuation of the Inquiry,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1732.
* ‘A Vindication of the Inquiry,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1733.
* ‘An Overture for a right Constitution of the General Assembly, and an Illustration of it,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1736.
* ‘The Lawfulness and Necessity of Ministers, their reading the Act of Parliament for bringing to Justice the Murderers of Captain John Porteous,’ 12mo, Edinburgh, 1737.
* ‘A Treatise on Government: shewing that the right of the Kings of Scotland to the Crown was not strictly … hereditary,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1746, which was answered by Ruddiman.
* ‘A Second Treatise on Government,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1747.
* ‘The Finishing Stroke; or, Mr. Ruddiman self-condemned, being a Reply to Mr. Ruddiman's Answer,’ &c., 8vo, Edinburgh, 1748.
* ‘The Doctrine of the jure-divino-ship of hereditary indefensible Monarchy enquired into and exploded, in a Letter to Mr. Thomas Ruddiman,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1749.
* ‘A Second Letter to Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, vindicating Mr. Alexander Henderson from the vile Aspersions cast upon him by Messieurs Sage and Ruddiman,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1749.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. vol. i. pt. i. pp. 37–8, 302, 369, pt. ii. pp. 473, 520; Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 689; Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Cat. of Advocates' Library.]
G. G.