Robert Baillie

Robert Baillie (30 April 1602 – 1662) was a Church of Scotland minister who became famous as an author and a propagandist for the Covenanters.

In his engagement with the theological and liturgical controversies of the mid-Seventeenth Century, Baillie sought to reconcile his strong belief in maintaining Kirk unity with a firm adherence to a Christian doctrine dictated by the divine 'truth' revealed in Scripture.

Two large volume's of Baillie's sermons survive in manuscript.He was also conscientious in ensuring that copies were made of his outgoing correspondence and other documents with a view to creating a body of evidence which could be used to prepare a historical account of the Covenanters.This material remains a valuable source for historians of the period.

Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, 1847, Palace of Westminster

Baillie was born in the Saltmarket, Glasgow, the eldest son of James Baillie, a merchant and burgess of Glasgow, and his wife, Helen Gibson. He was educated at the High School of Glasgow and the University of Glasgow, graduating with an M.A. in 1620. He was licenced by Archbishop James Law and became a regent of Philosophy in the University, and tutor to the son of Alexander Montgomery, 6th Earl of Eglinton. He was ordained to Kilwinning on 25 May 1631 and admitted burgess of Glasgow 6 July 1631. In 1638 he represented the Presbytery of Irvine at the Glasgow Assembly, when Presbyterianism was re-established in Scotland. In 1639 he accompanied Lord General Alexander Leslie and the Scottish army as chaplain to Lord Eglinton's Regiment during the Bishops' Wars. In 1640 he was appointed by the Covenanters to draw up an accusation against Archbishop Laud. On 11 August 1642 he was translated to the Tron Kirk in Glasgow.In the same year, Baillie was made Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow, holding the chair jointly with David Dickson. In 1643 he was selected as one of the five Scottish clergymen who were sent to the Westminster Assembly. In January 1647 he presented the completed Confession of Faith and a version of the Psalms in metre to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

In 1649, he was one of the commissioners sent to Holland for the purpose of inviting Charles II to Scotland, and of settling the terms of his admission to the government. He continued to take an interest in religious controversies during the Interregnum, but was not active politically. In 1661 he was made Principal of the University of Glasgow. He died in August of the following year.

Baillie accepted the liturgical changes introduced by James VI's Articles of Perth (1618), even elaborating an exhaustive defence of kneeling at communion in protracted correspondence with David Dickson, the minister for the parish of Irvine.However, he denounced William Laud's Scottish Prayer Book (1637) as 'popish' and 'idolatrous'. His critical analysis of the intentions of its Canterburian authors is set out in his A parallel or briefe comparison of the liturgie with the masse-book, the breviarie, the ceremoniall, and other Romish rituals and Ladensium autakakrisis of 1641.

In the Resolutioner versus Protester schism in the Church of Scotland during the Cromwellian invasion of Scotland, Baillie sided with the Resolutioners.His ecclesiology saw the church as an ecclesia mixta, comprising both reprobate and elect.He rejected the Protestors' more exclusive vision of a church of visible saints in which membership (and by extension the ability to hold church office) should be restricted to godly 'true' believers.Baillie's concern was to maintain church unity and combat the threat posed by sectarians. Of the Resolutioners, Robert Douglas was, by head and shoulders, the acknowledged leader. His ministerial supporters included David Dickson, Baillie, and James Wood. Among the Protesters the most outstanding ministers were James Guthrie, Samuel Rutherfurd, Andrew Cant, Patrick Gillespie, and John Livingstone; and, of the elders, Wariston and Sir John Cheisly; the two most strenuous fighters being Guthrie and Wariston.

Baillie's mentor Robert Blair urged him to disengage from the Resolutioner - Protestor conflict and concentrate on his academic writing.Accordingly, during the 1650s Baillie immersed himself in his teaching at the University of Glasgow and writing treatises on Hebrew and biblical chronology.

