brought matters to a crisis, and, Pitcarne being again deprived, the crown appointed a successor. When the latter endeavoured to enter on the charge, so determined a resistance was offered that the privy council instructed the Marquis of Atholl to quarter troops on the parish, to hold courts, and fine, imprison, and scourge old and young, men and women, who failed to assist the crown's nominee. Ejected from his parish, Pitcarne sought refuge in Holland, where in 1685 his treatise on ‘Justification’ (infra) was published. In 1687 he returned to Scotland, and in 1690 was by act of parliament restored to his parish (Wodrow, Hist. iii. 390). At the instance of William of Orange he was appointed provost of St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, in 1691, and became in 1693 principal of St. Mary's College, a post which he retained till his death (Minutes of Synod of Fife, App. p. 214). For this event various dates have been assigned, but that given on the marble tablet put up to his memory in the vestibule of St. Salvator's Church, viz. ‘September, 1695,’ is doubtless correct. This is also the date given in the ‘Minutes of the Synod of Fife’ (App. p. 214). He was about seventy-three years of age, and his office of principal remained vacant until 1697, when Thomas Forrester (1635?–1706) [q. v.] was appointed his successor.
On 13 March 1645 Pitcarne married Janet Clark of St. Andrews, by whom he had four sons—David, Alexander, George, and James—and a daughter Lucretia. Of the sons, Alexander was ordained minister of Kilmany in 1697, but died early.
Notwithstanding Wodrow's testimony that Principal Pitcarne was a ‘worthy and learned minister, known through the reformed churches by his writings’ (Wodrow, Hist. iii. 390), his reputation as an author has been impaired by the erroneous attribution of his Latin works to a supposititious writer of the same name ‘who flourished’ at the same period. All his books are controversial in tendency, and aim, in his own words, ‘to vindicate orthodoxy and confute ancient and modern error.’
His best known and earliest work is entitled ‘The Spiritual Sacrifice, or a Treatise … concerning the Saint's Communion with God in Prayer,’ Edinburgh, Robert Brown, 1664, in two vols. 4to, separately issued. The dedication to the Viscountess Stormont is prefixed to vol. ii., and the author experienced great difficulty in getting the volume through the press. In the same year it was issued in London with a new title-page, in 1 vol. 4to, with the dedication, contents, and preface prefixed in due order (Bodl.).
Pitcarne also wrote a philosophical and metaphysical treatise, dedicated to Robert Boyle, and entitled ‘Compendiaria et perfacilis Physiologiæ idea Aristotelicæ … unacum Anatome Cartesianismi … Authore Alexandro Pitcarnio Scoto, Philosophiæ quondam professore, nunc Dronensis Ecclesiæ Stratherniæ Pastore,’ 8vo, London, 1676; as well as ‘Harmonia Euangelica Apostolorum Pauli et Jacobi in doctrina de Justificatione,’ 8vo, Rotterdam, 1685, dedicated to Sir James Dalrymple, first viscount Stair.
[Acts of the Scottish Parliament; Wodrow's History; Scott's Fasti; Fountainhall's Decisions; Register of the Diocesan Synod of Dunblane; Selections from the Minutes of the Synod of Fife; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the Coll. of Justice; St. Andrews University and Parish Registers.]
PITMAN, JOHN ROGERS (1782–1861), divine and author, was born in 1782, and educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was admitted B.A. in 1804, and proceeded M.A. in 1815. Taking holy orders, he was appointed perpetual curate of Berden or Beardon and vicar of Ugley, Essex, 18 Feb. 1817 (Foster, Index Eccl. p. 141). He became well known as a preacher in London, at Berkeley and Belgrave Chapels, and at the Foundling and Magdalene Hospitals before 1830. In 1833 he was presented to the perpetual curacy of St. Barnabas, Kensington, by the vicar, J. H. Pott. He resigned his Essex livings in 1846, and Kensington in 1848, becoming domestic chaplain to the Duchess of Kent. He died at Bath on 27 Aug. 1861, a few months after his royal patroness (Gent. Mag. 1861, ii. 452).
He was a prolific writer, compiler, and editor, producing annotated editions of the works of Jeremy Taylor (1820–2), Lightfoot (1822–5), Reynolds (1826), of Hooke's ‘Roman History’ (1821), of Patrick's and Lowth's Commentaries (1822), and of Bingham's ‘Origines Ecclesiasticæ’ (1840). Besides numerous sermons, he also published:
- ‘Excerpta ex variis Romanis poetis,’ London, 1808, 8vo.
- ‘Practical Lectures upon the Ten First Chapters of the Gospel of St. John,’ London, 1821, 8vo; with a supplement, 1822.
- ‘The School Shakespeare,’ with notes, London, 1822, 8vo.
- ‘Sophoclis Ajax,’ Greek and Latin, with notes, London, 1830, 8vo.
- ‘Practical Commentary on our Lord's Sermon on the Mount,’ London, 1852, 8vo.
