p^fe <^^OGICAL St^"^^' BX 8990 .A8 G4 1849 Reformed Presbyterian Churct in North America. Reformation principles ftYhi hi tfi(i /649 REFORMA I'iON^mi^^ IPLES REFORMED PRESBYTERIM CHURCH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. He established a Testimony in Jacob, and appointed a Law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children ;— who should arise and declare them to their children: that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God ; but keep his commandments. PHILADELPHIA: ISAAC ASHMEAD, PRINTER. 1849. New Yokk, Mat 12, 1806. The Reformed Presbytery, impressed with the duty of exhibiting a Historical View of the Christian Church, as a Testimony of their thankfulness to God for his goodness to his covenant people, and of their approbation of the faithful contendings of the saints ; and also to serve as a mean of instruction to those who are desirous to understand the Pres- bytery's FIXED Testimony, Do hereby ratify and approve of the Preface and the Brief Historical View of the Churchy with the proposed Amendments and Additions; and they hereby also appoint Messrs. William Gibson and Alexander M'Leod a committee to insert those amendments and addi- tions in their proper places, and to publish the work with all convenient speed. Mat 15, 1806. The Presbytery referred, for publication, the Declaration and Testimony to the Committee to whom was referred the Historical View. Extracted from the Minutes, JOHN BLACK, Clerh The Committee to whom were referred for publication, by the Presbytery, the Testimony^ the Historical View, and the Preface, certify this to be a true copy. WILLIAM GIBSON, ALEXANDER M'LEOD. The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, at its Sessions in 1834, Resolved in substance as follows: 1st. That another edition of Reformation Principles be pub- lished from the edition of 1807: — the Historical View to be continued till the present time, and the Chapter on Adoption, with appropriate Scripture proofs annexed, to be inserted in its proper place. 2d. That M. Roney, J. Clirystie, and J. Houston, be a com- mittee to superintend the publication. Attest, M. RONEY, Clerk. Resolution passed May 27th, 1849, by the Reformed Pres- byterian Synod. " Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to superintend the publication of another edition of Reformation Principles, according to the last edition — said Committee to make the necessary corrections in dates," &c. May 28th. " The Moderator announced the Committee on the publication of the Testimony, ordered yesterday, — Jas. M. Willson, S. O. Wylie, Wm. Brown." Attest, JAMES M. WILLSON, Clerk of Synod. We do certify, that this edition of the Testimony is pub- lished in pursuance of the above resolution. JAMES M. WILLSON, S. O. WYLIE, WILLIAM BROWN, Committee. PREFACE The Gospel of Christ is a system of peace and bene- volence. An exhibition of Divine mercy to miserable man cannot justly be charged with a tendency to excite evil passions : it is calculated to soothe the heart, and to cherish meekness and love. They who live under the influence of true religion, exhibit a living proof that it does not impair the strength of the understanding, or spoil the temper of man. Christianity, as a subjective prin- ciple, is uniformly sober and lovely. Grace originating in Heaven, dispensed by the Blessed Spirit, and consti- tuting a bond of perfectnessy by which men are united to one another and to God, in an indissolvable union, is the grand characteristic of religion. In this there is nothing which deserves hostility from any part of the human family. Those persons, nevertheless, who are separated from the world by the dispensations of God's gracious cove- nant, are beheld by others with an evil eye. The very existence of the Church is, alas ! displeasing to those who are determined not to enter into its communion. The separation of professors from others, is deemed a reflection upon the sincerity and the safety of their 1* yj PREFACE. neighbours, and is, of course, considered as meriting the opposition of those who do not choose to submit to the Christian system. This state of things imposes upon the disciples of the Redeemer a very important duty. They must render to the world, with becoming meek- ness, a reason of their own hope, and the opposition of adversaries must be repelled with suitable arguments. The sacred Scriptures are a fund of celestial wisdom, from which believers are enriched, and from these they derive resources necessary for their spiritual warfare. The design of contending earnestly for the faith de- livered unto the saints is not only to edify Christians, but also to convince and gain other persons, persuading them also to embrace the faith. The testimony of the saints should, therefore, be calculated to preserve the distinction between the world and the Church, to en- lighten those who sit in darkness, and to establish those who have already embraced the faith. The Reformed Presbytery in the United States of North America feel themselves under the most solemn obligations to exhibit to the world the Testimony which they maintain. They claim as a right the liberty of ex- pressing their sentiments with becoming modesty and firmness. Diffident of their own talents and strength, they have no desire to provoke controversy; but sensible of the truth of the system which they have embraced, they invite candid discussion. It is not their interest to be in an error. It is not the true interest of any man to embrace a false religion. The plan upon which the Reformed Presbytery pro- pose to exhibit their principles to the world, embraces three parts. PREFACE. ^- The first is Historical; the second, Declaratory; and the third, Argumentative. The Historical part ex- hibits the Church as a visible society in covenant with God, in the different periods of time; and points out, precisely, the situation which they themselves occupy as a distinct part of the Catholic Church. The Declara- tory part exhibits the truths which they embrace as a Church, and the errors which they reject. The Argu- mentative part consists in a full investigation of the various ecclesiastical systems which are known in the United States. The Declaratory part is, the Church's Standing Testimony. It contains principles capable of universal application. To these principles, founded upon the Scriptures, simply stated, and invariably the same in every part of the world, every adult church member is to give his unequivocal assent. The Historical part is a help to understand the prin ciples of the Testimony. It is partly founded upon human records, and therefore not an article of faith ; but it should be carefully perused as an illustration of Divine truth, and instructive to the Church. It is a helper of the faith. The Argumentative part is the particular application of the principles of the Testimony. It specifies the people who maintain errors ; and it exposes the errors which they maintain. The confidence which persons may place in this part of the system will partly rest upon human testimony, unless every one who reads it shall have also read and known every work to which it refers. It is not, therefore, recommended as an article of faith,* but as a mean of instruction in op- yjjj PREFACE. posing error, and gaining over others to the knowledge of the truth. Every hunnan help which can be obtained is to be used in subserviency to the interests of religion. But Divine Truth is alone the foundation of our hope. Au- thentic history and sound argument are always to be highly valued, and have always been beneficial to the the Church ; but they should not be incorporated with the confession of the Church's faith. The argumen- tative part is a work of much care, and labour, and time. The Presbytery have not proposed to complete it at present. It shall hereafter be published in distinct and separate dissertations, under such forms and in such order as cir- cumstances may appear to demand. / CONTENTS. PART I. BOOK THE FIRST. CHAPTER I. Importance of Ecclesiastical History; Creation and Fall of Man ; Revelation of the Covenant of Grace ; the Church constituted by the dispensation of the Covenant of Grace ; necessarily a visible Covenant Society; Cain; Enos; Noah; Abrahamic Covenant ; no written Revelation ; no stated public ministry. A period of 25 13 years, - - - 15 CHAPTER II. The state of the world ; necessary change of the form of the visible Church ; Sinai Covenant ; God frames a Constitution of civil Government ; subservient to the Church ; Hebrew Church and State distinct; the Temple worship; Proseucha ; Synagogue ; Ministry of John ; Ministry of Jesus Christ ; Christ's Death. A period of 1524 years, - - - 24 CHAPTER III. Types and Shadows at an end ; the Abrahamic Covenant re- exhibited ; the Church altered in its visible order ; the Apos- tles ; forming Churches ; Baptism ; Church at Jerusalem ; condition of Church fellowship ; Presbyterian order ; spread of the Gospel ; EvangeUsts ; organization of the Gentile Churches; the wealth of Christians employed for the Church's good ; primitive purity declines ; carnal men pro- fess Christianity; ambition possesses its most conspicuous ministers ; the external form of the Church becomes assimi- lated to that of the Roman Empire ; Prelacy ; Popery. A period of 573 years, -------33 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. The Church from the beginning taught to expect a general apostacy; character of Antichrist; date; at its height in the eleventh century ; Waldenses ; never in the Roman communion ; character of them at Rome ; doctrine and order of the Waldensian Church ; Covenanters ; Lollards ; Wick- lifFe ; John Huss ; Jerome ; Hussites dissent from Rome and unite in covenant and communion with the Waldenses ; prepare for a Reformation ; Reformers ; their opinion about the question, Is the Roman Church a Christian Church ] — Lutherans covenant; Waldenses join the Reformation Churches; England's Reformation; Henry VIII. head and lawgiver of the Church of England ; reformation in Scot- land ; imperfection of the Reformation Churches in general ; causes of violating the unity of the visible Church ; Church at Geneva ; English Puritans ; covenants with the Scottish Reformers; opinion of the Foreign Churches concerning the Solemn League ; decline of the Reformation Churches ; American Churches. A period of 1200 years, - - 46 BOOK THE SEEOND. CHAPTER L Advantages for reformation peculiar to Scotland ; improved by the Reformers; the Church a distinct Empire; the civil constitution made to support the Church as a distinct king- dom; Westminster Assembly; power and moderation of the Presbyterians ; Charles I. beheaded by the Indepen- dents ; Charles II. proclaimed king by the Scots ; impropri- ety of this ; coronation and covenants ; state of parties in Church and State ; the King defeated by Cromwell ; dis- putes about the legitimacy of Cromwell's authority ; Pro- testors ; Monk ; Charles II. restored ; Marquis of Argyle ; Sharp ; persecution of Presbyterian Covenanters ; disputes about the legitimacy of the King's power ; Cargill ; Hamil- ton; Renwick; Cocceius; concessions of the Dutch Divines; state of the Covenanters. A period of 45 years, - - 66 CHAPTER n. Prince of Orange ; James II. ; the doctrine of passive obe- dience ; contradictory and the practice impossible ; Univer- sity of Oxford ; state of the Church at the Revolution ; apos- CONTENTS. XI tacy of the three Ministers ; the state of the Witnesses of the Reformation; M'Millan ; the Reformed Presbytery; Tes- timony ; state of the Church ; Presbyteries in Ireland and America. A period of 86 years, ----- 84 CHAPTER III. Presbyterian Covenanters fly from persecution to America; Cuthbertson; Reformed Presbytery; state of Religion in America; American Revolution; Union of the Reformed and Associate Presbyteries ; some members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church still maintain their ground ; assistance from Europe; Reid ; M'Garragh; King; M' Kin n ey ; Gib- son ; Constitution of the Reformed Presbytery ; License for young men to preach the Gospel ; arrangement of Commit- tees ; Testimony. A period of 32 years, - - - 96 PART 11. Chap. I. Of God, - - - - 155 II. Of Man, - - - - 158 III. Of Divine Revelation, - - - 160 IV. Of Human Reason, - - 163 V. Of the Fall of Man, - - - 165 VI. Of Election, - - - 167 VII. Of Christ the Mediator, - - 169 VIII. Of the Holy Spirit, - - 173 IX. Of the Covenant of Grace, - - 174 X. Of Christ's Satisfaction, - - 179 XI. Of the Gospel offer, - - - 184 XII. Of Regeneration, - - - 187 XIII. Of Faith, - - - - 189 XIV. Of Justification, - - - 195 XV. Of Adoption, - - - - 1 99 XVI. Of Repentance, - - - 203 XVII. Of Sanctification, - - - 206 XVIII. Of Perseverance in Grace, - - 211 XIX. Of the State of Man after Death, - 214 XX. Of Christ's Headship, - - 218 XXL Of the Christian Church, - - 221 XXII. Of Church Fellowship, - - 225 XXIIL Of the Government of the Church, - 228 Xll CONTENTS. Chap. XXIV. Of Christian Worship, - - 231 XXV. Of the Sacraments, - - - 237 XXVI. Of Religious Fasting and Thanksgiving, 241 XXVII. Of Oaths and Covenants, - - 244 XXVIII. Of Marriage, ... 248 XXIX. Of Civil Government, - - .252 XXX. Of the right of Dissent from a Constitu- tion of Civil Government, . . 258 XXXI. Of Church Discipline, - - 262 XXXII. Of Ministerial Visitation and Catechising, 264 XXXIII. Of Testimony-Bearing, - - 267 Appendix. Terms of Communion, . - - .271 Formula of Queries, - - - 273 PART I A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW THE CHURCH, AS A VISIBLE SOCIETY IN COVENANT WITH GOD, IN TWO BOOKS. THE FIRST EXHIBITIXO THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL, AND THE SECOND, THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. BOOK I. A HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. CHAPTER I. THE STATE OF THE CHURCH FROM THE FALL OF MAN UNTIL THE LAW WAS GIVEN BY MOSES AT MOUNT SINAI. In proportion as objects exceed in grandeur, they demand the admiration of the human mind. And there is not among the ranks of created being one object worthy of comparison, in respect of sub- hmity, with the Christian Church. A moral em- pire, consisting of members animated by the Eter- nal Spirit, the mediatory person, God manifest in the flesh, as its head, the vast machinery of creation moving in regular subordination to its interest, and exhibiting the ineffable glory of the Divinity, is an object to be contemplated with admiration an awe. " Out of Zion the perfection of beauty, God hath shined." The Church is the centre around which the Crea- tor causes all terrestrial things to revolve. Our views, therefore, of the present world must be indis- tinct, unless we perceive its relation to the kingdom of Christ. The history of nations must be imperfect and erroneous, unless all is referred to the secret spring by which every motion is directed — the pur- pose of God to glorify himself in the salvation of his Church. This is the meridian line which the Former 16 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW of all things strikes out through the vast and crowd- ed map of time, and to which every figure, however apparently indistinct and unconnected, is directed by an unerring hand. The heavens and the earth were created by Je- hovah, and each place is adapted by infinite wisdom to the end which it is designed to answer. The first man, Adam, was appointed to take possession of the earth, for himself, and for the whole human race, represented by him, and to descend from him. The tenement was wisely fitted for the occupant. The earth clothed with verdure ; every vegetable in full maturity, and every tree laden with his fruit. The atmosphere was in its best state, and the various kinds of animals, in the perfection of their respec- tive natures, came at the direction of the Creator to testify their submission to man. A body formed of the earth, and organized upon principles of astonishing wisdom ; capable of disso- lution, but endowed with a natural immortality; being animated by an immaterial soul, constituted upon principles of necessary immortality, distin- guished the common father of our family. This man God took into covenant. Adam was naturally and necessarily bound to obey all the commandments of God ; but as a moral agent he also had power to consent to the terms proposed by his Creator, and to promise obedience. A cove- nant between God and man consists in a proposal made by God, and a corresponding engagement on the part of man. In the first covenant, perfect obedience was re- quired of man. The law of nature, reduced into a covenant form, had a positive precept annexed. ** Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." OF THE CHURCH. jry Adam, under the united temptation of Satan and of Eve, who had herself been first in the crime, transgressed the covenant of Ufe, and incurred the penalty of death. As the representative of the hu- man race he fell, and all mankind fell in him. This fatal event proved the means of a further manifes- tation of the boundless perfection of God. The plans of Heaven v^ere not frustrated. It had from eternity been the purpose of the Godhead to exhibit mercy as soon as man should have become miserable. The event of the fall was foreknown, and the re- medy was predestinated. It was predestinated, too, upon the footing of a solemn covenant; and this gracious covenant is eternal. There never was a time in which the Divine mind was undetermined. He is of one mind ; and his pur- pose is unalterable. Each divine perfection, and the harmony of all the divine attributes are to be exhi- bited in one system, which shall, at the same time, confer unbounded happiness upon that part of the intelligent family of God which are immediately included in it, and offer to the universe an object of contemplation, which is in reality the perfection of beauty. There is a covenant of grace between God the Father and his eternal Son, for the redemption of human criminals. The magnitude and the conde- scension of this plan is an unparalleled instance of the grandeur of the conception of the Divine mind. The immense distance between the creature and the Creator is filled up by the mediatorial person Jesus Christ, who, as the second Adam, undertakes to assume the human nature, complete in soul and body, into a union with his divine nature; and by suffering as a substitute, secure the salvation of those whom it was purposed he should represent. God made a covenant with his chosen, promising. 18 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW upon condition that he should make his soul an offering for sin, to confer eternal life upon all his spiritual seed. No sooner was our family involved in sin and misery, than this covenant was revealed. When the first pair felt the operation of the curse, the Re- deemer himself, the personal voice or Word of God, appeared upon the earth, now preserved by his power as the theatre upon which he is about to exhibit the most astonishing instances of majesty and condescension. He conversed with them, and in the same sentence pronounces the punishment, and proclaims the pardon. The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. The covenant of grace was now for the first time revealed, and a suitable dispensation is made of it to fallen man. To this dispensation Adam profes- sedly submits, and in evidence of his faith, calls his wife by the name of Eve, the mother of all living. Both submitted again to the government of God, upon the footing of the revelation of his grace, when they became clothed in those skins which were at once a present earthly benefit and a type of that justifying righteousness, by which all believers are effectually preserved from condemnation. Imme- diately did the Redeemer thus dispense, as a new covenant benefit, bodily raiment, and a significant religious rite. Sacrifices typical of the sufferings of Christ, were then first instituted. The original pair, our common father and our common mother, were the first Church, and the blessed Redeemer himself the first preacher and the first priest, who directed the worship of God upon the footing of the revelation of his grace. Mercy flows through a covenant system, and it is externally exhibited under a covenant form. The visible Church, as a Society, is in covenant with God. The covenant OF THE CHURCH. 