| |
Significant Scots
John Forbes |
FORBES, JOHN, second son of bishop
Forbes, was born, May 2nd, 1593, and received the rudiments of his
religious and literary education under the care of his father. In
1607, he was sent to King’s college, Aberdeen, where he studied
philosophy. Afterwards, he spent some years on the continent, studying
theology, first at Heidelberg, under the celebrated Pareus, and
subsequently at Sedan, and other celebrated universities in upper and
lower Germany. He devoted much of his attention to the writings of the
fathers, and made great progress in the study of Hebrew, both of which
branches of knowledge, he considered as of the first importance to a
theologian. The learning which he thus acquired enabled him, in 1618, to
maintain a public dispute against the archbishop and the Lutherans at
Upsal. Returning next year to Scotland, he was, at the following synod of
the diocese of Aberdeen, called to the profession of the gospel, and, soon
after, was elected professor of divinity in King’s college. By the death
of his elder brother, in 1625, he became heir apparent of his father as
laird of Corse and O’Neil, to which honour he afterwards duly acceded.
At the breaking out of the covenanting insurrection in 1638, Forbes
published an admonition, in which he pointed out the evils likely to arise
from the bond into which the nation was plunging itself, and loudly and
earnestly implored that peace might be preserved. It is well known that
this advice was not followed, although the people of the northern
provinces generally abstained from entering into the covenant. In summer,
that year, a deputation of the covenanters, headed by the earl of
Montrose, arrived at Aberdeen, for the purpose of arguing the inhabitants
into an acceptance of their bond; but owing to the exertions of Forbes,
and other preachers and professors, they met with little success. The
Aberdeen doctors, as they were called, maintained a disputation against
the deputies of the covenant, with such spirit and effect as forms a
curious episode in the history of the civil war. They were warmly thanked
by the king for their loyalty, and attracted the respectful notice of the
church party in England, on account of their pro-episcopal arguments. In a
grateful letter addressed to them by the king, from Whitehall, January
31st, 1639, the name of Forbes stands first in the list. But the
covenanters were now too warmly engaged in their opposition to the king,
to pay much attention to argument. Early in 1639, instead of a deputation
to argue, an army came to coerce; so that, finding no longer any safety in
Aberdeen, the bishop and two of the doctors took shipping for England,
while Forbes retired to his house of Corse. After the pacification of
Berwick, he returned to the city, and preached for some time in one
of the vacant pulpits. Hostilities, however, were soon after renewed, and
as the covenanters were resolved to urge the bond upon every public
person, Forbes, as well as others, was summoned before the synod of
Aberdeen, to answer for his recusancy. It was in vain that he urged his
conscientious objections: the times were not such as to allow of a refined
toleration, and he was deposed for contumacy. He appears to have now
devoted himself, in the library of King’s college, to the composition of
his great work, the "Historico-Theological Institutions," which
he was about to finish, when the solemn league and covenant occasioned a
fresh application to men of his class, and he was obliged, with great
reluctance, to leave his native country, April 5th, 1644. He resided for
two years in Holland, and there completed and published his "Institutions,"
which was by far the most learned and valuable work of the kind that had
then been offered to the public. Returning to his native country in 1646,
he lived for some time in unmolested retirement at Corse, where he busied
himself in making some considerable additions to the work above mentioned,
which were not published during the author’s life-time. After a life,
which his biographer has called a continual preparation for death, this
learned, pious, and virtuous man expired, April 29th, 1648, at
the immature age of fifty-five. He had, by his wife, who was a native of
Middleburg, two sons, of whom one survived him, and was the heir of his
learning and virtue, as well as of his estates. The friends of Dr Forbes
desired that he should be buried in the cathedral beside his father; but
this was forbidden by the party then in power, and the mourners were
obliged to carry his body to an ordinary church-yard, where it lies
without any monument. It is painful to add another instance of the narrow
spirit to which religious hostility was carried, in an age otherwise
characterized by so much zealous piety. While professor, Forbes had
purchased a house at Old Aberdeen, where King’s college is situated, and
made it over for the use of his successors; but having forgot to secure
his life-rent in it, he was afterwards deprived of it by the prevailing
party.
|
Return
to our Significant Scots page |