John Dick (minister)

Educated at the grammar school and King's College, Aberdeen, he studied for the ministry of the Secession church, under John Brown of Haddington.

In 1785, immediately after being licensed as a probationer, Dick was called by the congregation of the newly built United Secession Church in Slateford, near Edinburgh, and ordained to the ministry there.

In 1799 this controversy was ended by the synod enacting a preamble to the confession, declaring that the church required no assent to anything which favoured the principle of compulsory measures in religion.

In 1819 the death of George Lawson left vacant the office of theological professor to the associate synod, and in 1820 Dick was chosen to succeed him.

His distrust of reason as a guide in religion was deeply sincere, and never wavered; and so was his confidence in revelation.In politics Dick sympathised with the reforming party, and he objected to church establishments.

In 1788, when William M'Gill of Ayr shook the Protestant community of Scotland by an essay on the death of Christ, of Unitarian tendencies, Dick published a sermon in opposition entitled The Conduct and Doom of False Teachers.