19 between God and his Church consists, in God's pro- posing a certain form of religion as the external dispensation of his grace, and the Church profess- ing to receive, and engaging to perform, in the strength of promised grace, every part of religious worship, agreeably to that very form which God has appointed. Not only are the saints interested in the covenant of grace, but the Church, as a visible Society, is a Covenant Society. The visible Church, thus erected as a covenant Society, waits for the accomplishment of the pro- mise of God, in the use of the instituted means of grace. The children are included with the parents in the ecclesiastical covenant; the Sabbath is ob- served, and sacrifices are offered. On the seventh day of the week, in Scripture language, the end of days, Cain and Abel presented their offerings to the Lord. God was present in his Church, and fami- liarly conversed with men, and by this extraor- dinary condescension supplied the want of other means of increasing in religious knowledge. Im- mediate revelations and domestic instruction sup- plied the Church, during this early period, with adequate information. The whole of the human family was at first in the Church, but this did not continue a long time to be the case. Abel by faith offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than his elder brother. Cain was wroth, and the Lord reproved him. Instead of reformation, however, the reproof administered by the Head of the Church himself, had a bad effect upon this unworthy member. He determined upon revenge, and he murdered his brother. God called the murderer to an account, spared his life, but secluded him from all further connec- tion with his Covenant Society. This excommuni- 20 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW cated vagabond, despising ecclesiastical censures, although pronounced by God himself, and solicitous only about the effect as it respected the concerns of his body, went out from the presence of the Lord, and, together with his offspring, lived in the total neglect of all religious ordinances. The Church progresses, however, through the medium of the other children of Adam, but especi- ally in the line of Seth. In the days of Enos, who was born in the 235th year of Adam's life, men be- gan to be called hy the name of the Lord,* Church members are God's children in a special sense, and the disciples, as they are now called Christians, were then called the sons of God, to distinguish them from the accursed offspring of Cain. The information and the wisdom which Adam obtained by his frequent conversation with God, and his own long experience, w^ere calculated to render him highly useful in the Church. The age of the Patriarchs, before the Flood, being generally nine centuries, rendered them living libraries of sacred knowledge. Two eminent prophets, Noah and Enoch, were also inspired to make further revela- tions. And in this manner did the Church proceed, • The marginal translation is preferable to that of the text, Gen. iv. 26. In the text the translation is, " then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." In the margin it is, " to call themselves by the name of the Lord." The professors of religion, now publicly renewing their covenant with God, are called by his name; and from this period until the days of Job, the discriminating title of the godly continued to be, the Sons of God. Gen. vi. 2. Job i. 6. The Covenanters, at this time, were called by the name of the Lord, as they afterwards surnamed themselves by the name of Israel. Isa. xliv. 5. The best critics confirm this explanation of Gen. iv. 26. Turn coeptum est appellari de nomine Jehovse. Quse versio hoc tempore doctis interpretibus merito probatur. Vithixga. Nomen suscepisse peculiare cultorum sen filiorum Dei — et Dei nomine vocati sunt. Owex. OP THE CHURCH. 21 until, by the impiety of its members, forming inti- macies with the wicked offspring of Cain, the power of rehgion became almost unknown. God was provoked to overwhelm ungodly professors, and open despisers of his mercy, in one common deluge. Determined to punish such general corruption, and yet preserve his Church, the Lord renewed his covenant, establishing it with Noah and his family. Several pious persons were then living upon the earth, but they were not admitted into this cove- nant. They were all to be admitted into Heaven before Noah should enter the Ark. Methuselah died immediately before the flood. The saints were preserved. Noah and his family were under Divine protection. There was not any one of the election of grace found among the rest of the human family. No child of the new cove- nant was ever afterward to descend from their families. They are all destroyed by the judgments of God. The covenant of works procures their death; but the dispensation of the covenant of grace preserves Noah and his family. He by faith prepared an Ark for the saving of his house. The Church is again reduced to a small com- pass. Eight souls only are saved in the Ark. God renews again his covenant with Noah and his sons, and in this dispensation of his everlasting covenant of free grace, engages to preserve the world from any similar destruction, and to continue both seed- time and harvest in their seasons. The Church in a short time increased in num- bers, and degenerated in practice. As nations were multiplied, men began to be guilty of idolatry. God, nevertheless, provides for his covenant people his protection. The truly devout found him an exceed- ing great reward. And they continue to inculcate 22 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW upon their children the maxims of virtue, to observe the external forms of religion, prayer, conversation, offering sacrifices, and the observation of the Sab- bath. Eminent men w^ere raised up as types of the Saviour, and the Church was instructed by the transactions of God with these eminent characters. After Noah, Melchisedeck, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were types of Christ. God's covenant with Abraham commences a dis- tinct era in the history of the Church. The seed which was sown in the constitution of the Church, is now expanded. The visible Church, as a Cove- nant Society, is already bound to submission to all the institutions of the Lord. These institutions are adapted by infinite wisdom to the state of his Church. As the term of human life diminishes, domestic in- struction becomes more precarious, and less effec- tual. As nations become more distinct, and have separate interests, there is the greater need of a more regular organization for the Church, that its unity may be preserved. And it is always proper that such ordinances as are conducive to edifica- tion, and the preservation of an evident distinction from the world, be observed by the disciples of the Lord. The covenant with Abraham was to him- self personally interesting. It was a dispensation of the covenant of grace, in which he had already trusted. And, as a type sealed by a bloody rite, it pointed out the covenant of grace to others also. It is, moreover, a renovation of the ecclesiastical covenant, with some appropriate variations. It is promised to Abraham, that from him the Messiah is to proceed, and that in his family the Church shall hereafter continue. His first name, Abram, signified an eminent Pa- triarch, and being changed by God into Abraham, the Father of many people, it became still more OF THE CHURCH. 23 significant. This distinguished character travels through the nations, and is universally known. Social worship continues to be conducted in the Church as it formerly had been, by the observa- tion of the Sabbath, sacrifice, domestic education, prayer and conference. But God's gracious dis- pensation to Abraham established a more compact ecclesiastical organization than any which pre- ceded it. The Abrahamic covenant has the seal of circumcision aflixed to it, and the promised seed is limited to the line of Isaac and Jacob. By this means intimation is given to all men, that in these families the Church is in future to be preserved, and in due time to be erected into a more regular visible organization. Although all the children of Abraham, and even his adopted offspring, his ser- vants, are constituted members, and receive the seal of circumcision; yet it is well known that both these, and the other pious families which then lived, are, after the elect are carried to Heaven from among them, to dwindle away from the visi- ble Church, and become extinct as to covenant connection with God. Shem, himself, who lived fifty years after the covenant was established with Abraham, Melchisedeck, and his pious connections. Job and Jethro, and all other good men who be- lieved in God and worshipped him accordingly, are continued in the visible Church, according to its ancient patriarchal form; but are excluded from the more compact order, the foundation of which was laid in the covenant of Abraham, and which was at the appointed time to be completely esta- blished. Under every form of administration, the immediate children are included with the parents in the visible Covenant Society, and every dispen- sation is introduced so gradually, as that they who lived under the former dispensation shall not lose 24 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW any of their privileges ; and thus the unity of the visible Church, although it experiences the neces- sary alterations in external form, may be constantly preserved. Four centuries did the arrangements made w^ith Abram, as the Representative of the Church, remain for the consideration of the saints, before they v^ere fully put in practice. Circum- cision was indeed practised in his family; but the visible Church was not yet so organized as that all others were without its pale, and their forms of wor- ship rejected of God. Prophets and priests were occasionally commissioned immediately by God to instruct, and conduct the devotion of certain parts of his Church. During this period there was no written Revelation, nor were the forms of worship such as required a regular stated ministry. This patriarchal dispensation, adapted wisely by the Re- deemer to the state of the world, continued in ope- ration until the Law was given by Moses at Mount Sinai. During this period the Church looked forth as the morning. CHAPTER II. THE STATE OF THE CHURCH FROM THE GIVING OF THE LAW UNTIL THE DEATH OF CHRIST. Life and growth distinguish the works of God. These are characters which the utmost efforts of created power cannot bestow upon its own works. The analogy of nature teaches us to expect a pro- gression from infancy to maturity, in the mystical body of Christ. The history of the Church exhibits the operation of this principle. The Covenant So- ciety proceeds towards perfection. The moral aspect of the world had greatly OF THE CHURCH. 25 clianged during the four hundred years which pre- ceded the divine legation of Moses. Patriarchal simplicity was almost forgotten, and tow^ards the close of this period the most abominable idolatries almost universally prevailed. These idolatries be- came incorporated with political institutions, and were supported by the progress of the arts and sciences. The godly men were gradually received into heaven, and their degenerate families became the votaries of the prevailing superstitions. The covenant with Abraham anticipated this event, and preserved the Church from destruction. Such an organization of the ecclesiastical body as may serve the purposes of piety, typify the Redeemer, and preserve the Church distinct from the nations, is now become more necessary than ever. Upon the pillar of truth such inscriptions must appear as are fit to produce these effects in the present state of human society. Such a constitution is provided for the Church by the Divine Head ; and the descen- dants of Jacob are miraculously delivered from Egyptian bondage, under the conduct of Moses, and, assembled at Sinai, they have this constitution delivered to them in a covenant form. The Sinai covenant is an external dispensation of the cove- nant of grace, a fulfilment in part of the first pro- mise to fallen man, and a farther development of the Abrahamic covenant, divinely adapted to the state of the times. This ecclesiastical organization provided rights which prefigured the coming of Christ, and the consequent change of dispensation. It established laws which directly condemned the idolatrous services of the heathen, and which were abundantly calculated to preserve the temporal in- terests of the society, and advance the eternal salva- tion of God's own people. A constant series of miracles during the course of forty years, confirmed 3 26 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW the divine origin of this new dispensation, and settled according to promise the Covenant Society in the land of Canaan. This people are now the only visible Church. The covenant between them and their God consists in his proposing to them the whole system of ecclesiastical polity now establish- ed, and requiring their submission to it, together with their express engagement to observe it in every particular. This dispensation is more spe- cific than any which preceded it. It requires the observation of the Sabbath, and the olTering of sacrifices, as was the case from the first erection of the Church on earth. It requires punctual atten- tion to family religion, and pious conference, as it also was from the beginning. It establishes a re- gular ministry to be continued in uninterrupted suc- cession, and institutes elders and judges to preserve order, and punish the rebellious. Divine Revela- tion is committed to writing, and this book of the covenant is deposited in the hands of the Hebrews, as the rule of their faith and manners. Circum- cision, the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant, is con- tinued, to show that this is an enlarged edition of that covenant ; and the passover, instituted as the token of their separate preservation in Egypt, is also continued as a commemoration of their deli- verance, a badge of their separation from the hea- then, and a type of the great sacrifice which the Redeemer is once to offer for their redemption. These two sacraments, circumcision and the pass- over, seal the ecclesiastical covenant to every mem- ber of the visible Church, seal eternal salvation to every believer, and serve as public declarations to the world of their distinguishing religious profession. The same people who were thus reduced into a Church state, were formed also by the same divine authority into a civil commonwealth. God com- OF THE CHURCH. 27 mands that every part of human conduct should subserve the interests of his Church ; and he by a di- vine act exhibited to the nations an ever memorable instance of the civil polity being so formed as effec- tually to answer this grand design. The policy of the heathen nations was to render religion a poH- tical engine for the support of daring ambition. Among the Hebrews, civil legislation was intended for the safety of the Church. The Hebrew Church was nevertheless really dis- tinct from the state. The proselytes of the cove- nant were admitted as full members of the Church, and thus engrafted on the stock of Abraham ; but were not admitted to the same civil privileges as the native Israelites. The proselytes of the gate were admitted to some civil privileges, but not to any participation in the benefits of the ecclesiastical covenant. The courts were also different. The Sanhedrim and the Synagogue, to judge of religious concerns, were perfectly distinct from the civil San- hedrim and the courts of the gates, which judged in civil matters. The Church had the power of set- tling controversies which respected the religious character, by the ceremonial law; and to the state belonged the decision of controversies respecting injuries and property, by the judicial law. The priests and Levites were the ministers of religion, acting with the assistance of the prophets occasion- ally sent by the Lord. The civil officers, judges, and kings, were magistrates, but not as such au- thorized to officiate in religious services. And although the civil constitution underwent many alterations during the existence of the Hebrew nation, the ecclesiastical form continued unaltered. The priesthood, the sacrifices, and the ceremonies, are regulated by one uniform law. Divine revela- tions, however, continue from time to time, and in- 28 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW spired men are commissioned to write for the canon of Scripture. This had some influence upon the mode of social worship. The state of religion among the Hebrews was much affected by their connection with other na- tions, and the Church suffered or prospered as the Lord withdrew or afforded his extraordinary super- intendence. Eminent prophets and priests, and vir- tuous judges and kings, were reared up from time to time, as the instruments of reformation, and the sword of the heathen enemy was often providen- tially used to correct and punish the crimes of God's covenant Israel. The period of suffering was usually an admonition to the duty of repentance and fasting ; and the dawn of reformation, called the nation and the Church to a solemn renovation of their covenants with God. After the revolt of the ten tribes from the house of David, Jeroboam, their political leader, made Israel to sin against the Lord, by a violation of the covenant of Sinai. Many pious people tacitly countenanced the apos- tacy, and for several ages after the majority esta- bHshed idolatry, there was a minority in this declining Church who really desired to serve the Loi'd. Prophets were sent to warn this degenerate Church, and to gather the elect of God into their glorious rest. The ten tribes, however, soon be- came mingled with the heathen ; they forsook their covenant God, and the Lord left them to a gradual declension, until their ecclesiastical visibility be- came entirely extinct. The Jews, on the con- trary, still held their covenant charter, often re- newed their obligations, and aUhough they sinned much, and suffered much, the Lord preserved them as his Church, a visible Cox^enant Society, until the long looked for event, the appearance of the Son OF THE CHURCH. 