Early Career
In 1615 he was presented to the crown living of Mortlach, Banffshire. He removed in 1622 to Edinburgh, where he successively held four charges. On 18 July 1622, he was elected by the town council to the charge of the New or High Church; he was transferred on 25 November 1625 to the Trinity College Church; on 14 December he was elected by the town council to the second charge in the Old Church, or St Giles' Church, and admitted on 27 January 1626; he was promoted in the same year (after 14 August) to the first charge.
John was able to achieve influence at court through his cousin, James Maxwell of Innerwick (afterwards Earl of Dirleton). In 1629, by command of Charles I, he waited on William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, to explain the views of the Scottish hierarchy in reference to a Book of Common Prayer. Archbishop Laud and King Charles were in favour of bringing the Anglican prayer-book into use throughout the three kingdoms. Maxwell reported that the Scottish bishops believed there would be less opposition to a service-book framed in Scotland, though on the English model.
In 1630 Maxwell was in correspondence with Henry Leslie, then dean of Down, about the presbyterian irregularities of Robert Blair, and other Scottish clergymen who had migrated to the north of Ireland. He carried to the court an account, derived from Leslie, of Blair's alleged teaching respecting physical convulsions as requisites of religious revival. In consequence of this report, Robert Echlin, Bishop of Down and Connor, suspended Blair in 1631, and deposed him and his friends in 1632.
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