Erskine (or Areskine), Henry

Erskine (or Areskine), Henry a Scotch divine, one of the youngest of the thirty-three children of Ralph Erskine of Shielfield, was born at Dryburgh in 1624, where he received his early education. He took his master's degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1645, was ordained to the ministry by the Presbyterians in England, to the living at Cornhill, in Durham, but was soon ejected by the act of uniformity, in 1662, and returned to his own country. But the persecutions carried on then in Scotland required him to take refuge in Holland. In 1687, when king James's toleration was proclaimed, Mr. Erskine embraced it; and on the re-establishment of the presbytery in 1690, he was appointed minister of Chirnside, in Berwickshire. He died August 10, 1696. He never published any of his works. See Chalmers, Biog. Dict, s.v.; Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 1:427, 451.