09 of God in the flesh, had been accomplished. The state of the Jewish Church, at the period of Christ's nativity, although they had still the exter- nal dispensation of grace made at Mount Sinai, and established by ecclesiastical covenant, was dif- ferent in many important subordinate instances from what it had been upon their first settlement in the promised land. The state of society in ge- neral was much altered from what it had been fif- teen centuries before that time. The more general diffusion of literature, and of the accompanying arts of civilized life, had produced a correspondent change upon the internal situation of the Church, as w^ell as upon the face of the world. The solemn work of offering sacrifice, which, during the patri- archal dispensation, was competent to every pious man, or head of a family, was, by the Mosaic dis- pensation, committed exclusively into the hands of the authorized priesthood. And after the temple of the Lord had been erected in Jerusalem, in that place alone were these solemnities of religion to be performed. The principal part of social and practical reli- gion was still to be performed in domestic society. Convenient places of w^orship w^ere, however, es- tablished in every part of Judea. The Proseuclia was the place of common resort for prayer and conference ; and one of these surrounded by a wall and a grove, without any roof or covering, was to be found in the different parts of the land of Israel. Instruction, before the people learned to read, was conducted entirely by the conversation of the prophets, the priests, the Levites, and the heads of families. The progress of the Jews in literature was very slow. Eight hundred years after the writing of the law by Moses, it w^as rare to find a copy of the book in which it was contained. Dur- 3* 30 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW ing the reign of the pious Josiah, there was some ditiiculty in procuring a copy of it for the king's use. About one hundred and fifty years thereafter, however, the zeal and faithfulness of Ezra was ren- dered the instrument in the hand of Providence, in turning the attention of the Church to the word of God, now much enlarged by the inspired writings of the prophets. The Proseucha is then exchanged for the Synagogue, and the public reading and exposition of the law, become a part of the ordinary worship of every Sabbath, in every part of Judea. These Synagogues were the parish Churches of the Jews. They w^ere provided wdth a regular class of eccle- siastical officers, whose duty it was to explain the law, read the Scriptures, direct the public devotion, censure the scandalous, and take care of the poor. Wheresoever the Jews emigrated after the time of Ezra, they carried with them their Scriptures and their ministers ; and they formed Synagogues in the different cities of the nations in which they re- sided. They never, after this regular organization, fell into gross idolatry. Unacquaintance with the doctrines of divine revelation, is essential to the worship of idols. Such w^as the visible state of the Church when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a city of David. There indeed prevailed a general ex- pectation at the time of his birth, that he should come ; but very few appeared at that time to un- derstand the real character of the promised Mes- siah, or the end of his mission. In the fulness of time our Lord w^as manifest in the flesh, made of a woman, made under the law, in order to fulfil the condition of that eternal covenant, which had already, under various dispensations, brought sal- vation to his seed, and preserved his visible Church as his covenant people upon earth, for the space of OP THE CHURCH. 3 j four thousand years. He came to fulfil all the types, to abolish in his death, whatsoever referred to his incarnation and sufferings, and to introduce a new dispensation of the covenant of grace, which should last unaltered, until the end of time. Dur- ing his public ministry he pointed out the abuses which prevailed in the Jewish Church, explained the law, and predicted both the dissolution of the visible dispensation which the Church now enjoy- ed, and the establishment of another and a better covenant. He gave the suitable instruction, and introduced rites and ordinances which were, after his resurrection, to become especial parts of the order of his Church. The covenant with Abraham did not alter the patriarchal dispensation of grace, but by admitting to particular privilege a certain part of the existing Church, that federal transaction prepared the way for the new order established in the covenant of Sinai. The ministry of Jesus did not immediately dissolve the ecclesiastical cove- nant established by the mediation of Moses, and often renew^ed by the Jews ; but by the erection of a certain part of the existing Church into a special society, holding particular communion with him- self, he prepared the way for the new dispensation of his grace, w^hich, by destroying what was typi- cal, would extend the benefits of the Abraham ic covenant to the Gentile world. It had been long a custom in the Church to use certain baptisms or washings, as a religious rite. It was practised by Jacob and by Moses ; and in the latter period of the Jewish Church, they were in the habit of washing all their proselytes imme- diately after their circumcision, and before they were admitted to further ecclesiastical privileges. It was also common, at the feast of the passover, not only to eat unleavened bread along with the 32 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW flesh of the paschal lamb, but also to drink after supper a cup of wine. Divine Providence had ren- dered familiar to the visible Church, those simple but significant rites, which were afterwards, by a positive ordinance, to be rendered the visible seals of the covenant. John Baptist was commissioned, in the spirit and power of Elias, to prepare the way of the Lord, preach the gospel of repentance, and administer baptism as a positive ordinance of God. This was necessary even under the Mosaic dispensation, which was not as yet dissolved, in order to pre- pare the way for the other, and for eftectually pre- serving the unity of the Church, when the forms of religion would be altered. The Redeemer himself instructed his immediate disciples to expect the total abolition of the Aaronic priesthood of the tem- ple, and the whole temple services. He habituated them to the forms of the Synagogue, and in these Churches he himself repeatedly ministered. He thus showed the perpetuity of such services in his Church ; but he never undertook, as a priest of the temple, to offer sacrifices, except that one sacrifice of himself, whereby he perfected for ever them that are sanctified, and in which he at once fulfilled the design of the priesthood, the temple, and the sacri- fice. Immediately before his sufferings, after hav- ing participated of the last passover, which should ever be observed with divine acceptance, he insti- tuted the substitute seal, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as a positive ordinance to be ob- served by his Church for ever. The head of the Church thus providing for its external order, did, at the awful and appointed hour, fulfil the condition of the Covenant of Grace, and purchase our eternal redemption by his suffering unto the death ; bearing our sins upon his own body on the accursed tree. OF THE CHURCH. 33 Thus was the Sinai Covenant dissolved, and a new Covenant estabhshed.* CHAPTER III. THE STATE OF THE CHURCH FROM THE DEATH OF CHRIST UNTIL THE RISE OF ANTICHRIST. In the death of Christ, all the types and ceremo- nies of the Old Testament have had their full ac- complishment. The peculiar policy of the Jews is now no more. The vail of the Temple is rent in twain, and the Holy of Holies has lost its preroga- tive. The wall of partition which separated the seed of Jacob from the Gentiles, is taken down, and into one Church the inhabitants of other na- tions are admitted with the children of Abraham, without distinction of privileges. After Christ's resurrection from the dead, he instructed his disci- ples more particularly in the doctrine and order of the New Testament Church ; and giving unto his eleven apostles a commission as ecclesiastical offi- cers, he ascended to heaven as an exahed Media- tor, to administer the government of the whole em- pire of created existence, in subserviency to the interest of his pecuhar kingdom, the Church. On the day of Pentecost he poured out his Holy Spirit in miraculous profusion upon his disciples, in order to qualify them for the extraordinary services to which he called them. The apostles commence * In order to avoid mistakes, the reader must keep in mind that the word Covenant occurs in two distinct senses — the Covenant of Grace, and the Ecclesiastical Covenant, whereby the Covenant of Grace is externally dispensed. The scriptures direct us to call the visible dispensation of the means of Grace a Covenant. Gen. xvii. 10. Jer. xxxi. 31-34, 34 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW their ministerial work, and the first fruits which these labourers reaped, afforded a glorious hope of the plenitude of the approaching harvest. The promise to Abraham, which was divinely restrict- ed to his offspring according to the flesh, until the seed Christ came, was now delivered from that temporary restriction by the same divine authority, and was oftered, with all its increased advantages, to men, without distinction of nations or of ranks. All the families of the earth are now invited to co- venant with God. The Covenant Society, ONE in every age, is now exhibited under a form of go- vernment adapted by divine wisdom to this last and most perfect dispensation of grace, which the Redeemer makes on earth. Every member is directed to submit to it, and to support its whole order for ever. The apostles having equal power, are the only ministers and rulers of the Church ; and they are authorized to establish in Jerusalem the model upon which all Churches are to be formed in future, throughout the nations of the earth. In their own behaviour towards one an- other, they set the example of ministerial parity ; and, as extraordinary messengers endowed with supernatural gifts, they exercised authority over all the Churches. This measure was necessary to place the kingdom of Messiah in an orderly state, that the constitution divinely provided for it might be put in full operation, and its future administra- tion committed into the hands of the ordinary and permanent oflicers. The apostles preached the gospel, explaining the whole economy of grace, and reduced into a Church state all who embraced the faith, together with their children. The visible membership in God's Covenant Society was immediately sealed by baptism. As the rainbow, already in the OF THE CHURCH. 35 heavens, became, by divine appointment, the seal of the covenant to Noah, and circumcision, prac- tised among all the nations descended from Abra- ham, became the seal of the Covenant of Sinai made with the seed of Jacob, so did baptism, now for the first time, become the seal of the new cove- nant, although for a long time before it had been a common rite of the Jews, and since the time of John the Baptist, a positive institution of heaven. Baptism is a symbolical washing. It represents and seals the union of believers with Christ Jesus in the one body of the invisible Church. It also signifies the solemn engagements of Christians to the faith and obedience of Christ their Lord, as members in covenant with him and with one an- other, to maintain, in the strength of his grace, the unity of the spirit, in the bonds of peace. It is administered by an authorized oflicer of the orga- nized ecclesiastical society. The element is water; and as the washing is not designed to cleanse lite- rally the body, such a quantity of water is to be applied as may be sufficient to answer the purposes of a symbol. This is all that is necessary. The application of water to the face of a recognized Church member by an ordained minister of the word, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God, is the true mode of adminis- tering this initiating sacrament. No less than three thousand persons were, on the first day in which the apostles publicly preached in Jerusalem, formed into an organized Church, and baptized by the Apostles. Jerusalem was a large and populous city. It contained upwards of a million of inhabitants. The synagogues, the parish Churches of the Jews, in which, under the Mosaic dispensation, they met for their ordinary worship, amounted in this city 36 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW to nearly five hundred. The apostles embraced every opportunity which offered of preaching in the Jewish synagogues, and they appeared daily at the temple, the most public place of resort, espe- cially to the devout Jews. But ahhough these places afforded an opportunity of making converts to Christianity, they did not offer an equal oppor- tunity for the peculiar acts of Christian worship. The disciples could not sanctify the first day of the week in a regular manner, in these promiscuous assemblies, which met in Solomon's porch, or in the Jewish synagogues. They therefore met in private houses, in such numbers as could conve- niently associate for the sanctification of the Lord's day; and in these select assemblies or Churches was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper adminis- tered. This solemn institution, which is the New Testament passover, commemorates the death of Christ, is a means of grace, a symbol of our union with the Church, a seal of our visible membership, a badge of our separation from the world, and a public social renovation of the baptismal oath to serve the Lord, and abide by his Church, accord- ing to all the ordinances of that ecclesiastical cove- nant into which God admits us under the New Testament. Steadfastness in the apostles' doctrine, with a consistent course of obedience to the whole dispen- sation of the covenant of grace, in opposition to every contrary system, was then the only requisite for admission to Christian communion. A profession of believing the Bible never did constitute the condition of Christian fellowship. In the first erection of the Church at Jerusalem, no part of the New Testament was committed to writing ; and although the Jews believed the Old Testament, they were not universally admitted into the Church. OF THE CHURCH. 37 The rule of admission into the Church is inva- riable. He who knowingly professes a belief and approbation of the covenant of grace, who engages to submit to the dispensation of that covenant in every part, and whose conduct is consistent with these declarations, is entitled to admission among the disciples of our Lord. Such were the mem- bers of the apostolic churches. Whensoever the contrary appeared, whether by heresies, schisms, or immoralities, they became liable to censure. The fu'st object of the apostolic ministry was to teach and persuade men to embrace Jesus Christ, and repent of all their sins. The next point to be gained was the organization of the converts into a regular Church state, and to settle the ministry and ordinances among them. The commission of the apostles instructed them to disciple the nations. When a Church was formed in Jerusalem, the apostles placed in every congregation presbyters of their own choice. Of these presbyters, or elders, one was a teacher authorized to administer the word and sacraments, and the others were his counsel and aid in government and discipline. To the consistory or session of elders the whole ecclesiastical power of the Church was committed. But these Churches were all connected in one body by representation; and although Jerusalem con- tained, in less than twenty years after the first Church was organized in it, no less than twenty congregations, they were all one Church. By the representative system the unity of the empire is supported, however numerous its provinces. By- presbytery, several distinct congregations are uni- ted in one Church. Christianity was not long confined to Jerusalem. The efforts of persecutors were the means of ex- tendinsj the Church. Many of the ministers were 38 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW r^bliged to fly from Jerusalem, and they went to diflerent places, preaching the gospel and forming churches, with great success. Wherever there were disciples, they associated, according to the ancient practice of the pious Jews, for religious conference and prayer. Several societies of Chris- tians, meeting for private social worship in conve- nient private houses, existed throughout Judea and the surrounding nations. As soon as convenient, however, these societies were organized into con- gregations, with a stated ministry and public ordi- nances. And as the congregations were formed, they were regularly prcsbyterated. The rapidity with which the gospel spread dur- ing the apostolic age, and the prospect of spread- ing it still farther, exposed all the apostles to great and unceasing danger and toil. They had the care of all the Churches ; but they could not be present every where. The first converts were, in general, simple and pious ; and the first ministers were faithful and zealous. The means of informa- tion were, however, few. The canon of Scripture was not yet complete. Copies of the Scriptures Avere scarce. Pious books w^ere not to be obtain- ed. Few persons were able to read. The Jewish rites and the heathen superstition were not easily banished from the esteem even of those who em- braced Christianity. The Church required the re- gular and constant administration of ordinances, and the stated ministry stood in need of the super- intendence of those who were supernaturally en- dowed with the gift of miracles. The apostles found it expedient to employ EVANGELISTS in visiting the different places in which the gospel had been planted, in the organization of new con- gregations, and in directing the ministry, where it was regularly established. These extraordinary OF THE CHURCH. 39 ambassadors are, nevertheless, careful to exhibit to the Christian world the true model upon which all Churches are to be constituted. This is apparent from their uniform practice. None are recognized as disciples who do not profess the true religion, and submit to all its ordinances, without exception. There is not, upon the records of the Church dur- ing the first century, an instance of any one being admitted to Church fellowship, who denied any doctrinal truth, or rejected any practical institu- tion. If it happened that any disciple did, after his admission, embrace heresy, refuse submission to order, or practice any immorality, he was brought under suitable discipline. According to the nature and circumstances of his scandal, he was admon- ished, rebuked, or excommunicated. Among the disciples there was no distinction of rights or spiri- tual privileges, until organized into an ecclesiasti- cal body. The several members had then their places appointed by divine authority. In every organized congregation there was a distinct class of rulers, and all others are ruled and bound to submission in the Lord. To the rulers was com- mitted exclusively the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven — the right publicly to teach and to disciple. Church officers alone can exercise any part of discipline. They alone can admit into Church fellowship, can govern those who are ad- mitted, and can exclude from the privileges of the Church, those who are unruly. In no case during the first century, did a congregation examine and admit a member, judicially try and censure the dis- orderly, or excommunicate the rebellious. In every congregation there were ordained seve- ral elders. In no instance is an organized congre- gation under the care of one officer. These pres- byters were ordained to office by other presbyters. 40 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW There is not one case in the apostolic age of a presbyter being ordained to office by any single individual, whether an ordinary or extraordinary minister. As the ordinations w^ere uniformly con- ducted by a plurality of ordained officers, and never by one; so the imposition of hands is the significant rite by which the ministerial authority was communicated. No one offered to preach or administer the sacraments without regular ordina- tion, except the first extraordinary Prophets and Ambassadors, who were endowed with miraculous gifts to attest their divine mission. Those Chris- tians who met in private fellow^ship for mutual edi- fication, never employed a preacher, or attempted to ordain an officer for themselves. They waited until the rulers of the Church visited them to admin- ister ordinances, and ordain officers. A self-organized Society would be a building of man ; but in no sense the house of God — " the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." The primitive saints had a common cause, and they felt a common interest in the maintenance of the gospel. Their worldly income was cheerfully devoted to that end. Like the members of one family, they all, according to their several abilities, contributed of their property to pious purposes. Not one design ever failed of its accomplishment from want of pecuniary resources in that age, while any Christian was in possession of property adequate to the purpose. The income of their es- tates, and the earnings of their labours, were deem- ed a common right, and employed for the common good. The rulers of the congregation disposed of its collections ; and when paupers were so nu- merous as to require particular attention, distinct officers were appointed to inspect their state, and OF THE CHUUCII. 