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Times, life and thought of Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618 - 1635

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SnowWGS_1940redux.pdf (44.64Mb)
Date
1940
Author
Snow, W. G. S.
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Abstract
 
 
There has only been one attempt to construct anything like a full account of the life of Patrick Forbes. This was by G.P.Shand in his introduction to the funeral orations and pieces offered in honour of the Bishop and published by the Spottiswoode Society in 1845. Shand's Memoir is valuable but enters into no detailed analysis of Forbes's thought, nor of the movements of the time which formed the background of his life and in which he played a notable part. The author is content to follow the brief references of Garden to the Bishops work as Chancellor of Aberdeen University and does not attempt to assess the extent of his influence upon seventeenth century religious life and thought. Besides Shand did not have before him the printed editions of the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland which throw additional and interesting light upon Forbes as a statesman and a diocesan.
 
A recent valuable addition to a fuller understanding of the life and influence of Patrick Forbes is contained in Professor G. D. Henderson's Religious Life in Seventeenth Century Scotland. The most useful parts of Henderson's essay on Forbes are those which deal with his work in connection with King's College, Aberdeen and his influence throughout the remainder of the seventeenth century. Henderson helps us to fill in the gaps left by Shand and I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to these two scholars.
 
A recent valuable addition to a fuller understanding of the life and influence of Patrick Forbes is contained in Professor G. D. Henderson's Religious Life in Seventeenth Century Scotland. The most useful parts of Henderson's essay on Forbes are those which deal with his work in connection with King's College, Aberdeen and his influence throughout the remainder of the seventeenth century. Henderson helps us to fill in the gaps left by Shand and I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to these two scholars.
 
It has been said that when God appoints a man to some special work or witness His preparatory action is to be seen in the circumstances of hereditary descent. Forbes's ancestry has been fully explored in Chapter 1 with such comment as appeared necessary and his degree of kinship with Andrew Melville, usually left vague, indicated. From time to time suggestions which seemed historically reasonable have been offered and erroneous or misleading statements challenged. Material not previously used by those who have written of Patrick Forbes, from Registers of the Privy Council of Scotland and from the Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, has been used, while the closest attention has been given to Forbes's own writings.
 
It has not been easy to keep Forbes continually in the picture, but I have tried, chiefly by use of Appendices, to avoid Russell Lowell's criticism of Masson's Life of Milton - that Milton was sometimes only an incident in his own biography. Opportunity has been taken to explain the principles governing Episcopal Elections during the First Scottish Episcopate and to elucidate other points frequently omitted or glossed over in text books. Particularly have I tried to stress the decisive nature of the economic and political motives which underlay the national Covenant of 1638, for these nave not been correctly guaged by Episcopalian historians who have too frequently tended to represent the issue as a clear-cut one between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism.
 
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http://hdl.handle.net/1842/30775
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