Rev Robert Douglas
Robert Douglas (1594–1674) was the only minister of the Church of
Scotland to be Moderator of the General Assembly five times.
He was son of George Douglas(1), governor of Laurence, Lord Oliphant;
the father was said to be an illegitimate son of Sir George Douglas
of Lochleven, brother of Sir William Douglas, 6th Earl of Morton. He
was educated at the University of St Andrews, where he took the
degree of M.A. in 1614.
In 1638, he was Minister of Kirkcaldy where he ordained George
Gillespie just weeks after the National Covenant had been signed and
sworn by thousands all over Scotland. Douglas was later appointed
along with the Earl of Cassilis and Gillespie as Scottish
commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Neither Douglas nor
Cassilis ever took their seats.
Douglas officiated at the
coronation of Charles II at Scone in 1651. During the ceremony he
preached a sermon which said that it was the monarch's duty to
maintain the established religion of Scotland and to bring the other
religions in Britain into conformity with it. Douglas assisted in
the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and afterwards was offered
the bishopric of Edinburgh if he would accept the introduction of
episcopacy into Scotland. He refused, and was latterly simply Pastor
of Greyfriars in Edinburgh and then Minister of the Parish of
Pencaitland until his death.
He became minister of Kirkaldy in 1628, and a year later was offered
a charge at South Leith, which he declined. He became chaplain to
one of the brigades of Scottish auxiliaries sent with the connivance
of Charles I to the aid of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years'
War. Gustavus landed in Germany in June 1630; Robert Wodrow, in his
‘Analecta,’ gives several anecdotes, showing how he appreciated
Douglas's advice. Returning to Scotland, he was elected in 1638
member of the General Assembly, and in the following year was chosen
for the second charge of the High Church in Edinburgh. In 1641 he
was removed to the Tolbooth Church, and in July of the same year
preached a sermon before the Scottish parliament. In the following
year he was chosen moderator of the general assembly—a post he also
held in 1645, 1647, 1649, and 1651—and in 1643 he was named one of
the commissioners of the Westminster Assembly.
In 1644 he was
chaplain to one of the Scottish regiments in England, an account of
which he gives in his ‘Diary.’ In 1649 he was retransferred to the
High Church, and with other commissioners presented the Solemn
League and Covenant to the parliament, and was appointed a
commissioner for visiting the universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen,
and St Andrews. In the following year he was one of the ministers
who waited on Charles II at Dunfermline to obtain his signature to a
declaration of religion; but as this document reflected on his
father, Charles refused to sign it. The result was a division in the
Scotch church on the matter, Douglas being a leader of the
resolutioners, the party which preferred to treat the king
leniently. In January 1651 Douglas officiated at the coronation of
Charles II at Scone, preaching a sermon in which he said that it was
the king's duty to maintain the established religion of Scotland,
and to bring the other religions of the kingdom into conformity with
it.
Douglas was sent prisoner to London by Oliver Cromwell,
when he suppressed the Scotch royalists, but was released in 1653.
In 1654 he was called to London with other eminent ministers to
consult with the Protector on the affairs of the Church of Scotland.
Douglas was now the acknowledged leader of the moderate
presbyterians or ‘public resolutioners,’ and retained the position
till the English Restoration, which he largely helped to bring
about. In 1659 he joined with the other resolutioners in sending
James Sharp to London to attend to the interests of the Scottish
church, and Wodrow (Sufferings of the Church of Scotland) gives most
of the correspondence which took place between them. In this year
Douglas preached the sermon at the opening of Heriot's Hospital.
After the Restoration Douglas was offered the bishopric of
Edinburgh if he would agree to the introduction of episcopacy into
Scotland, but declined the office, and remonstrated with Sharp for
accepting the archbishopric of St. Andrews. He preached before the
Scottish parliament in 1661, and 27 June 1662 was removed to the
pastorate of Grey Friars' Church, Edinburgh. For declining to
recognise episcopacy Douglas was deprived of this charge on 1
October 1662.
In 1669 the privy council licensed him as an
indulged minister to the parish of Pencaitland in East Lothian. He
died in 1674, aged 80.
He married 1st Margaret Kirkaldy, and they had 8 children. He
married 2nd Margaret Boyd, bur. 13 Jul 1692, and they had 2
children. His son, Alexander, was minister at Logie Church,
Stirling.
Publications —
The Diary of Mr Robert Douglas when ivith the
Scottish Army in England (1644);
The Sermon preached at
Scone, January the first, 1651, at the Coronation of Charles II.
(1651);
Master Douglas, his Sermon preached at the Down
Sitting of the last Parliament of Scotland (1661).
Notes:
1. Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ has him
as the son of Robert, an illegitimate son of Sir George Douglas of
Lochleven. (This section does not make sense to me!)
Any contributions to this item will be
gratefully accepted
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