41 to distribute with the advice of the presbyters, the adequate rehef from the general fund. The offi- cers who served the tables of the poor were called deacons, a word which signifies servants. They had no authority in ecclesiastical proceedings, any further than as they respected temporalities. When the extraordinary officers had, under di- vine direction, settled the church, the ordinary ministry conducted its concerns agreeably to its Presbyterian constitution. Each Christian congre- gation had a pastor of their own choice, regularly ordained as their bishop by a judicatory of presby- ters, by the laying on of hands. With this pastor or angel of the Church, were associated, for the purposes of government, ruling-elders, chosen by their brethren, and ordained to office by a session or presbytery. The minister and elders, the au- thorized representation of the congregation, consti- tuted the session. The sessions of several congre- gations formed one presbytery, and all the presby- teries were under the government of one common judicatory, formed upon the principle of represen- tation, in its most pure and regular form. This system, admirably calculated to preserve the purity of the Church, was fully exemplified before the death of the apostles, and universally prevailed in the first century. The kingdom of Christ, thus regularly governed, and subsisting in the midst of hostile nations as an independent em- pire under the protection of the Prince of the kings of the earth, exhibited to the world the power of God and the wisdom of God in the salvation of man. It did not, however, enjoy peace for a great length of time. No system, however perfect, can be perfectly administered by frail man. God was, nevertheless, glorified in his Son ; the Church had her doctrine and constitution completed ; the elect 4# 42 A BRIKF HISTORICAL VIEW were savingly united to their Lord ; and the world was left without excuse. These ends having been obtained, the Church soon began to decline. Here- sies and schisms soon distracted her congregations, and called forth the faithfulness and talents of her sons, to defend her order and her doctrine. The Jewish converts endeavoured to make the Church more similar to the temple ; and the Pagan endea- voured to bring it to bear some resemblance to the house of his idols. The philosopher endeavoured to corrupt its doctrine, and the politician to model its form according to that of the Roman empire. As the godly were carried home to glory, and the number of the elect on earth was diminishing, while the number of professors increased, the Church be- comes more corrupt. The most conspicuous cha- racters and places usually set the example of con- formity to the world, while obscure corners shine with the light of gospel truth in its original purity. Before the latter end -of the second century, the ap- pearance of the Christian Church, especially in the principal cities, had altered for the worse. It is generally the case, that the history of the Church is considered subordinate to that of world- ly empires. An historian of American affairs, even in the present day, would be very apt to overlook the most pious and orderly followers of Jesus ; and if he wrote of the Church at all, he would bestow attention, not in proportion to the purity and faith- fulness of ecclesiastical bodies, but in proportion to their wealth, their numbers, and their worldly in- fluence. The few books which have escaped the destruction of literature in the dark ages, cannot, therefore, be considered as exhibiting to view the most pure branches of the Church. They direct our attention to those most conspicuous in the world, though probably the least worthy of our OF THE CHURCH. 43 notice. The view, notwithstanding, which they afford us, is that of a declining empire. Christian- ity, indeed, was extensively diffusing itself in name; but the purity of the Church had lost its lustre. Heresy and strife divided the professed followers of Jesus into factions. Human inven- tions encumbered divine worship; carnal views influenced discipline; and ambition changed the form of government in those Churches which oc- cupied the most distinguished situations in the Ro- man empire. A faithful voice was raised against these deviations from apostolic purity. This voice is feeble, as it reaches our ears ; but it must have been at first bold and energetic, seeing it has reached us at all, through so vast a wilderness, and over the innumerable interposing obstacles in- troduced by the Roman antichrist. Before the end of the second century, some ambitious minis- ters began to abuse their influence, their leisure, their wealth, and their literature, as the means of usurping power over their brethren. The pious disciples who formed the Churches at the death of the apostles, were now admitted into the Church triumphant. They transmitted the name Christian to their successors ; but man is naturally corrupt, and grace is not hereditary. Iniquity abounded, the love of many waxed cold, the means of infor- mation were scanty, books were accessible to very few, and thus the state of the Church offered an easy prey to the rapacity of the ambitious. To support themselves in their usurpation, these time- serving pastors left no art untried. Like the Scribes and Pharisees, they pretended superior zeal and sanctity, and they endeavoured to make void the law by their traditions. They represent- ed the Jewish as the model of the Christian minis- try, and taught their disciples that Aaron typified 44 A BKIEF HISTORICAL VIEW not the Redeemer, the high priest of our profession, but a prelate of the Church. The deacon, who at first ministered by order of session to the wants of the poor, began to employ servants under him, and in process of time the office was entirely changed, and rendered a spiritual ministry. The presbyter, however, long retained his rank, and contended for his rights. But after Christianity became the reli- gion of the Roman empire, it was mingled with paganism ; and the external form of the Church was also modified according to the civil govern- ment. The bishop claimed a superior power over the presbyter, and, armed with the authority of the Roman emperor, he obtained his object. Patri- archs and metropolitans are higher branches of the hierarchy ; and these dignitaries of the Church, forcing themselves upon our attention, hide from our view the more pious, faithful, and orderly con- gregations, which still retained the apostolic doc- trine, and worship, and discipline. The word Bishop^ began in the second century to be applied, in some places, to moderators of the presbyterial courts, and afterward to those who pretended higher ministerial authority than ordinary minis- ters ; but this application was by no means univer- sal. The zeal of the apostles and their contempo- rary ministers of the gospel, carried them through the different nations, and the subsequent persecu- tions drove many able ministers into every part of the known world. Churches were settled in the different nations, and at a distance from the seat of the Roman em- ])ire, these Churches enjoyed their primitive order and truth. According to prophecy, however, the spirit of the world gradually prevailed over the exertions of piety, in the most conspicuous nations. The OF THE CHURCH. 45 ecclesiastical courts were unable to check the growing apostacy. The Church increased, and regular representative assemblies were not per- mitted to meet by the persecutors. And even when the magistracy of the empire of Rome pro- fessed Christianity, the ecclesiastical councils were influenced in a high degree by the civil power, and the corruption had already become too general to be now effectually prevented. Synods, composed partly of apostates, and the sword hanging over their heads, are not competent to produce reforma- tion. These causes, together with the civil wars, and final dismemberment of the empire of Rome, nourished prelatic ambition, and at last placed in the chair of Papal supremacy, Boniface the third. This event took place, in opposition to the will of the struggling Churches, in the year 606. It was effected by the agency of Phocas, that infamous tyrant, who waded to the imperial throne through blood. The Roman supremacy was not yet, how- ever, generally recognized. Princes and Empe- rors, Churches, and even whole nations, testified against that deed, as a disgrace to the annals of history. The most pure and faithful parts of the Christian Church beheld with anguish the grand apostacy, but they still, though in a great measure unnoticed and unknown, retained the apostolic order. Their bishops were parish ministers. Their elders were representatives of the congregations, and their deacons w^ere the trustees of the poor. The prelacy had, indeed, gradually paved the way for the Pope's usurpation. The nations of Europe in general, and some of the Asiatic and African governments, were now called Christian. God's visible Covenant Society became extremely cor- rupt, and like the house of Israel, had broken their covenant. Still, however, the Lord preserved his 46 A BRlEf HISTORICAL VIEW saints; and the saints struggled against the prevail- ing iniquity. In every nation there v^^ere numbers who did not acquiesce in the apostacy. It was a very small proportion of the Church which fully submitted to the supremacy of antichrist. CHAPTER IV. THE STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE RISE OF ANTICHRIST UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY. The Redeemer instructed his inspired apostles to predict the rise of a peculiar adversary to his gospel. The universal prevalence of correct prin- ciple and regular ecclesiastical order, he taught them to behold at a distance. By the splendid tri- umphs of the truth in the first ages, the power of religion was exemplified, the divinity of the Mes- siah demonstrated, and the vast number of God's elect children who were at that period on the earth, prepared for their everlasting inheritance. As soon as these purposes were accomplished, the faithful disciples began to realize the truth of the prophecy, that an awful apostacy should affect the world, and the true witnesses become reduced to sackcloth and poverty. One hundred and fifty years after Boniface assumed the title of universal bishop, and claimed spiritual power over all the earth, his successor. Pope Stephen, was created a temporal Prince, by the efforts of Pepin, the usurper of the French throne. This accession of power was highly acceptable to the pretended suc- cessor of Peter, and vicegerent of Jesus Christ. It enabled him to enforce his spiritual supremacy. It is not, however, the jurisdiction of the exarchate OF THE CHURCH. 47 of Ravenna, or his possessing the government of some of the Italian states, that constitutes the Ro- man antichrist. He who is the visible head of that system of superstition, which, under the Christian name, is the greatest enemy of the Christian reli- gion which ever existed, is, on that account alone, the man of sin, and son of perdition. By virtue of his spiritual supremacy he ruled the nations of Europe ; but they never submitted to his authority as a civil Emperor. The kings of the earth swore allegiance to him, not because he ruled the petty states of Italy, but because he was the Pope. His own civil power, like the magistracy of the nations under his spiritual domination, is one of those horns with which the monster of blasphemy shed the blood of the saints. The Papacy does not cease to be antichrist, even when stripped of civil authority. The rise of antichrist is to be dated in the sixth year of the sev^enth century. The visible Church then beheld a usurper upon a spiritual throne, claiming the whole government of the kingdom of Christ upon earth. The Church of Rome acquiesced in the claim ; but the great body of Christians opposed his pretensions. The Chris- tian ministry, among all the nations, were indepen- dent of the see of Rome, during the seventh century, except those of Italy; and a great number, even of them, refused submission to him. During the eighth century, when his power w^as greatly increased, the second council of Nice favoured his usurpation ; but seven years thereafter, Charlemagne held a council at Frankfort, consisting of three hundred clergymen from various countries, which con- demned the council of Nice, and reversed its idola- trous acts. When the governments of those na- tions which had formerly been subject to Rome acknowledged the Pope's supremacy, their national 48 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEU" Churches were constrained into the same measure. Even then, all the Churches in the Popish nations did not recognize the Pontifical authority. It was not until the eleventh century, that the Churches of Europe could be called ONE with the Church of Rome. Those persons, of course, who in the diffe- rent parts of the world renounced the papal autho- rity, were persecuted as heretics. The number and frequency of these persecutions, are sufficient to show that vast numbers of congregations and ministers were, during the darkest ages, opposed to the Anti- christian system. The Roman persecutors, thirst- ing for blood, discovered, in the twelfth century, a Christian people, entirely distinct from the Papal Church, enjoying the ordinances of the gospel in their primitive simplicity. The Waldenses, dwel- ling in the south of France, and the valleys of Piedmont, w^ere a people not numbered among the nations. Providence had separated them as a Co- venant Society, from the declining Churches of the nations, that they might exhibit to the world the primitive order, when Antichristian power should have arrived at its height. Reinerius, the Inquisitor General, describes these newly discovered heretics about the middle of the twelfth century. The Waldenses were in no connection with the Church of Rome, or its clergy. They maintained a system of distinct ecclesiastical policy from the apostolic age. They had their friends scattered in many nations, diligently, but without attracting much notice, diffusing their peculiar sentiments. This grand enemy, the inquisitor, in order to rouse the indignation of the papacy against these here- tics, as he calls them, bestows upon them, three characters, which now secure the admiration of Christians to these genuine disciples of our Lord. Their enemies being judges, they are the OF THE CHURCH. 49 purest Church. 1. "This sect is the oldest. It endures, say some, from the time of the apostles. 2. It is the most general. There is scarce any country where it is not. 3. It hath a show of piety. They live justly before men, and believe all things rightly concerning God ; only they blas- pheme the Church of Rome and the clergy." The following character of this Church is drawn by the Centuriators of Magdeburg, from an old manu- script. *■' The Vallenses defined the Church of Christ, That Society ivhic/i heareth the sincere word of Christ, and useth the sacraments instituted by him, in whatever place it exist. They consider the Scripture as the supreme standard of doctrine. The reading of the Holy Scriptures they represent as necessary unto all men. The decrees of coun- cils are to be approved as they agree with the word of God. They own two sacraments only, baptism and the Lord's supper. They declare the Church of Rome to be the whore of Babylon, and will not own the pope or bishops. They call the dedication of Churches, the observance of holy- days, and all human inventions in religious wor- ship, diabolical inventions." Archbishop Usher has extracted from the History of iEneas Sylvius the following additional characteristics : " They deny the hierarchy, maintaining, that there is no difference among the priests on account of dignity of ofRce; but only of usefulness and purity of life. Ministers should be content with the contributions of the people. Ev^ery person should have access to the free preaching of the gospel. No sin ought to be tolerated. There is no day holy but the Lord's day. The Lord's supper is to be conse- crated in the Church only, and by a minister; neither does its efficacy depend more on a good than a bad man, if he be a lawful minister. Both 5 50 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW men and women, and little children, are to be bap- tized in the Church by the priest." These eminently pious Churches, which so long maintained the primitive order, while the whole world was wondering after the beast, were inter- mingled with persons of a very opposite descrip- tion. The purest Churches have had lares growing up with the wheat; and wicked men have resided in the same place with the most virtuous. The popish writers attempted to confound all the inha- bitants of the land with the Church ; and to charge upon the visible Covenant Society the errors which heretics, apostates, and nominal professors, may have propagated in that period. The Creed of the Church of the Waldenses, however, was truly evan- gelical; and the order of the Church, in their terms of communion, form of government, exercises of worship, and administration of discipline, was strictly Presbyterian. To the preservation of their ecclesiastical order they were bound by oath; nor was any considered as belonging to this Church who did not take the covenant. God in his provi- dence did, in these Churches, not only preserve a seed to serve him, and prepare his children for glory; but he also provided a seminary for the in- struction of ministers and saints, who should after- ward be instrumental in overturning the empire of the papacy. The persecutions of these witnesses were frequent and bloody. They were scattered among the nations and carried with them their knowledge, their piety, and their forms of religious worship. In the thirteenth century they spread and prevailed so far, that the pope thought it necessary to exert his utmost efforts to suppress them. They were found in Germany, Bohemia, Poland, France, and Britain. It is computed, that in France alone one million of them suffered martyrdom. They OF THE CHURCH. 51 were, however, remarkably preserved in some of those countries to which they had been banished; and, like the scattered Jews, before the coming of Christ in the flesh, were preparing the way of the Lord in the different parts of the world. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, there were about eighty thousand of these Covenanters in Austria and the neighbouring territories. They every where adhered to their covenant engage- ments, and pertinaciously opposed popery, and de- fended their own principles even unto death. They were considered as poor; and being aliens, in those different countries into which they were banished, they were despised; and this contempt was, by the providence of God, a shield of protection to them. Many eminent men, in the various nations, how- ever, were enlightened by their doctrines and ex- ample; and these again, by their writings, diffused their sentiments, in some degree, throughout the various colleges and seminaries of literature. The progress of knowledge was slow, but it was cer- tain. The celebratedWalter Lollard, who suffered martyrdom in the year 1322, spread through Ger- many the doctrines of the Waldenses, and the famous John Wickliffe, filled almost all Europe with the same principles. The scattered Waldenses, still despised and still holding fast their integrity, pre- served among themselves the true order of the Christian Church; and contributed to instruct those in the established Churches of the nations, who had courage to think for themselves. In the fifteenth century all Europe became sensible of the need of a reformation of the Church of Rome. A council assembled at Constance, which declared the neces- sity of a reformation, but manifested also that it w^as not to be expected from the interested anti- christian priesthood. 