The family of Burnett of Leys, with collateral - Electric Scotland

DEESIDE BURNETTS: XIII. SIR THOMAS. 47
Next day, being Sunday, the Covenanting ministers had hoped to occupy
the pulpits of the city churches, to which, however, the Magistrates and
ministers refused them access. Not to be baffled, they betook themselves
to the town residence of the Earl Marischal, where " the ladie of Petslego,
his sister, was there dwelling, ane rank puritan," and there, from
extemporized galleries, Henderson, Dickson, and Cant held forth in
succession to large audiences. On Monday they preached again, and
obtained a few signatures, including, Spalding tells us, " Mr. Alexander
Jaffray, sindrie of the name of Burnet, and utheris burgesses of Aberdeen."
Dr. William Guild, one of the Aberdeen ministers, and Mr. Robert
Reid, minister of Banchory, subscribed, with limitations and restrictions
to the effect that they condemned not the Articles of Perth, nor
Episcopal government, and retain all loyal subjection and obedience to
the King.
The chief incident of this covenanting visit was a formal disputation
between the clerical members of the Commission and the
theological professors of the University and ministers of Aberdeen,
beginning with a challenge from the Aberdeen doctors, and proceeding,
according to the scholastic usage of the day, by way of demand, answer,
and duply. The Covenanting ministers were somewhat overweighted by
their opponents, who included, among others, the learned and saintly
Dr. John Forbes of Corse, son of Bishop Patrick Forbes, and professor
of theology in King's College, and Dr. Barron,
little behind Forbes in
learning, and a man of the most blameless life, on whose theological
works the highest possible encomium has been pronounced by Bishop
Jeremy Taylor.* The doctors took up and stood by the not very assailable
position that, granting the National Covenant to be as excellent a
document as its adherents regarded it, the Commissioners had no right
or authority to force it on those who loved it not. In the course of the
proceedings, Henderson and Dickson, on whom it chiefly devolved to
conduct the controversy, made, as the parson of Rothiemay tells us, a
temporary retreat to the " Castell of Muchells in Mearnes, the dwellinghouse
of Sir Thomas Burnett of Lyes, ... and in that conveniencye
*
In 1640, after Barren's death, on the plea that there were unsound passages in his writings,
his widow was made prisoner by order of the General Assembly, and dragged in custody of a
body of military from her retreat in Strathilay to enable them to search for her husband's letters
and manuscripts.