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CANT, ANDREW,
a rigid Covenanting minister in the reigns of Charles the First and
Second, born about the end of the sixteenth century, appears to have
belonged to East-Lothian. Having manifested an opposition to episcopacy,
then in the ascendant, when, in October 1620, he was chosen one of the
ministers of Edinburgh, the king and bishops would not sanction his
election, and a Mr. William Forbes of Aberdeen was appointed in his stead.
Nevertheless, on a vacancy again occurring, in 1623, the dissentients
protested, but in vain, against proceeding to another election, on the
ground that Cant had been already chosen, and was of right their minister.
About 1638 he was appointed minister to the then newly erected parish of
Pitsligo, on the north coast of Aberdeenshire. In July of that year, he
was sent by the Tables – as the convention at Edinburgh of the
representatives of the national party then opposed to the proceedings of
Charles were called – to Aberdeen, to induce the inhabitants of that city
to subscribe the Covenant, having for his co-adjutors the earl, afterwards
marquis, of Montrose, Lord Couper, the master of Forbes, and other
gentlemen, with two ministers. So earnest were they in their work that, to
the displeasure of the citizens of Aberdeen, they declined all
refreshments until the Covenant was signed, a procedure quite contrary to
the practice always hitherto observed in that hospitable city. In the
November following he sat in the General Assembly at Glasgow, which
abolished episcopacy. He was with the army when the Scots obtained
possession of Newcastle, August 30, 1640, and preached by appointment in
one of the churches of that town. He was subsequently appointed one of the
ministers of Aberdeen. According to Mr. Kennedy, in his ‘Annals’ of that
city, for some time Mr. Cant had the whole ministerial charge. He
exercised his ecclesiastical authority with rigour, and fulminated
anathemas against the magistrates for not complying with his dictates. His
congregation complained that no person could be admitted to communion by
him, except those who were found qualified to partake of that ordinance.
In place of yielding to the remonstrances of the magistrates, however, he
declaimed against them from the pulpit for their interference in what
pertained to the kirk session. The matter was represented to the
provincial synod, but both the magistrates and the congregation were
compelled to submit to his decrees. Spalding mentions that one Sunday
afternoon, during sermon, some children made a noise outside the church,
when Cant, who was preaching, sprang out of the pulpit and pursued them to
some distance, and when he had dispersed them he returned and finished his
sermon; but the people wondered at his behaviour.
When Charles the
First visited Scotland, in 1641, it being then his policy to conciliate
the nation, Mr. Cant was appointed to preach before him at Edinburgh,
August 221st. He frequently preached also before the Scots
parliament. He was of that party in the church of Scotland hostile to the
employment of individuals who had served Charles against the partisans of
the first covenant, and known as the Protesting party. He was opposed to
the bringing over of Charles the Second from Holland to Scotland in 1650,
and according to Balfour (Annals, vol. iv. page 160), used all his
influence to prevent the nation from undertaking to place him on the
throne of England. In 1660, a complaint was presented to the magistrates
of Aberdeen, charging Mr. Cant with having published a work written by
Samuel Rutherford, entitled Lex Rex, and containing opinions then deemed
seditious, and for fulminating anathemas and imprecations against many of
his congregation. The proceedings which took place in consequence caused
him, although no judgment was given against him, to relinquish his charge,
and withdraw himself from the town with his family. Mr. Cant died about
1664. In No. 147 of the Spectator the opprobrious word ‘cant’ is described
as having been derived from the name of this minister, who is there styled
‘illiterate,’ but this is equally in violation of sound scholarship and
good feeling, as the etymology is certainly the Latin word Cantus,
‘a song,’ so expressive of the singing or whining tone of certain
preachers.
A Mr. Andrew
Cant, supposed to have been a son of the Presbyterian minister of
Aberdeen, was one of the Episcopalian ministers of Edinburgh, deprived at
the Revolution. On 17th Oct., 1772, he was consecrated a bishop
at Edinburgh. |