52 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW John Huss, a man of distinguished talents and erudition, professor of divinity at the celebrated university of Prague, had, together with his inti- mate friend Jerome, embraced many of the doc- trines of the Waldenses. Although in the commu- nion of the Roman Church, they recommended the works of WicklifTe, and vainly supposed that their exertions might serve to reform the Church, and recall her from Babylon. They were, however, successful in exciting an uncommon interest for a reformation, and directing the Germans to a more favourable opinion of those old dissenters, the Wal- denses, who lived among them. After the death of Huss, a number who had been influenced by his doctrines, actually joined the Church of the Wal- denses, who were settled in Bohemia. They adopted one confession of faith. They also agreed upon one covenant, suited to the present state of the Church, which, according to the established usage of the Waldenses, was subscribed by all the members of the society. Voetius, who had a good opportunity of knowing, assures us, that both the Waldenses of Thoulouse and the Hussites of Bohemia, ratified their federal transactions with solemn oath. Thus, while the papal power was at its height, and the horns of the beast, the kingdoms of Europe who agreed to support popery, turned their power against the witnesses of Christ, Providence was preparing the nations for that remarkable event which took place in the beginning of the sixteenth century. The period of the Protestant reforma- tion will be for ever eminent in Church history. The anti-christian empire was shaken to its cen- tre, and never can recover its former ghostly dominion over the minds of men. The exertions of the Waldenses became successful. They had prepared, in a great measure, the public mind for a breach from the Church of Rome. God pour- (IF THE CHURCH. 53 ed out his blessed Spirit. Select and suitable instruments for the reformation were found and employed. The state of die political world was made subservient to the kingdom of Christ. Knowledge, zeal, and unfeigned piety, were promoted, and vast multitudes converted unto God. Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, and many other eminent men, were employed in opposing the superstition, and they had the happiness of seeing the pleasure of the Lord prospering in their hands. Imbibing the doctrines, and ani- mated by the example of the Vallenses, these emi- nent men contended for the faith. The reformers were ministers at first in the popish Church, and sought its reformation. They considered the papacy as distinct from the Catho- lic Church. This is a judicious distinction. The Catholic Church long existed without a pope. By the ambitious dexterity of the Roman pontiffs, the papacy was by degrees incorporated with the Church ; but it was really as foreign to its genuine constitution, as a new citadel erected by a suc- cessful usurper would be to an ancient city. The few virtuous ministers which had remained in the Church, acted upon this distinction. They opposed the citadel, but still continued in the city. The city had been a long time unsafe, but it had not been absolutely deprived of its ancient liberties, until the council of Trent had completely established every part of antichristianism by ecclesiastical law. From that period Romanists are to be con- sidered as excommunicated from the privileges of God's visible Covenant Society. They are pre- served in this excommunicated state as barren branches, which are to be visibly burned. The reformation met with opposition. It pro- gressed, nevertheless, under the smiles of an ap- 5* 54 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW proving Providence, and in different nations they who sought the Lord publicly covenanted. In the year 1530, the Lutherans performed this important duty. They framed the lamous League of Smal- kalde, which was solemnly renewed four years thereafter. On the 520th day of July, 1537, the capi- tal articles of the Christian religion and discipline were sworn publicly by the senate and people of Geneva. As soon as the reformation put on a re- gular appearance, and the reformers had erected a separate communion from the Roman Church, the Waldenses strengthened their hands, and joined in their Churches. On the 11th of November, 1571, in a general assembly, they entered into a solemn bond of union. They all bind themselves, under the sanction of an oath, to maintain inviolably the ancient union between all the faithful of the evan- gelic religion of the Waldenses down to their own time. They promise to submit to the good exter- nal regulations and ecclesiastical discipline already established, and to this period maintained among them. The Churches in Switzerland, in France, and in Holland, of all the Churches of the conti- nent of Europe, attained to the highest purity; and the Church of Scotland, between the years 1038 and 1G49, appeared at the very zenith of the refor- mation. The Lutherans still retained the mon- strous absurdity of Christ's bodily presence in the sacrament, and in framing the external order of their Churches, adhered too closely to the popish model. The Church of England, especially, pre- served her resemblance to the Church of Rome. The scanty reformation which took place in that kingdom, ahhough overruled by Divine Providence for good to the Christian cause in general, was very far from being under the immediate direction of Christian principle. It was not conducted by OF THE CHURCH. 55 an inquiring people and enlightened ministry. The Church really had little hand in it. It was a crea- ture of state policy. The Eighth Henry, a truly irreligious man, produced the reformation of Eng- land, in order to gratify his lust, his avarice, and his ambition. He was a king of haughty passions, and of principles the most despotic. To be reveng- ed of the pope, Henry was willing that the Church of England should be altogether disconnected with the Roman ; and in order to effect this, he consent- ed that some deviations might be made from the doctrine and order of the papacy. The alterations were, however, very few. None were tolerated by the king, except such as were necessary to esta- blish independency of Rome. He claimed to him- self the authority of which he stripped his Holiness. The nation and the priesthood acquiesced in the claim, and the impious Henry the Eighth is pro- claimed the head of the Church of England. The principal advantage which the nation obtained by the change, was, that now they had their Pope not at Rome, but in London. In Scotland the state of the nation was rendered, by Divine Providence, favourable to the propagation of religion. The re- formation commenced with the most learned and eminent ministers. It was gradually advanced, not as an engine of state power, but as an interest to- tally distinct from the policies of the present world. The crown was opposed to the Protestant interest, and could not, therefore, under the mask of friend- ship, introduce antichristian corruption into the reformation Church ; and it was too weak to de- stroy the protestant cause. The nobility overawed the monarchy, and shielded the commonalty from danger, while the faithful services of John Knox, and other able ministers, propagated the reforma- tion among the people, until the mass of the nation 56 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW being under its influence, they agreed to alter the civil government, and give it a direction contrary to popery. In Scotland the monarchy had not power to subdue religion into an engine of state policy: but Christianity influenced the national so- ciety to render its civil constitution subordinate to the kingdom of Christ. The Church is recognized as a regular and independent empire, of which Christ Jesus is alone the King and Head — as an empire possessing officers and courts, which have the exclusive right of regulating its concerns by the divine law. Civil government is considered as an ordinance of God, for the preservation of peace and order among men, and for regulating every worldly interest among Christians, in subor- dination to godliness and honesty. The doctrines of religion are briefly stated. The corruptions of popery are summed up and condemned. The wor- ship is reduced to its primitive simplicity. The ministry relinquishes all imitations of the Roman hierarchy : and ecclesiastical discipline is exercised by the authorized officers of Christ's peculiar king- dom. The Scottish reformers, after the example of the saints in other places, and in former times, repeatedly enter into covenant with God. They engage themselves in the strength of promised grace, and with the solemnity of nn oath, to main- tain and promote, in their several places and sta- tions, the interests of the true religion, according to the law of God. Christianity thus regulating the individual and collective concerns of these ex- cellent and godly men, appears as a system worthy of its divine author, and wisely adapted to promote the temporal happiness of nations, and the ever- lasting felicity of men. The time had not yet, however, arrived, which God had set for the destruction of Antichrist, and OF THE CHURCH. 57 which he revealed by the prophets to the Church, as the wished for period when the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ. By the reformation, several very important ends were accomplished. 1. The human mind was roused from its lethargy, and all its natural energies excited to that variety of ac- tion, which is calculated to strengthen and improve the understanding, and contribute to the production of that high degree of civilization which is to pre- vail when the Church shall appear in her millennial splendour. 2. The elements of sacred truth were discovered, collected, and explained. The Holy Scriptures were delivered from the bondage of the antichristian Church, translated into a variety of languages, and transmitted to every corner of the world, in order to utter a voice more distinct, loud, and lasting, than that of the Baptist, in the wilder- ness of Judea — " Prepare ye the way of the Lord.^^ 3. Judgment was poured out upon the seat of the beast which shook his throne, and smote the arm by which he extended his sceptre, with a debility from the effects of which, it can never completely recover. And, lastly. The reformation proved the means of eternal life to a vast number of God's elect children then upon the earth, and left an example which animates the witnesses of truth, and is a sure pledge of the perfect fulfilment of the prophecies which exhibit the future grandeur of the visible Church. The Protestant reformation, although an ever memorable and glorious event, was far from ex- hibiting to the nations in which it prevailed a com- plete view of the Christian Church in all her beauty. One great and essential principle of Christ's king- dom,"the UNITY of it, escaped the observation of a number of the reformers, and was almost univer- sally violated. The Christian system, by its unalter- 58 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW able simplicity, is divinely adapted for universal pre- valence. The Scripture model of the Church, if adopted, would render the Church one not only in the subjective principles of religion, but also in its visible form among all the nations of the earth. The immediate danger of the first reformers, the difficulty of mutual consultation upon subjects of common concern, the selfish views of the civil rulers who joined them, and screened them in some measure from papal persecution, and the in- fluence of those who co-operated with them from bad motives in opposition to the papacy, prevent- ed attention to this principle in the organization of the Churches of the reformation. Very few at first thought of extending uniformity any further than their own particular district. While the minis- try of the Church was too inattentive to the unity of the Church, and its absolute independency of the civil governments of the nations, the civil rulers ■were endeavouring, in each of the Protestant coun- tries, to render the Church in its external form, a creature of the civil authority. Another cause, also, contributed powerfully to the violation of this principle. Great revolutions give an unusual impulse to the human mind, and tend to encourage enthusiasm. Extravagance and disorder follow, of course, and Satan favours the delusion, and encourages every impiety. No sooner was the antichristian authority rejected in any na- tion, than sectaries of every description arose, ran to the most dreadful excesses, and thus distracted the attention of the faithful from the point of gene- ral and more remote investigations about Church unity, constraining them to consult present expe- diency, and hasten the adoption of some order which might compose the spirits of men. It be- came absolutely necessary for the civil authority to exert its power in suppressing these disorderly OF THE OHL'KCH. 59 combinations, which, under pretence of religion, violated all righteousness; and the transition was natural and easy although very unjust, from giving law to enthusiastic sectaries who disturbed civil society, to legislating for the Church itself. Thus did the circumstances of the times prove the occa- sion of establishing evil by civil and ecclesiastical law. The great and good Protestant reformers thus sowed the seeds of lasting schisms and feuds in the reformation Church, by framing ecclesias- tical constitutions, differing as widely from one another as did those constitutions of civil govern- ment under which they resided. These diversities, arising at first from principles of expediency, or from the necessities of the times, did not hinder a friendly intercourse between the pious people of that age. Soon, however, too soon, did party pre- judice and pride, introduce bigotry into the Pro- testant Churches. Instead of prosecuting at their leisure a further reformation, and procuring a ge- neral uniformity, each adhered with zealous per- tinacity to the forms already established, and thus were handed down to the present day, all these dis- sensions and schisms, with the example still more mischievous, of rending the body of Christ at plea- sure. The visible Church has consequently little unity in practice. Every city has its several con- gregations, not as the distinct members of one com- mon family, but like the hostile tribes which watch the opportunity of injuring one another, and which of course excite uneasy and constant jealousies and rivalships. One great man among the first reformers anti- cipated these evils, and endeavoured to prevent them. John Calvin equalled his contemporaries in piety, accuracy, knowledge, and faithfulness. He sur- QQ A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW passed them all in the grandeur of his conceptions. His capacious mind embraced the present and fu- ture interests of the Church ; and his discernment pointed out the means of establishing the peace of Jerusalem. He proposed a plan which should em- brace into one Church, all the friends of the re- formation in every country ; and which should direct the united strength of the Protestant na- tions, for its protection against the man of sin and all the kings which were devoted to the idolatries of Rome. The Church of England frustrated this grand attempt. She could not act without her head, the monarchy — a head, on which is written the name of blasphemy. England, practising upon her favourite maxim, no bishop no king, and holding in the sixteenth century, as she has done until the nineteenth, the balance of power, refused to part with the idol prelacy, and thus rendered abortive the plan of comprehension. The venerable reformer, although he lamented the disappointment, did not sink into despondency. With the assistance of his friends, and under the direction of his God, he had succeeded in esta- blishing jn Geneva, an ecclesiastical polity, which should be an example to the surrounding nations. The great doctrines of the Gospel are reduced into the form of a confession of faith. The Presbyte- rian order is delineated in a book of discipline. A Church is formed, and its members enter into so- lemn covenant, in conformity to the primitive pat- tern, and in agreeableness to the Holy Scriptures, and their own subordinate standards. The civil authority is persuaded to act as nursing fathers and nursing mothers; and the senate of Geneva, on the 20th July, 1537, enter into covenant ratified OF THE CHURCH. 61 by an oath, to support this newly organized Church. Ecclesiastical covenanting rests upon an immov- able basis. The Church is a Covenant Society. A national covenant is a very different thing. The covenanters of Geneva understood the difference, and they practised accordingly. They had no in- tention to intermingle Church and State. But they were fully persuaded that the civil polity should protect the Church against Antichrist. A'ations are hound to honour Messiah; and upon this princi- ple they covenant with God. A seminary of litera- ture was also established under the direction of the Church, which proved of eminent service. The youth flocked to it from every nation, and return- ed to their respective homes ably qualified to serve in the Gospel, their divine Lord and Master, in their native countries. By God's blessing, their ministry was successful ; and in no place more so than in Scotland. While the reformation was progressing towards its perfection in that kingdom, the English mo- narchy, although the greatest barrier to the refor- mation of England itself, proved a shield to protect, from papal persecution, those who promoted its in- terest in the northern part of the island. The ways of Providence are wonderful. He can raise up a protection to his saints from among their enemies. If nominal members of the Church, and the various sects of heretics are a grievance to the pious disciple, they serve also to screen him from persecution. Unregenerate professors and the sects of heresy, are providentially interposed between the real Church, and the openly wicked world. Were it not for this hedge, it would require a constant miracle to prevent the wicked from murdering the saints. But the Lord had also much people in Eng- land. While the Church of Scotland was improv- 6 62 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW mg the Geneva model, by rendering the confession of faith more full and explicit, and the whole order of the Church more correct and definite, the same principles were rapidly progressing in England. Under the name of Puritans, the friends of primi- tive Christianity were known in that realm. Civil liberty accompanied religion in its progress, and it would have been a happiness to the world had she never forsaken or outrun her heavenly guide and companion. To the Puritans alone, the Endish owe the whole freedom of their constitution. They stemmed the torrent of despotic power, which threatened to overwhelm the nation. The spirit of the nation was at length roused, and produced an invitation to reform the Church. An ordinance of Parliament called upon the most pious and learn- ed men of the nation, to meet at Westminster, on the 1st of July, 1043, to consult together, and ad- vise the Parliament touching the concerns of reli- gion. This assembly was composed of the most eminent divines and laymen of the age. It was not designed for a national synod, or a representa- tive body of the clergy, but only as a council to the Parliament. The civil authority demanded their advice in advancing the cause of truth and righteousness, and consequently called them, not as an ecclesiastical court, having jurisdiction over the Churches, but as a committee of arrangement to promote the interest of rehgion, and the further reformation of the Church. This assembly, with the assistance of commissioners from the Church of Scotland, drew up and exhibited to the world, in a confession of faith and catechisms, directory for worship, and a plan of Church government, the most definite, scriptural, and complete system which had ever been exhibited by any council or assembly. It was intended as a system of uni- OP THE CHURCH. g3 formity, which should unite in one Church, the