Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/217

Rh and were hospitably received by the magistrates; but they declined their proffers of friendship till they should first show their favour to the object of their visit. Montrose, "in a bold and smart speech," remonstrated with them on the danger of popish and prelatical innovations; but the provost excused himself and his coadjutors by pleading that they were protestants and not papists, and intimating their desire not to thwart the inclination of the king. Immediately after their interview with the magistrates, the deputies received from the doctors of the two universities a paper containing fourteen ensnaring propositions respecting the covenant, promising compliance should the commissioners return a satisfactory answer. These propositions had been carefully conned over previously, and even printed and transmitted to the court in England before the arrival of the deputies. They were speedily answered by the latter, who sent their replies to the doctors in the evening of the next day. Meanwhile the nobles applied to the magistrates for the use of the pulpits on the Sabbath following, for the ministerial commissioners, but this being refused, the three ministers preached in the open air, to great multitudes, giving pointed and popular answers to the questions of the doctors, and urging the subscription of the, covenant with such effect that five hundred signatures were adhibited to it upon the spot, some of the adherents being persons of quality. On Monday the deputies went out into the country districts, and although the Marquis of Huntly and the Aberdeen doctors had been at pains to pre-occupy the minds of the people, yet the covenant was signed by about forty-four ministers and many gentlemen. Additional subscriptions awaited the deputies on their return to Aberdeen, where they preached again as on the former Sabbath ; but finding that they could produce no effect upon the doctors of divinity, whose principles led them to render implicit obedience to the court, they desisted from the attempt and returned to Edinburgh.

In the subsequent November, Mr Cant sat in the celebrated Glasgow Assembly (of 1638), and took part in the abolition of episcopacy with the great and good men whom the crisis of affairs had brought together on that memorable occasion. In the course of the procedure, the Assembly was occupied with a presentation to Mr Cant to the pastoral charge of Newbattle:—"My Lord Lowthian presented ane supplication to the Assemblie, anent the transportation of Mr Andrew Cant from Pitsligo to Newbotle, in the Presbitrie of Dalkeith. Moderatour (Henderson) said—It would seeme reasonable your Lordship should get a favourable answer, considering your diligence and zeale in this cause above many tubers, and I know this not to be a new motion, but to be concludit by the patron, presbitrie, and paroche. The commissioner of Edinr alleadged that they had made an election of him 24 yeares since. Then the mater was put to voiting—Whither Mr Andro Cant should be transported from Pitsligo to Edinburgh? And the most pairt of the Assembly voited to his transplantation to Newbotle; and so the Moderatour declaired him to be minister at Newbotle."

From his proximity to Edinburgh in his new charge, Mr Cant was enabled to devote much of his attention to public affairs, with which his name is closely connected at this period. In 1640, he, and Alexander Henderson, Robert Blair, John Livingston, Robert Baillie, and George Gillespie, the most eminent ministers of the day, were appointed chaplains to the army of the Covenanters, which they accompanied in the campaign of that year. When the Scots gained possession of Newcastle, August 30, Henderson and Cant were the ministers nominated to preach in the town churches. In the same year the General Assembly agreed to translate Mr Cant from Newbattle to Aberdeen. In 1641 we again find him at Edinburgh, where public duty no doubt often called him. On the 21st of August he preached before Charles I., on the occasion of his majesty's second visit for the purpose of conciliating his Scottish subjects. When the union of the church