laudable Practice

There is scarce, perhaps, to be found anywhere in Europe, a more learned, decent, independent, and respectable set of men, than the greater part of the presbyterian clergy of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland, and Scotland. Adam Smith's comment in The Wealth of Nations (1776) would, of course, have somewhat offended those who knew the clergy of the Church of England in 1776, whose education, decency, and respectability was often commented upon. My point today, however, is not to address this. Rather, Smith's comment came to mind when reading the sermon preached by one of the Aberdeen Doctors, Robert Baron, at the funeral of Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35. The learning of the Aberdeen Doctors, and their eirenic vision during a time of conflict in Europe and growing instability in the Three Kingdoms, reflected Forbes' ambition for the Church of Scotland: episcopally-ordered, eirenic, and deeply learned, centred around Scotland's five universities. In his sermon, ...

As we continue to explore the Aberdeen Doctors, the group of eirenic thinkers centred around Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35, we turn to another aspect of the sermon preached at Forbes' funeral by one of their number, Robert Baron. Last week , in the introduction to this series, we saw how Baron's sermon praised Forbes as the Athanasius of the North. This week's post considers something somewhat more subtle but no less significant in what it says about the Aberdeen Doctors.  The text for Baron's sermon was Revelation 14.13, "Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord". As he considers the text, Baron first outlines how it was interpreted by Roman Catholic divines: But two thinges doe heere occur, which do need explicatio: One is, whether or not this particular part bee so ample, as that it comprehendeth all the godlie, or elect? The other is, how, and in what sense, these whom it comprehendeth, are sayd to die in the Lord?  As for the first; some ...

Today starts a new series on Laudable Practice , as we turn to the Aberdeen Doctors, the group of eirenic thinkers centred around Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35. Under the leadership of Forbes, the Aberdeen Doctors offered to the Church of Scotland an alternative to the ideological certainties of both Carolinism (what others - mistakenly, I believe - call 'Laudianism') and the Covenanters: a moderate understanding of episcopacy, a modest account of the Reformed tradition, and a defence of peaceable conformity. One of this group, Robert Baron, 'doctor and professor of divinity',  preached at Forbes' funeral , praising him as an Athanasius of the church of the northern kingdom: For (as Gregorie Nazianzen reasoned concerning Athanasius his prayses) to prayse him, it is to prayse vertue; and to prayse vertue, it is to prayse God, who is the author and giver of it. I say, that to prayse him, is to prayse vertue; because, (as Nazianzen there sayeth of Athanas...

It is the contention of this book that the abolition of order of bishops and the establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland was not a foregone conclusion ... The fall of episcopacy in Scotland was neither expected nor inevitable (pp.1 & 7). Ann Shukman's Bishops and Covenanters: The Church in Scotland 1688-1691 (2012) is a story of missed opportunities.  Perhaps surprisingly, it is King William III who emerges as the wise figure in this account of the Scottish church settlement, his desires for comprehension frustrated by a combination of radical Covenanters and Jacobite bishops.  William's initial desire was for the Restoration Church of Scotland to continue, with its combination of episcopacy and presbytery. As Shukman states, "his attitude towards the Scottish Church was rather on balance to have favoured episcopalianism" (p.12). Henry Compton, the Williamite Bishop of London, had made this clear to Alexander Rose, Bishop of Edinburgh, in 1688/89, declaring ...