friends of religion in England, Ireland, and Scot- land. Such a system became necessary, as these nations had entered into a solemn league and cove- nant for themselves and their posterity that all things might be done in God's house according to his own revealed will. This covenant was drawn up by a committee of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, and commissioners from England. It passed both the assembly and the convention of estates at Edin- burgh in one day, and being sent to England, it was ratified by the assembly and the parliament. Monday the 25th of September, 1643, in the Church of St. Margaret's, Westminster, Mr. Nye read this covenant from the pulpit, article by article, each person standing uncovered, with his right hand lifted up bare to heaven, worshipping the great name of God, and swearing to the performance of it. It was afterwards subscribed by the house of commons and by the assembly. It was sworn by the house of lords, on the 15th day of October. This covenant binds these nations to the preserva- tion of the doctrine, worship, discipline, and govern- ment of the Church of Scotland ; it also binds to constant exertions to establish uniformity in reli- gion over the three kingdoms, and to perpetual per- severance in the same cause against all opposition. Copies of these transactions were sent, by the as- sembly of divines, accompanied with appropriate letters, to the Churches of Holland, France, and Switzerland. All these Churches returned respectful answers, and the Netherland divines expressed not only an approbation of the covenant, but desired to join therein. The Presbyterian system was never completely 64 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW established in England, although it was for some time the most prevalent. And after several years of civil tumult and religious anarchy, the nation again crouched under the burdens of both the mo- narchy and the prelacy. The restoration of the British monarch}^ was accompanied with national perjury. The prelacy and the throne were esta- blished in blood. The reformation was overturned, the covenant was broken, and upwards of twenty thousand Presbyterians died as martyrs to the co- venanted reformation. The protestant Churches have, since the middle of the 17th century, been declining in purity. A sceptical philosophy has corrupted the prin- ciples of a considerable proportion of the literary part of the community. Commerce has nurtured in its lap, sensuality and avarice. Mistaken ideas of civil and religious liberty, have rendered men impatient of the restraints of Christian discipline. And the politicians of the present world have pre- vailed too far to render the Protestant systems ministers to their ambition. The visible Church, divided into factions, and encumbered with a mass of irreligious professors, presents in every place an appearance which fills the serious mind with pain. America, colonized and settled by Europeans, has offered an asylum for Christians of every deno- mination, from the effect of the penal statutes stand- ing against them in different countries of the old world. In the United States particularly, the simple form of civil government affording equal protection to all ranks of men, we often find the various forms of religion practised in one city. God has, in his providence, presented the human family in this country with a new experiment. The Church, unheeded by the civil powers, is suffered to rise or fall by her own exertions. The truth is OF THE CHURCH. 55 great, however, and by the blessing of God, and the faithfulness of the saints, it will yet triunnph. Toward the beginning of the eighteenth century, the pious people in Europe direct an eye of unu- sual anxiety toward America. Twelve centuries have now elapsed since the rise of Antichrist. His fall is fast approaching. Dreadful judgments aw^ait all the parts of the Roman empire. The heavens and the earth of that system must be shaken and removed, and the witnesses be killed by the last efforts of the beast. Many exercise a hope that America will escape the dreadful carnage; and that the visible Covenant Society of God will here find a place of rest until Europe be drenched in the blood of the enemies of religion. Certainly Chris- tians are now very much scattered over the face of the earth. Books replete with solid information abound. Let the antichristian empire be com- pletely overturned ; and when the Lord pours down his Holy Spirit, the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ. Then shall the Churches relinquish every carnal prejudice, and adopt the prophetic maxim — Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a per- petual covenant. The Church shall then be one in all nations. ^Q A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW BOOK II A HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE REFORMED PRESBY- TERIAN CHURCH. CHAPTER I. FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PRESBYTERIAN REFORMA- TION, UNTIL THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT, 1643 1688. The Church in Scotland enjoyed advantages in prosecuting the reformation which were unknown to the other Presbyterian Churches. The poverty of the nation laid a restraint upon the ambition of ecclesiastics, preserved a singular simplicity of manners, and rendered religious controvesy what it ought always to be, a contest for principle, not for worldly interest. The insular situation of the inhabitants prevented foreigners from mingling with them ; and the reformers, undisturbed in a great measure by the factions which distracted the protestant interest upon the continent of Eu- rope, were enabled to direct their faithful exertions to the establishment of regular order and discipline in their own Churches. The power of England overawed the Popish party of Scotland; and while itself was but half reformed, served as a protection to their more faithful northern neighbours from the antichristian empire. The Scottish crown did not possess suf- cient power, as in the other countries, to render the reformation an engine of state policy; and be- OF THE CHURCH. (37 ing restrained by the nobles, who formed a strong barrier between the king and the people, the Pres- byterian ministers organized the Church upon its pure and primitive plan, establishing its doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, perfectly dis- tinct from the civil authority, and independent of the power of the magistrate. God, by his provi- dence, directing the external affairs of the nation in subordination to religion, animated his faith- ful servants by a remarkable degree of knowledge and holiness. The Presbyterians in Scotland learn- ed from their Bibles, that the system of grace is the chief of God's works ; that the saints are the salt of the earth, and Jesus is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Having organized the Church as the peculiar kingdom of the Redeemer, upon prin- ciples which maintained the exclusive headship of Christ, they demanded that the crown of the nation should be laid at the feet of Messiah. They requir- ed that the Church should not only be tolerated to establish her distinct ecclesiastical organization, but that she should hereafter be supported by the civil power of the nation in the enjoyment of her established rights. These pious politicians argued upon Scripture principles. God preserves the world on account of his Church. Christ administers the government of the universe in subordination to the Church; angels and men are commanded to obey him; and all civil constitutions should be nursing fathers and nursing mothers to the Church. They required, therefore, that the King of Scotland should no longer give his power to the antichris- tian beast ; should no longer drink of the intoxicat- ing cup of the mother of harlots ; but bow before the Prince of the Kings of the earth. The majority of the* nation required that the government should be administered, not for the glory of man, but for 68 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW the welfare of society, the good of the Church, and the glory of God. They were successful. The na- tion entered into these measures by solemn cove- nant; and their pious neighbours in England and in Ireland joined in a solemn league, to preserve the established order of religion in Scotland, and to use their endeavours for the introduction of a si- milar order in these two nations. In consequence of this union the English Presbyterians in the assembly at Westminster, with the assistance of commissioners from the Church of Scotland, com- pleted those ecclesiastical standards which have been received as agreeable to the Scriptures, and as the bond of the covenanted uniformity between the reformed Presbyterian Churches in the British empire. This system was reduced into operation in Scot- land, and constituted the finishing part of the se- cond reformation throughout that kingdom. The Church enjoyed these attainments in peace but a very short time. The period appointed in God's purpose for the destruction of antichrist and for the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, had not yet arrived. God's visi- ble Covenant Society had not as yet finished the testimony which the witnesses were appointed to give. They must still appear in sackcloth, and seal by the blood of martyrdom, the testimony which they held. Several causes contributed, under a Holy Providence, to bring the Church into severe troubles and trials, which should prove the faithful- ness of the saints. The Presbyterians used power with moderation. They never proposed to render men pious by com- pulsion. They restrained open irregularities ; they punished the profanation of the Sabbath, daring OF THE CHURCH. 09 blasphemy, and public overt acts of idolatry. They procured acts of parliament to exclude from civil office all those who, evidently disaffected to the reformed constitution, might be expected to make use of their power and influence to subvert the beautiful and venerable fabric. They were, how- ever, unwilling unnecessarily to embroil the nation by a total dissolution of the monarchy. They even still retained some veneration for the principle of the hereditary succession of royalty. And when the English independent faction, executed upon the first Charles the demerit of his crimes, the Scottish Parliament being then sitting at Edinburgh, did immediately order his son, Charles II. to be pro- claimed king. They accompanied the proclama- tion, however, with a declaration, that before he be admitted to the exercise of the royal power, he shall give satisfactory evidence to the kingdom of his attachment to the constitution of government as now reformed, according to the covenant and solemn league. This was rash and highly imprudent conduct. — The friends of Scottish liberty, and even the most faithful friends of religion, were hurried into the measure, by the dread of being overwhelmed with the anarchy which now began to prevail in Eng- land, under the influence of their present mock Parliament. They made a dangerous experiment ; and they had afterwards abundant cause to repent their own rashness. Power should never be con- ferred on any, whose previously tried and esta- blished reputation does not afford a prospect that he will use it in the cause of righteousness. No profession can bind a man without principle. To require a profession of virtue from an unprincipled man, is to tempt him to hypocrisy. Such was cer- tainly the case in respect of the infamous and per- 70 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW jured tyrant, who bore the name of Charles the Second. He was at the Hague, a town in Holland, when he was proclaimed king. (Commissioners were immediately sent to treat with him, but he refused to give the required satisfaction, and they returned to Scotland without him. Happy would it have been for the nation had ihey then placed the reins of government in the hands of some of their own able and virtuous citizens ; but their con- nection with England would not admit of this mea- sure. Next year commissioners were again des- patched to treat with the exile king. They found him at Breda, a city of Dutch Brabant. He there pursued his wanton pleasures, and upon the Satur- day before he left that city, after having agreed to the terms of the treaty, he returned from his revellings, and refused submission to the terms. Upon the following Sabbath, he, as an Episcopa- lian, took the sacrament kneeling, and thus sealed, by unworthy communicating, his opposition to Presbyterians, and to the God whom they adore. The Rev. Mr. Livingston, one of the commissioners, an eminently godly man, disapproved of the whole procedure respecting his recall, and declared, that in Charles Stewart, they carried the plague of God to Scotland. Upon the king's arrival in Scotland, he solemnly swore to maintain the covenanted reformation; and upon the 16th August, 1650, published a declara- tion, in which he abjured popery and prelacy, lamented his father's tyranny and idolatry, pro- mised that he should have in future no friends but the friends of the reformation, and no enemies but the enemies of the covenanted uniformity. He was publicly crowned at Scone, on the 1st of January, 1651, after an excellent sermon, preached by the Rev. Mr. Douglas, from 2 Kings xi. 12, 17. In OF THE CHURCH. 71 the presence of the national representatives and the commissioners of the Church, he renewed the covenants, solemnly swearing, with his hand lifted up to God, to rule the kingdom in agreeableness to the established constitution. The people, by their representatives, then declared their choice of him to be their king. The Marquis of Argyle placed the crown upon his head, and then the no- bles and commons took the oath of allegiance, that they should be faithful to the king, according to their national and solemn vows in defence of reli- gion and righteousness. Never were king and people more strictly bound to God and to one another, than were this king and these people. But it soon appeared that the people had committed the guardianship of their rights to very treacherous hands. Cromwell, the English usurper, had invaded Scotland with a powerful army. In this kingdom there was a minority, who on account of their attachment to prelacy and arbitrary power, did not acquiesce in the present established constitution. Vicious in mo- rals, considering religion only as an engine of power, opposing the liberty and independence of the Church, and entirely devoted to prelacy and arbitrary government, they were by law exclud- ed from places of powder and trust in the state and in the army. They had served king Charles the First in his endeavours to enslave the nation; and the commonwealth having succeeded in throwing ofi' the yoke, did not choose to intrust these men with power. They enjoyed unmolested their per- sonal liberties and property under the law; but no policy could justify their promotion to official sta- tions, without evidence of their having changed their sentiments. The principal men of this party, remarkable for their immoralitv, as well as their 72 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW opposition to the reformation establishment, wore called malignants. As they had long enjoyed the patronage of the tyrannical house of Stuart, in the chief offices of state and army, some of them were experienced warriors and able politicians. Although now a very small minority, they were still formidable, and ought to have received a more effectual debasement than the generous and pious people who now possessed the power, were disposed to give even to their enemies. Such was the state of parties in Scotland, when the army appointed to support the young king and his people, under the conduct of General Leslie, was defeated at Dunbar, by Oliver Cromwell. The king was pleased at this defeat. It afforded an argument for the admission of the malignants, who were known enemies to Cromwell, into the army which defended Scotland. By private in- trigue, this impious monarch and these malignants, formed plans for the overthrow of the constitution. They professed reformation; they were admitted to military power; they took the oaths of office, and were admitted into the councils of state. Their hypocrisy did not, however, deceive all the friends of the reformation interest. There were many faithful men who considered their penitence as mockery, their submission to Church discipline for their immoralit}', as hypocrisy, and their oath as perjury. The most faithful ministers and pres- byteries opposed the admission of these malignants into communion, and the most virtuous politicians opposed their admission to civil office. Presbyte- rians were thus, by the impious cunning of their enemies, divided among themselves. Those who favoured the malignants were called Resolutiojiers, and those who opposed them, Protestors. This division produced the ruin of the civil constitution, OF THE CHURCH. .^g and prepared the way for that persecution which soon destroyed the Church. The English arms having prevailed over those of the king and the Scots, Charles escaped to France, and threw off the mask of presbyterian- ism. Despairing of obtaining the crown of Eng- land by means of the Scottish reformers, he ap- plied for assistance to the popish powers of the continent, and embraced the Roman religion. He still, however, pretended to be a Protestant. Scot- land, in the mean time, was reduced under the English usurper. This occasioned further dissen- sions among the Presbyterians. The reformers were in the habit of referring every part of their conduct to some general principle, and if the prin- ciple was not correct, to condemn the praciical application of it. They were sensible that moral- ity could not otherwise be well understood or practised. It was of course a question of a very serious nature that now demanded their attention — Was Oliver Cromwell to be considered as a usurper, or as a lawful ruler, to whom obedience is due for conscience' sake ? The friends of the Protector, as Cromwell was called, were few, but they were formidable. The army was under their command. They required also conscien- tious submission to the power of the Protector. They reasoned thus: "the powers which he exer- cises are in themselves lawful, and he has ac- quired from God's Providence a right to exercise them. The powers that be, are ordained of God.