Andrew Cant

• Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae: the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation, Vol. VI, page 37

Andrew Cant was a leader of the Scottish Covenanters. About 1623 the people of Edinburgh called him to be their minister, but he was rejected by James I. Ten years later he was minister of Pitsligo in Aberdeenshire, a charge which he left in 1638 for that of Newbattle in Mid- Lothian. In July of that year he went with other commissioners to Aberdeen in the vain attempt to induce the university and the presbytery of that city to subscribe the National Covenant, and in the following November sat in the general assembly at Glasgow which abolished episcopacy in Scotland. In 1640 he was chaplain to the Scottish army and then settled as minister at Aberdeen. Though a stanch Covenanter, he was a zealous Royalist, preaching before Charles I in Edinburgh, and stoutly advocating the restoration of the monarchy in the time of the Commonwealth. Cant’s frequent and bitter attacks on various members of his congregation led in 1660 to complaints laid before the magistrates, in consequence of which he resigned his charge. His son Andrew was principal of Edinburgh University (1675–1685). He was Rector of the East-West Church for 38 years and is buried there in a large tomb; The Cant coat-of-arms is on the window of this church.

Andrew Cant was a Presbyterian preacher of great vigour and eloquence of the period of the Second Reformation. In 1638 he was minister of Pitaligo in Aberdeenshire. Unlike the generality of the clergy in that district of Scotland, he entered heartily into the national covenant for resisting the Episcopalian encroachments of Charles I., and took an active part in the struggles of the time for civil and religious liberty. He was associated with the celebrated Alexander Henderson, David Dickson, the Earls of Montrose and Kinghorn, and Lord Cupar, in the commission appointed in July 1638, by the Tables, or deputies of the different classes of Covenanters, noblemen, gentlemen, burgesses, and ministers, to proceed to the north and endeavor to engage the inhabitants of the town and county of Aberdeen in the work of reformation. The doctors of divinity in the town had steadily resisted the progress of reforming principles, and were greatly incensed when they heard of this commission. They fulminated against it from the pulpit; and the town council, under their influence and example, enacted, by a plurality of votes, that none of the citizens should subscribe the covenant. The deputies arrived on the 20th of the month, and were hospitably received by the magistrates; but they declined their proffer of friendship till they should first show their favor 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 coadjutor 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 minister 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. 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 Androw 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 uthers, 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." om 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 a second visit for the purpose of conciliating his Scottish subjects. When the union of the church and nation, cemented by the covenant, was dislocated by the unhappy deed known as the Engagement, in 1648, Cant, as might have been expected from his zeal and fidelity, stood consistently by the covenanting as now distinguishedfrom the political party. When General David Leslie was at Aberdeen in November, 1650, on an expedition against some northern insurgents, he was visited by Messrs Andrew Cant, elder and younger, ministers of Aberdeen, who, amongst many other discourses, told the lord general, "that wee could not in conscience asist the king to recover his crowne of England, but he thoughte one kinqdome might serve him werey weill, and one crowne was eneuche for any oneman; one kingdome being sufficient for one to reuell and governe." Balfour’s Annals, iv. 161. In the year 1660, a complaint was presented to the magistrates, charging Mr Cant with having published Rutherford’s celebrated book, entitled Lex, Rex, without authority, and for denouncing anathemas and imprecations against many of his congregation, in the course of performing his religious duties. A variety of proceedings took place on this question before the magistrates, but no judgment was given; Mr Cant, however, finding his situation rather unpleasant, withdrew himself from his pastoral charge, removed from the town with hiswife and family, and died about the year 1664.