John Stewart (minister)
John Stewart graduated from King's College, Aberdeen in 1649.[1] He was licenced to be a minister on 5 April 1654 in the Presbytery of Deer in the Synod of Aberdeen. He was admitted to Crimond by the Protesting Presbytery on 10 April 1655. His headquarters may have been in the neighbourhood of Innes House.[2][3]
John Stewart | |
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| Personal details | |
| Denomination | Christian |
Legal trouble
On the establishment of Prelacy, he was removed from his post for nonconformity.
In 1657 the Synod of Aberdeen declared him "an unparalleled intruder," and ordered him to cease his ministry there. They deposed him in October 1658. The Protesters refused to remove him except to another charge because they judged him to be "a godly and able man." The Synod nevertheless removed him on 20th April 1660.
On the 30th of January 1685, he was libelled before a Committee of Council, which at that time had been sent north to Murrayshire to prosecute all persons guilty of church disorders in that part of the country, and which met at Elgin. He was charged with keeping "conventicles, withdrawing from the ordinances, preaching seditious doctrine, plotting against the government, supplying and harbouring rebels, and other public crimes and irregularities."
When examined before the Committee on the 2 February 1685, he deposed, upon his solemn oath, that he had not kept his own parish church for eighteen or nineteen years, and that he had preached in his own family, and in several private houses, but denied all the other articles of the label. He also testified to having conducted a marriage: he "deponed that he married Alexander Campbell, in Calder's-land, with Lilias Dunbar, who had been the Lady Innes's servant long before the indemnity."
On the grounds of his confession, and also because he refused to take the oath of allegiance, he was, on the 4th of February, sentenced to banishment out of his Majesty's dominions, and ordered, with that view, to be transported a prisoner to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. Instead, however, of being banished, on his arrival in the south, he was imprisoned in the Bass, where he lay till liberated by an order of the Council, issued on 21 June 1686.
After the Restoration, he became a minister in Elgin in 1687 and later in Urquhart after 10th May 1691.
He died on 6th May 1692. He married Christian Arbuthnot, sister of John Arbuthnot of Cairngall in Longside, and had daughters: Margaret (who married Alexander Forbes, minister of Dyke) and Elizabeth.
Bibliography
- Anderson's Bass Rock, 373
- Dickson's Emeralds chased in Gold, 232
- Woodrow's History, iv., 192
- Macdonald's The Covenanters in Moray and Ross, 104.
References
- ^ Scott, Hew (1926). Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae; the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation (Vol 6 ed.). Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. pp. 409–410. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ "Innes House". CANMORE. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
- ^ MacDonald, Murdoch. The Covenanters in Moray and Ross. Nairn : J. T. Melven; Edinburgh : Maclaren & Macniven. pp. 103–153. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