^^ To these arguments it was replied, that although tyranny and usurpation w^ere permitted by a Holy Providence, and overruled for the good of the Church, they had not the divine approbation, had no claim on the obedience of Christians, and might not only be lawfully resisted, but complete- 7 74 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW \y overthrown. That Cromwell was an usurper, was manifest. He was never chosen by the na- tion to govern it; and the constitution, ratified by- solemn oath, excluded him from power. To this constitution, the more faithful Presbyterians con- sidered themselves bound by covenant to adhere. The disputes between the Resolutioners and the Protestors were still agitated wiih a vehemence which distracted the Church. The most faithful ministers were of the protesting part)^ They condemned the resolutions which admitted into Church communion, and into civil and military power, the malignants. They condemned these measures as ministers and as patriots, who sought the good of their country in subordination to Christ's kingdom. They maintained, that none should be admitted to Church fellowship, or con- tinued in it, unless they professed the true religion, and understood what they professed — unless they evidenced repentance of all their sins — led a holy and religious life — and promised submission to all the ordinances of the gospel. They considered as no recommendation a hasty profession of repent- ance, and a promise of submission to ecclesiasti- cal order, coming from persons who were uni- formly remarkable for their impiety, and who now had a motive for hypocrisy, in the expecta- tion of power and office. They declared it to be a prostitution of the privileges of the Church to confer them upon such characters. They urged it upon the public mind as an important maxim, that no enemy of the civil constitution should be intrusted with a share in its administration. They exposed the folly and the madness of bestowing military power upon the inveterate enemies of re- ligion, liberty, and law. They fortified these de- clarations by judicious arguments from the Scrip- OF THE CHURCH. <75 tures. Two very judicious dissertations against associations with malignants were published and circulated, the one written some time before by the famous Mr. Gillespie, and the other composed by Mr. Binning. The faithfulness of the Protestors excited the envy of their brethren, the Resolutioners, and pro- voked the enmity of the malignants, who now waited for an opportunity of vengeance. The opportunity, alas! soon arrived. After nine years exile, king Charles was restored, and mo- narchy was re-established in England, as well as ill Scotland. General Monk was the principal agent in accomplishing this flattering, but fatal change. He was the second son of an ancient, but decayed family. He betook himself in early youth to the profession of arms, and sought mili- tary experience in the Low Countries, the great school of war. When the quarrel between Charles the First and the parliament broke out, he return- ed to England and joined the standard of tyranny and royalty. After the overthrow of the English monarchy, this adventurer enlisted under the re- publican banner, and fought against king Charles ]I. in Scotland. When this kingdom was reduced under the English arms. Monk was left by Crom- well with the supreme command. He served Oliver, and his son Richard, until he was deposed; and to the parliament afterwards he gave entire submission. He protested, however, against the violence of the English army which invaded the parliamentary privilege, and established military government in England. He was a man of much apparent moderation, and of deep design. He perceived that the English were wearied of anar- chy, and that the Scots longed for the re-estabHsh- ment of their monarchical constitution, as limited 70 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW and reformed, agreeably to their solemn cove- nants. He determined to take the advantage of these dispositions. He was covetous to the ex- treme, possessed a vicious mind, and could not be exceeded by any man in dissimulation. The Rev. Mr. Douglas first proposed to Gene- ral Monk the king's restoration ; and he did him- self travel through a great part of England and Scotland, to engage the leading Presbyterians in his majesty's service. Monk, in the mean time, marched to England ; defeated the prevailing faction ; restored the par- liament ; and took the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth. The whole power of the nation being now in the hands of the Presbyterians, the covenants between the nation and the Scots, in defence of religion, are again publicly acknow- ledged as law. The new parliament was inclined to a limited monarchy. They beheld a covenanted Presbyte- rian king, ready to accept an invitation to the throne of his ancestors, and they proposed to enter into immediate stipulations with him. At this critical juncture Monk acted the part of a traitor. He, with military power, overawed the parliament, and the king was restored without conditions. Charles, too, again played the hypo- crite. A committee of Presbyterian ministers waited upon him at Breda, and he publicly thank- ed God that he was a covenanted king. Thus was the nation plunged into ruin. Charles the Second was no sooner settled upon the throne, than he discovered a disposition to oppose to the utmost that covenanted reformation, to the support of which he had been repeatedly bound by oath. Plaving embraced popery, he re- solved to suppress presbytery. He made the ex- OF THE CIIURril. "77 pcriment first in Scotland. This nation had been reduced under England by the parliamentary forces. As a conquered kingdom, Charles con- cluded that he might destroy with ease its re- maining liberties. He immediately assumed un- limited power, both in ecclesiastical and civil things; re-established the prelacy, and caused him- self to be acknowledged the head of the Church. The first blow fell upon the most valuable man in the nation, the pious marquis of Argyle. The un- grateful monarch procured the murder of the no- bleman who patronised him in his youth, and placed the crown upon his head. The Protestors were the persons most obnoxious to the king; but the whole reformed Presbyterian Church was devoted to destruction by this impious apostate. He had selected a suitable person as an accom- plice in his crimes. Mr. Sharp was commissioned by six of the leading ministers of Edinburgh to wait upon the king at his restoration, and nego- tiate with him in favour of the Church. He also, in the secret with Monk, acted the traitor; and having, in the following year, gone up to London, was there consecrated a bishop; and returned to Scotland as Archbishop of St. Andrews, and Pri- mate of the kingdom. The Episcopal Church now being fully estab- lished in England, Ireland, and Scotland, over the ruins of the reformation, Presbyterians were called to seal with their blood the testimony which they held. Upwards of two thousand godly ministers were banished from their congregations and their livings in one day, in the kingdom of England; and upwards of twenty thousand Presbyterians suffered martyrdom in Scotland, during the reign of Charles the Second and his brother Janaes. Several of the ministers fled to foreign countries; 7* 78 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW some were indulged in their parishes, upon re- nouncing their covenanted reformation ; but those who continued faithful, were driven to the moun- tains, hunted, and butchered without mercy. As faithful witnesses for the truth, these emi- nently godly men published many valuable testi- monies against the prevailing evils; and while they were permitted to live, they exhibited in their own persecuted Churches the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, which had been ap- pointed by Christ for the New Testament Church. They opposed with solid arguments the present constituted authorities in Church and in state. They even declared it rebellion against Heaven to be in allegiance with the house of Stuart. Their cruel persecutors sometimes attempted to reason with the martyrs, when they were called before their courts. The arguments which the persecu- tors used were more plausible than substantial. " Christians are commanded to be subject to the higher powers. Ecclesiastical persons are not exempted. Ministers are bound to pray for all who are in authority. When God in his Provi- dence exalts a man \o power, all should submit to the exercise of such power as the ordinance of God. Even absolute tyranny is frqm the Lord. There is no power but of God. The apostle Paul required the Romans to obey the emperor Nero, a heathen, a persecutor, an infamous man, and an absolute tyrant. It is certainly more reasonable to submit to the authority of the present reigning family. Presbyterians, therefore, in disowning the king's authority, are worthy of death." Such were the arguments used by the perjured prelates, to ensnare the consciences of those who adhered to reformation principles. These infamous men sheltered their principles under perverted texts of OF THE CHURCH. 79 Scripture, and called their murder of the pious Presbyterians by the name of justice. To these arguments the persecuted saints, when permitted to speak, made a judicious reply: — *' Every immoral constitution is disapproved of God ; and no man ought to swear allegiance to a power which God does not recognise. All kings are commanded to promote the welfare of the Church; and those who own allegiance to Christ, cannot consistently pray for the prosperity of the Churcli's enemies, or for the establishment of thrones founded on iniquity. " It is certainly the duty of Christians to be meek and peaceable members of civil society. If they are permitted to enjoy their lives, their pro- perty, and especially their religion, without being required to make any sinful compliances, it is right that they should behave peaceably, and not involve society in confusion, even although the power of the empire in which they reside be in evil hands. Every burden which God in his Pro- vidence brings upon them, they must cheerfully bear. But never are Christians called upon by their God to oivn as his ordinance any thing which is contrary to his laic. The civil powers of which he approves, are a terror to them who do evil, and a praise to them who do w^ell. Tyrants and per- secutors, usurpers and despisers of religion, may be set up, in his holy and just Providence, to an- swer valuable purposes in his hand; but he himself declares in his word, that such kings are set up not by him. The pagan Roman government is described, in Revelation, as the empire of the dra- gon, and all the kings who support antichrist, are said in the same infallible word, to have received from Satan their authority. God has declared /Jieir overthrow and destruction, and no Protes- 8Q A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW tant sliould recognize them as the ordinance of God, to which he must yield conscientious sup- port. The present king, Charles 11., has violated the constitution of Scotland ; he has broken the covenant which he made with God and man; he has claimed, as an essential ])art of royal prero- gative, a blasphemous supremacy in the Church ; he has overturned our ecclesiastical order, ban- ished the faithful ministry, and persecuted the most virtuous inhabitants of the land: such a per- jured usurper and tyrant cannot be considered as a lawful magistrate by the reformed Presbyterian Covenanters." These arguments exhibit the good sense and courage which sincere piety infused into the Scot- tish martyrs. Power, however, was upon the side of the oppressor. Twenty years of persecution reduced the Reformed Presbyterian Church to a small number of ministers. The courts of judica- ture had been prevented from meeting from the very beginning, and no regular processes of eccle- siastical discipline were attainable. It was neces- sary, however, to administer Church censure upon those who betrayed the cause of religion, and who gave themselves up to immorality. The king himself had been admitted a member of the Church, and many of his courtiers had formerly been professed disciples of Christ. Those who renounce the faith, however high in power, should never be admitted to escape, as fugitives from dis- cipline. These correct sentiments about the dis- cipline of the Church, influenced one of the pious and most faithful ministers of the gospel then living, to pronounce the solemn sentence of ex- communication upon the base apostates, who had thrown aside even every pretension to religion. The Rev. Donald Cargill did, upon the 17th day OF THE CHURCH. 81 of September, 1680, at Torwood, in Stirlingshire, excommunicate Charles II. and six others of the most noted persecutors, in the presence of a vast concourse of people. Sufficient documents were produced of their having been guilty of drunken- ness, hypocrisy, perjury, heresy, bloodshed, and adultery; and although they were now publicly caressed as suitable members of the Episcopal Church, and one of them was the avowed head of that Church, they certainly deserved this awful and solemn sentence. The faithfulness of Mr. Cargill excited the persecutors to madness. They in return for his casting them out of the Church of Christ, persecuted him unto the death, and thus hastened him to the kingdom of glory. He died in the full assurance of faith. After his death, the Church was left destitute of a regular minis- try. Search was diligently made by the enemy for all the students of divinity that were inclined to Presbyterianism, and they also w^ere executed. The spirit of the Covenanters was not, how- ever, entirely broken. They established among themselves a general correspondence. The soci- eties in each shire were connected by a particular correspondence of delegates, and these corres- pondences were again connected in a representa- tive general meeting. This plan w^as highly ex- pedient in their situation, as they had no properly organized Church. It was a measure of expe- diency, dictated by the necessity of the times. The general meeting managed every thing of common concern to the societies. They claimed neither civil nor ecclesiastical power. They ex- ercised no part of Church discipline. They en- deavoured, however, to procure a faithful minis- try. They commissioned the Laird of Earlston and Sir Robert Hamilton, two learned and godly men, g2 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW to represent their case to the foreign Churches. And these commissioners opened a door, by the blessing of Providence, through which they re- ceived ministerial aid. The Rev. Richard Came- ron, who valiantly contended for the faith deliver- ed to the saints, and for the violated liberties of his much injured country, and who fell at Airdsmoss in 1680, had been ordained in Rotterdam for the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Mr. James Ren- wick was now ordained by the Classis of Gro- ningen. He was a man of remarkable piety, and recommended himself exceedingly to these godly divines of the Church of Holland by his unwaver- ing faithfulness. He explained to them his principles, and bore an explicit testimony against the remaining cor- ruptions of the Belgic Church. He refused ordi- nation at Embden, where it was first offered to him, because the ministry of that place had em- braced the Cocceian errors.* Even at Groningen, he would on no account subscribe the constitution and catechism of the Dutch Church. Sensible of the justness of his animadversions, and impressed with the solemnity and integrity which appeared in whatever he said, these godly ministers declared it was the Lord's cause, and although all the pow- * John Cocccius was a very learned divine of the Church of Holland, and professor of divinity in the university of Lcyden. Men of genius are naturally disposed to he inventive. Originahty, the idol to which all men are apt to bow, is the object to which great men direct their principal attention, unless they arc restrain- ed by Christian humilit}'. Cocceius aimed at originality, and he succeeded. It is, indeed, much easier for a man of genius to in- vent an erroneous system, than to discover and illustrate truth. The Cocceians consider the historical part of the Old Testament as typical of the new dispensation. The ceremonial law they view as a punishment inflicted on the Jews for their transgressions, par- ticularly for having worshipped the golden calf. They deny the morality of the fourth commandment. OF THE CHURCH. 83 ers on earth should resent it, they would ordain to the holy ministry this eminently pious youth. He subscribed, in the presence of the Classis, the confession and standards agreed upon by the assembly at Westminster, and he was ordained, with the imposition of hands, a minister of the gospel of Christ, for the Reformed Presbyterian Church, now suffering in Scotland. For this re- markable condescension in the Church of Holland, the Scottish covenanters are obliged to the pious exertions of Sir Robert Hamilton, as the instru- ment employed by God to assist Mr. Renwick in convincing these pious divines of the superior purity of the covenanted Church of Scotland. Professor Witsius, Professor Mark, and Mr. Bra- kel, distinguished themselves as the friends of the Covenanters. Upon Mr. Renwick's return to his native country, his ministry was blessed, as the means of refreshing thousands, who waited upon it in the fields and mountains. The societies had no access to public ordinances, except those administered by Mr. Renwick, and Mr. Alex. Shields, who had been licensed by Presbyterian ministers in England, and one or two more who occasionally came over from Ireland. As Mr. Renwick was the most faithful, he was the most exposed to danger. He was at last put to a deci- sive proof of his faithfulness. He continued un- moved in the hour of trial. He was condemned, and executed upon the 17th February, 1688, in the 20th year of his age, and the 6th of his minis- try. He is the last person who suffered death in Scotland, on account of religion ; the last martyr to the covenanted reformation. To the remnant of the persecuted Church the gospel was preached, after Mr. Renwick's death, by Mr. Shield's, the Rev. Thomas Linning, who 84 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW had been ordained at Embden, and Mr. William Boyd, who had been licensed at Groningen. These gentlemen maintained the reformation testimony without molestation, until the revolution. CHAPTER II. FROM THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT IN BRITAIN, UNTIL THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REFORMED PRESBYTERY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The revolution which placed the Prince of Orange upon the British throne, is intimately con- nected with the history of the Reformed Presby- terian Church. William was educated by John De Witt, who directed the afiairs of Holland with ability and integrity. The pupil, in an early pe- riod of life, excelled his instructor as a warrior and politician. The Prince of Orange was grave, intrepid, and intelligent. Made Stadtholder of Holland, and being the soul of the confederacy against the tyranny of Louis the Fourteenth of France, he commanded the respect of all Europe. The Protestants considered him as their principal support. He was married to the Princess Mary, heir apparent to the crown of England, until the birth of the Prince of Wales, James, the future Pretender. Those who in England retained any sense of religion and liberty, looked up to Prince William as their deliverer from the yoke of bond- age under which Charles the Second had brought them, and which his brother and successor, James the Second, had rendered more severe. William published a declaration, enumerating the grievances of the British nation, and disclaiming any inten- OF THE CHURCH. 85 tion, upon his own part, to assume any power but what was necessary to defend a free parliament in settling a regular constitution. When he land- ed in England, his father-in-law James was seized with terror, abdicated the throne, and escaped to the continent. To the vacant throne king William was called, and he embraced the invitation. The crown of Scotland was also confeVred on him. The revolution of 1688 was conducted upon principles which should never be forgotten. The Scottish convention passed a decisive vote, " that Idng James, by Ids abuse of power, had forfeited all title to the crown, and that it be conferred on the Prince of Orange.