Series 5 > Religious Controversy in Scotland 1625-1639

REPLYTOTHE REASONS FORA GENERALLASSEMBLIE
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taught faith and repentance and exhorted them to the obedience of God and
there superiors, have contrariwayes stirred them up to disobedience, and made
ignorant people beHeve that is16 wes religion, which wes nothing so.
As to the mynding of worldlie peace and encrease of dignities, on which side
this wilbe found when it cometh to be tryed will easilie appeare.We certainhe
should have hade more worldlie peace if we had not (as our deutie wes) striven
to vindicate ministerie ffome the contempt and miserable povertie wherin they
lived. And for encrease of dignities, they cannot say, that anie of the prelates have
sought them otherwayes then by lawfull meanes, yea, and some have wished to
be ridd of them, as of a burthen which they wer unwilling to beare; whereas it is
notoure that the cheiffe authors and fosterers of this commotion have bred it
onlie out of a discontent that they missed the dignities which they gaped efter.
Lastly, to the thrusting out of faithfull pastors frame there ministrie which
they doe so aggravat, it should on there pairts have beine well done to have
named the men that wer so thrust out. In the whole cuntrie they shall not name
fyve put frome there places by the prelats, and these that wer put from the same,
to have beine put away for just reasons, if false doctrine, open rebellion, blasphemie
agains there king may be judged sufficient causes. Neither let them speik of
smiteing there fellow servants, for the smiteing will be found on there pairt, and
of late practised by there instigation upon men out of comparison worthier then
anie of themselves; but they wilbe deceaved if they think to prevaile by these
meanes—neither raskals nor railers will make us leave our stations.
[74v] So to conclude the point, the necessitie of a general assemblie is ac¬
knowledged, and wilbe quicklie suted by the prelats when these rebellions are
compested17 of his sacred majestie, but not with such arguments as we heare
they use, that if his majesty will not hearken to there petition and grant ane
assemblie, they will call one by themselves.We have not so learned Christ, and if
this will not warne them to be quiet, let them remember what the assemblie at
Rochell wrought in the French church, and how it fared with some of these
brethren at home for that meiting at Abirdene.18
17 £rom‘compesce’,tocurborrestrain.
18 The church assemblies at La Rochelle and Aberdeen are hardly comparable.The former, beginning
on 28 Nov. 1620, contrary to the declaration of Louis XIII, established something like a Huguenot
republic, whereas the general assembly in Aberdeen, postponed by James VI, was still held, in principle,
by nineteen ministers, and their action was supported by another ten. Six were exiled for life, including
John Forbes of Alford who was among those first imprisoned in Blackness Casde, and then exiled to
the Netherlands where he died. Holt, French Wars of Religion, 178-9; G. Donaldson, Scotland James V-
James VII (Edinburgh, 1965), 204-5; M. Lee, Government by Pen: Scotland underJames VI and I (Urbana,
111., 1980),48-55.Cf.also n. 19,p.25 above.