History of the Fife Pitcairns

THE DREGHORN PITCAIRNS. 465
minister of Dron, Perthshire, — a little village in Glenfarg,
near the Bridge of Earn. Although he was deprived by
Acts of Parliament and of the Privy Council in 1662,
Robert Leighton, Bishop of Dunblane, within whose
diocese Dron was included, so highly respected his char-
acter, learning, and scruples, that Pitcairne was permitted
to continue to discharge his ministerial duties (Register of
the Diocesan Synod of Dunblane). But after Ramsay had
succeeded Leighton as bishop, Pitcairne was charged at a
Synodical meeting, held at Dunblane on 8th October 1678,
with having "begun of late to doe things verie disorderlie,"
in admitting people of other parishes to church ordinances.
His case was referred to the moderator of his Presbytery,
who, on 8th April 1679, reported that " Mr Pitcairne had
verie thankfully entertained the connivance and kindness
he had met with," the matter of offence being " done
mostly without his knowledge." The imposition of the
test in 1681 brought matters to a crisis, and, Pitcairne
being again deprived, the Crown appointed a successor.
When the latter endeavoured to enter on the charge, so
determined a resistance was offered that the Privy Council
instructed the Marquis of Atholl to quarter troops on the
parish, to hold courts, and fine, imprison, and scourge old
and young, men and women, who failed to assist the
Crown's nominee. Ejected from his parish, Pitcairne
sought refuge in Holland, where in 1685 his treatise on
"Justification" was published. In 1687 he returned to
Scotland, and in 1690 was by Act of Parliament restored
to his parish (Wodrow, Hist., iii. 390). At the instance
of William of Orange he was appointed Provost of St
Salvator's College, St Andrews, in 1691, and became, in
1693, Principal of St Mary's College — a post which he
retained till his death, September 1695, aged seventy-three
(Minutes of Synod of Fife, App., p. 214).
All the Principal's books are controversial in tendency
and aim — in his own words, "to vindicate orthodoxy and
confute ancient and modern error." His best known and
earliest work is entitled 'The Spiritual Sacrifice; or, a
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