In correspondence with William Cunningham, 9th Earl of Glencairn, John Maitland, 2nd Earl of Lauderdale and James Sharp after the Restoration, Baillie made it clear that he thought the episcopal settlement Charles II imposed on Scotland was a mistake, but he did not oppose the return of bishops publicly.When, in 1662, he met Andrew Fairfoul, the recently consecrated Archbishop of Glasgow, he greeted him cordially, but made a point of not acknowledging his status.

Baillie was a man of learning and ability; his views were wise and temperate rather than extreme, and he played but a secondary part in the stirring events of the time. His Letters, by which he is now chiefly remembered, are of first-rate historical importance, and give a very lively picture of a period of great importance in Scottish history.

A complete memoir and a full notice of his writings can be found in David Laing's edition of the Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie (1637–1662), Bannatyne Club, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1841–1842). Among his works are Ladensium αὐτοκατάκρισις, an answer to Lysimachus Nicanor by John Corbet in the form of an attack on Laud and his system, in reply to a publication which charged the Covenanters with Jesuitry; Anabaptism, the true Fountain of Independency, Brownisme, Antinomy, Familisme, etc., a sermon [in which he criticises the rise of the early Baptist churches in England such as those led by Thomas Lambe]; An Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland; The Life of William (Laud) now Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Examined (London, 1643); A Parallel of the Liturgy with the Mass Book, the Breviary, the Ceremonial and other Romish Rituals (London, 1661).

• La densivm AUTOKATAKRISIS : the Canterburians self-conviction ... : with a postscript for the personat Jesuite Lysimachus Nicanor (1641) https://archive.org/details/ladensivmautokat00bail
• A dissuasive from the errours of the time : wherein the tenets of the principall sects, especially of the Independents, are drawn together in one map, for the most part in the words of their own authours and their maine principles are examined by the touch-stone of the Holy Scrptures [sic] (1645) https://archive.org/details/dissuasivefromer00bail
• Errours and induration are the great sins and the great judgements of the time : preached in a sermon before the Right Honourable House of Peers, in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, 30 July 1645, the day of the monethly fast (1645) https://archive.org/details/erroursind00bail
• Operis historici et chronologici libri duo : in quibus historia sacra & profana compendiosè deducitur ex ipsis fontibus, a creatione mundi ad Constantinum Magnum, & quaestiones ac dubia chronologica, quae ex V. & N. Testamento moveri solent, breviter & perspicuè explicantur & vindicantur. Una cum tribus diatribis ... (MDCLXVIII [1668]) https://archive.org/details/operishistoricie00bail
• The letters and journals of Robert Baillie ... 1637-1662 (Volume 1) (1841)
• The letters and journals of Robert Baillie ... 1637-1662 (Volume 2) (1841)
• The letters and journals of Robert Baillie ... 1637-1662 (Volume 3) (1841)

He married (1st) 1631, Lilias Fleming of the family of Cardarroch, parish of Cadder, who died 7 June 1653, and had issue —Lilias (married, cont. 7 and 16 January 1657, William Eccles, minister of Ayr); Helen, baptised 20 January 1644 ; Elizabeth, baptised 23 October 1647 ; other three children : (2nd) 1656, Helen (died Feb. 1679), daughter of John Strang, D.D., Principal of the University of Glasgow, and widow of James Elliot, D.D., minister of Trinity Parish, Edinburgh,and had issue — Margaret, baptised 21 July 1657 (married John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield and Camlachie, and was ancestress of Clementina Mary SophiaW., mistress of Prince Charles Edward).

Baillie was twice married, firstly to Lilias Fleming, of the family of Cardarroch, by whom he had a large number of children, but only five survived him; she died in June 1653. His second wife was Mrs. Wilkie, widow, daughter of a former principal of the university, John Strang; by her he had a daughter, Margaret, who became wife of Walkinshaw of Barrowfield, and grandmother of Henry Home, Lord Kames. Another descendant was Clementina Walkinshaw, mistress of Charles Edward Stuart.