Series 5 > Religious Controversy in Scotland 1625-1639

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RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY IN SCOTLAND
lawful! to prey for theis quho had bein 500 yeires damned in hell then for sume
of his paroche, that all covenanters ware damned in hell, and in tyme of sermone
quhen he sawe sume of them goeinge out of the churche he cryed/Cume againe,
you damned roiges and whoores, and tak your cokat with you.’20 He said lykwayes
that the author of the Practise of Pietie21 was damned in hell for he haid maid all
the ladyes in Scodand puritanes, and that he had rather renunce God then be a
puritane. Theis thrie proces being endit, the committie for the contravertit
commissione of the presbetrie ofBrechine was callit upone.Then spak Mr Bonner,
declairing eftir quhat maner they had resolved upon it. Boith commissiones
ware quashed by the general! voyces of the assemblie, and Breichine to have no
voyce in that assemblie, that a lettere of reproofe should be derect unto hime,
with ane admonitione to be moir cautelous in making of the electiones in tymes
to cume.Theis thinges being done, the moderator cloises upe all with ane prayer.
And so was finished that daye’s sessione.
[2] Monday sessione. At elevine of the cloak the wholl commissioneres mett.
When all ware assembled the moderator in his manner utters a verie dovoit
prayer, which being endit the earll of Argyll rose upe and spaike, and truly, if ever
any speiche cam in seasonably and pertinenthe it was that, being a graive, wyse,
and sober admonitione cheiflie derectit unto the ministrie that they should not
medle in ther preachinges and discourses with thinges without ther owine
spheires—especiallie not to touche on any thinge that mycht concerne his
majesties prerogative royall,ather in causes civill or ecclessiasticall;not to medill
with the governours nor the government of the stait; that it was ane old com¬
plaint against them and mycht perhapes be renewit againe by the opossits if it
ware not wyslie prevented.This speiche was occassione[d] by ane sermone which
on[e] Gillespick22 maid in the Heich Churche the day befor which trenshed
sumething on the kinge s prerogative. Whan the earll haid done, the moderator
subjoynes ane larg and learned speiche to the same purpois, quherin he ex¬
plained quhat the power of the churche was, etc.
By this tyme Mr David Dick was readie to acquyt himselfe of that talk the
20 See also The Declinatour and Protestation of the some some-times pretended Bishops ...refuted (Edinburgh,
1639),91;‘Process against Dr Alexander Gledstanes, before the presbytery ofSt Andrews’, in Robert
Wodrow, Collections upon the Lives of the Reformers and most eminent Ministers of the Church of Scotland, 2
vols. (Maitland Club, 1834-45), i, 395-402. On p. 396 it is stated that Gledstanes said:‘Stay perjured
pultrones and whores and take your coquet with yow.’
21 In MS practiche of pietie.The book in question was the immensely popular and much reprinted
Practise of Pietie: directing a Christian how to walke (1612). Its author was Lewis Bayly, bishop of Bangor.
The manual went through twenty-five different printings by 1630, in English alone; it continued to be
reprinted in its original language, including in Scodand—see Aldis, List of Books—and was also trans¬
lated. A. Lang, Puritanismus and Pietismus (Darmstadt, 1972), 187.
22 George Gillespie?