George Garden (divine)

George Garden (1649–1733), was a Scottish church minister and a leading figure of the early Scottish Episcopal Church.

Garden, a younger son of Alexander Garden, minister of Forgue in Aberdeenshire, and Isobell Middleton, was born at Forgue, and educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where in 1673, at the age of twenty-four, he was already a regent or professor.

In 1677 he was ordained by Bishop Scougal, and appointed to succeed his father in the church of Forgue, the bishop's son, Henry Scougal, preaching at his induction. Two years later Garden was promoted to Old Machar (the church of which was the cathedral of Aberdeen).

In June 1678 he preached in the chapel of King's College the ‘funeral sermon’ on his friend, Henry Scougal. It is printed in many editions of Scougall's works, and throws light on the ideas of ministerial duty entertained among the clergy of the ‘second episcopacy’ (1662–1690).

In 1683 Garden, already a D.D., became one of the ministers of the Kirk of St Nicholas, the town parish of Aberdeen, where he continued till he was ‘laid aside’ by the privy council in 1692 for ‘not praying for their majesties,’ William III and Mary II. The commission of the general assembly of 1700 had him before them in connection with An Apology for M. Antonia Bourignon (1699, 8vo), attributed to him. Garden, who issued translations of several of Antoinette Bourignon's works with prefaces of his own, refused to disavow the authorship, asserted that ‘the said "Apology" as to the bulk of the book did represent the great end of Christianity, which is to bring us back to the love of God and charity, and further declared that the essentials of Christianity are set down in the said book, and that the accessories contained therein are not contrary thereto;’ whereupon the commission suspended him from the office of the ministry, and cited him to the assembly of 1701.

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