^' The English parliament de- clared, that king James the Second, having endea- voured to subvert the constitution, by breakijig the original contract beticeen the king and the people, did abdicate the throne. Both kinfjdoms did, by these acts, establish two grand principles — That the abuse of power des- troys the right to exercise it, and that a people may depose their rulers. Several thousand Pres- byterian Covenanters had been sacrificed by the house of Stuart, for maintaining these sentiments, which are now universally admitted as the just maxims of civil policy. The martyrs of the reformation had uniformly declared that no allegiance was due to those rulers who abuse their power, who violate the constitu- tion, and subvert righteousness. They declared the lawfulness of bearing arms in defence of reli- gion and liberty, and of deposing kings. They refused to recognize any authority which was founded upon a violation of the constitution, to which they had, by solemn covenant, declared their assent. They were, on this account, perse- 8 8(5 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW cuted and destroyed by the abettors of royalty and episcopacy. The doctrine of passive obedience and non- resistance was preached and pubUshed from the pulpits of the establishment, and it was asserted, in the name of God, that no power, whether hea- then, popish, or prelatic, could be lawfully dis- owned. The constant cry was a perverted scrip- ture passage: "The powers that be, are ordained of God." Reason and scripture, and nature, re- volt at such maxims. Reason and scripture are nevertheless perverted, as often as the perversion is supposed convenient. While submission to con- stituted authorities serves the ease, the inclination, and the interest of men, many will feel disposed to become its advocates. Abstract argument, how- ever just; divine revelation, however clear, are but feeble barriers against the torrent of selfish- ness amidst the fallen family of man. Nature pleads with a more forcible eloquence. When a man feels himself oppressed, he will believe that resistance is lawful. Whensoever the jyowers that be, are hostile to a person's interest, inclination, and personal safety, he will believe it lawful to use means for overturning such power. The maxims of truth are uniformly consistent and capable of universal application, but the doctrine of passive obedience to every kind of civil power, is neces- sarily inconsistent with itself. When it accords with interest, all parlies are willing to join in overturning constituted authorities. This was remarkably the case at the period of the revolution. During the reign of Charles, it was the interest of the prelacy to establish power over right, to support the infamous head of the Episcopal Church, in his efforts to overturn the OF THE CHURCH. 87 constitution wliich reformed Presbyterians had framed and ratified. But when James was preparing to introduce Popery, and subvert the prelacy, it was thought virtue, even by the Episcopalians, to disown his authority. Then did they court the favour of the persecuted dissenters, and solicit their influence in calling over for their mutual deliverance, the Prince of Orange, a Presbyterian of the Church of Holland. The university of Oxford exceeded, both in zeal for the doctrine of submission, and in the inconsistency of their practice with the doc- trine, all their contemporaries. They gave the solemn sanction of their high authority to that maxim first inculcated by Mahomed, the grand impostor — Obedience is due to the authorities of a nation, whether they be constituted upon just or un- just principles. The divines of the university drew up twenty-seven propositions, extracted from the writings of Buchanan, Baxter, Owen, Milton, Goodwin, and others, who had maintained that the people might examine whether they who are in power have a right to rule, and that when kings forfeit their right to government, although they possess power, they may be resisted. They passed a decree in full convocation, July 21, 1683, condemning these principles as damna- ble doctrines, as destructive to all human society, and declaring them to be impious, seditious, here- tical and blasphemous. Four years thereafter, however, they resisted the authority of the king ; and refusing to practise that passive obedience which they themselves had taught; refusing to submit to the violation of their charter, the presi- dent and all the fellows, except two who had com- plied, were expelled the college. As soon, how- ever, as the king invaded their property, these 88 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW ecclesiastics invited the Prince of Orange to their rescue; they signed an association to support him; they oflered to him their plate, and declared for him in a body, even while their sovereign, whom, upon their own principles, to resist was damnable, was still on the throne. The revolution of 1688, which overturned the house of Stuart for having violated the civil com- pact, justified the conduct of those Presbyterian Covenanters who rejected the same authority upon the same principle, several years before this event. It also justified the conduct of the same people, in rejecting the settlement of king William, when he was invested with power, in direct violation of the national constitution, which was settled at the re- formation, and which both kingdoms, according to the solemn league and covenant, were bound by oath to defend inviolate. The remnant of the Reformed Presbyterian Church did, consequently, disown the revolution settlement both in church and state. An oath they considered as obligatory until the whole ends of it be accomplished. They had solemnly sworn to defend the reformation in their several places and stations, to oppose, by all lawful means. Popery, Prelacy, and Erastianism, and to adhere to the doctrine and order of the Church of Scot- land, as constituted between the years 1G38 and 1649. The covenants, they thought it their duty repeatedly to renew. The faithful testimonies of their martyrs, they were not disposed to relinquish or condemn. Erastianism was interwoven with the constitution under William the Third. He apostatized from the principles of the Church of Holland, and became the visible head of the Church of England. He exercised supremacy over the Church of Scotland, and with unhallowed OF THE CHURCH. 89 hands violated the right bestowed upon the minis- try, by the Lord Jesus Christ, of calHng and dis- solving at pleasure the various courts of judica- ture. Presbyterian Covenanters did not deny to the civil authority the right of calling an assembly of divines in extraordinary cases, in order to ob- tain advice. They knew it was the duty of the magistrate to preserve the peace as well as the liberty of Church courts, by suppressing disorders and restraining violence. But they would not yield, as was now done, the right to the king's commissioner to call and dissolve at pleasure, the General Assembly of the Church. The Assembly could not now convene, except by the royal au- thority. When such powers, therefore, were ren- dered essential to the crown of Britain by the revolution settlement, the Covenanters dissented from that settlement, refused an oath of allegiance to this Erastian system, and disowned all the con- stituted authorities. As the minority, they claim- ed the right of enjoying their sentiments, their lives, and their property unmolested, while they determined to behave as peaceable and regular members of society in every part of the land. By the new constitution they were indeed effectu- ally excluded from the privileges of the national society. The oaths of allegiance to the govern- ment excluded the oath of the Covenanters which they had already solemnly sworn, and to which they held themselves bound. Being thus excluded from membership in the national society, the rulers in that society could by no means be re- cognized as their magistrates. — They were united to them by no moral tie. The Episcopal Church was established under the Prince of Orange, in England and in Ireland, as the true religion which the king was bound by 8* 90 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW oath to defend. Presbyterianism, as most agreea- ble to the mind of the people, was established in Scotland under the same form which obtained be- fore the last reformation. The Episcopal curates who chose to conform to the Presbyterian form of government, the old Presbyterian ministers who conformed to the preceding Episcopal establish- ment, the indulged ministers who received ap- pointments and orders from the two tyrannical kings which preceded the revolution, and a few of the banished ministers now returned to their native country, united in one body, composed the ministry of the Church of Scotland in the present settlement. Those who retained an attachment lo their former attainments, hoped that their influ- ence might hereafter obtain some reformation. And with these hopes they embraced a system which they were very far from approving. These hopes were frustrated. They were indeed ill founded. In Scotland there w^ere then eight hun- dred and ninety parishes. A great number of these were now vacant. Apostate Presbyterians formed the majority of the ministry in those which were supplied. Four hundred parishes were sup- plied with so many Episcopal curates. These, sacrificing principle, and submitting for the sake of their stipends, to the Presbyterian name, joined in the phalanx opposed to the former reformation. Composed of such materials, it was madness to expect from the revolution Church any reforma- tion. Delivered, however, as it were miraculous- ly, from a dreadful persecution, and surprised to find themselves even in such a comfortable situa- tion, although they contemplated with sorrow the general defection of the Church not a few Covenant- ers, entered into her communion. Even the very men who endured the persecution without dropping OF THE CHURCH. 91 any part of their testimony, were allured out of the path of integrity by this change which took place in the state of affairs. Those who preached the gospel at the risk of their lives to the wander- ing societies amidst the mountains, were unable to withstand the torrent of popularity which accom- panied all the actions and speeches of the present king. Heedless of consequences, Messrs. Linning and Boyd deserted the societies of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and persuaded, even the author of the Hind let loose, to relinquish the prin- ciples which he formerly so ably defended. Mr. Alexander Shields was prevailed upon by his two brethren to join in communion with the established Church. He repented of his compliance, but not in time to recover what he had lost, his character. He embarked for the continent as chaplain to a regiment, which fought in league with the Pope. Having violated his covenant with God and his Church, by which he was bound to oppose the power of antichrist, we soon find him in an army employed to defend the man of sin. He after- w^ards embarked in the expedition to Darien, and after having experienced the utmost distress, died unknown and neglected in Jamaica.* The Covenanters were now again left destitute of a public ministr3\ This w^as a grievous dis- pensation to persons who loved, as they did, the ordinances appointed by Christ. As true to the principles of Presbyterian order, they would not call to the exercise of a part of the ministerial office, any whom they could not invito * There was not found in any of the three kingdoms, any one minister who maintained the principles of the Reformed Presliy- terian Church, consistently at that period, except the Rev. Mr. David Houston. He passed over to Ireland, and continued faith- ful unto the day of his death. 92 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW to the discharge of the whole of its duties. They would not call any one to preach the word to them, whom they could not admit to dispense the sacraments. Neither would they attend any where to the ministry of the word, except where they could conscientiously join in visible commu- nion. As public teaching is, equally with the administration of the sacraments, exclusively the province of the ministry, they attended to the more private ordinances of the gospel, in hopes that God would visit them in time, with faithful pastors. They lived as brethren; they worship- ped socially. in praying societies ; they conversed freely about the whole salvation of Christ; they read many valuable authors, and were uniformly considered as more pious and intelligent, than those who had an opportunity of hearing sermons every Sabbath. They seem now to have been cut off from the possibility of ever recovering a standing ministry. They would have considered it little short of blasphemy, to have ordained to office any one, however qualified, in any other method than that of Christ's appointment — the laying on of the hands of a presbytery. Did they appoint a minister themselves, he must be the creature and servant of man ; not the ambassador of our Redeemer. Their hearts trembling for the Ark, they would not give it a wrong touch. They preferred suffering, to sin. Young men of education could not, therefore, obtain ordination among them. The judicatories of the established Church would ordain none, unless he complied with their sinful terms of communion. The Churches of Holland, also, refused to act upon their former condescensions. Sixteen years were passed after the defection of their ministers at the revolution, before the remaining friends of the OF THE CHURCH. 93 covenanted reformation were supplied with a pub- lic ministry. In the year 1707, the Rev. John M'Millan acceded to ihem, from the judicatories of the established Church. Mr. M'Millan, and a few of his brethren in the ministry, had for some time entertained a hope of procuring a general reformation. But the propor- tion of the faithful to the lukewarm in Church judicatories, was too small to have any influence. Petitions for redress of grievances had been pre- sented to the assembly, from time to time, from nearly two thousand respectable Christians, but without effect. The power of choosing their own ministers had been taken from the congregations, and patronage restored. Discipline was relaxed, immoraUty and heresy were tolerated in the Church, and the remembrance of the reformation was fast declining. Those w^ho defended the good order of the Church against their aposta- tizing brethren, were sure of being censured by the majority. The faithfulness and zeal of Mr. M'Millan provoked the indignation of those who were conscious of the badness of their own cause. They determined to banish him from a flock who sincerely loved him ; and they consequently passed against him a sentence of deposition from tlie ministry. Against these cruel and unjust pro- ceedings, Mr. M'Millan protested ; and the minis- try which he received in a regular manner from his Lord, he refused to resign to the caprice and wickedness of men who had no crime to charge him with, except his faithfulness to the principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. The so- cieties called him to the ministry among them, and he was afterwards joined in that work by others. Those who had for a long time been de- prived of the public ordinances, were now greatly 94 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW refreshed by the preached gospel. They rejoiced that an organized visible Church v^^as again to be found in the land, upon the footing of the once glorious reformation. This visible Covenant So- ciety was indeed small and despised. They re- solved, however, as witnesses, to maintain a faith- ful testimony, and like their brethren^ the primi- tive disciples, to go forth to their Redeemer without the camp, bearing his reproach. They considered that the principles of the reformation were still as true and as valuable as they had been, when they were embraced generally in the three kingdoms of the Isles of Britain and Ireland, and when they were admired by all the Protestant Churches of Europe. They sincerely lamented their own inability to introduce them advantage- ously to public notice ; but they were resolved, in their humble sphere, to collect them faithfully ; to bind them up in one testimony; and to seal them as the law of the house, among the disciples of our Lord. They took pleasure in the dust of Zion. For more than a third of a century, Mr. M'Millan sustained alone the banner of a cove- nanted reformation, until, by the accession of Mr. Nairn, the way was opened for the constitution of the Reforivied Presbytery, This important event took place, August 1, 1743. In the mean- time, however, the scattered remnant had met at Auchensaugh, July 24, 1712, and there renewed the covenants, national and solemn league, with confession of sins, and an engagement to duties; as they also did, after the constitution of Presby- tery, at Crawford-John, in the year 1745. The Reformed Presbytery in Scotland did, in the year 1761, pubHsh an act, declaration, and testimony, in behalf of the doctrine, worship, dis- OF THE CHURCH. 95 cipline, and government, of the Reformed Presby- terian Church. The object of this publication was to exhibit a correct statement of their own princi- ples ; and to defend them by just reasoning. They relate the various steps of reformation in Scot- land; they express their approbation of the con- duct of the faithful martyrs; they disapprove of the constituted authorities of Britain ; and they declare their unity with the Reformed Presbyte- rian Church, solemnly recognizing the full obliga- tion of the covenants upon themselves and their posterity. This publication is considered as a bond of connection among themselves, and one of the terms upon which they join together in minis- terial and Christian communion. It is a valuable document of the Church's faithfulness. It is an excellent means of handing down to posterity in every nation, a just account and an able defence, of the contendings of the witnesses against the man of sin. This testimony, in connection with the ecclesiastical standards, compiled by the as- sembly of divines at Westminster, the national covenant of Scotland, and the solemn league of three kingdoms, England, Ireland, and Scotland, affords a scriptural defence and full exhibition of the reformation in its best state. The Reformed Presbytery have, since that period, published se- veral testimonies and warnings against the evils and errors which from time to time prevailed around them. A presbytery of the same name and principles has also been erected in Ireland. The number of these witnesses of the reforma- tion has been gradually increasing during the eighteenth century, and before the close of the year 1774, a court of judicature had been erected in America, with the design of preserving the spirit and practice of the covenanted reformation. 9(5 A BIIIEF HISTORICAL VIEW CHAPTER III. A HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE REFORMED PRES- BYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, UNTIL THE RATIFICATION OF THEIR TESTIMONY IN 1806. The Reformed Presbytery was constituted in America for the first time, in the year 1774, by three ministers, the Rev. Messrs. John Cuthbert- son, Matthew Linn, and Alexander Dobbin, with ruling elders. These ministers had been sent over from Europe, in order to organize the Church in America. During the persecution, several members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church left their native country to seek an asylum in the western world. These and their descendants were found collecting into praying societies, as they were wont to do in their own land, upon the footing of the reformation principles in the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury. They kept themselves distinct from the other worshipping societies which they found formed, or forming in the land in which they were come to sojourn, as judging them no way disposed to enter into the full spirit of the cove- nanted reformation. They considered themselves under obligations to walk by the rule of their former attainments, and even essayed to renew their covenant with God, in a public social man- ner. About the year 1743, the Covenanters in the Colony of Pennsylvania, met for the renovation of their vows at Middle Octarara. This work was carried on with the assistance of the Rev. Mr. Craighead. Mr. Craighead was a minister in connection with a synod of Presbyterians, which, several years before this time, had been organized in America. This Presbyterian body was a new OP TH£ CHURCH. 97 organization, perfectly distinct from the Presbyte- rian Churches in any part of Europe. The minis- ters who composed it were not commissioned by any ecclesiastical judicatory to organize a subor- dinate judicatory in America. Some of them had emigrated from Scotland, some from Ireland and England, and providentially meeting in America, they erected a presbytery for the better regulation of the Churches which they were planting. Some congregational ministers from New England hav- ing settled in the middle states, chose the Presby- terian system, and uniting with the other Presby- terians, they, after some time, organized them- selves into a synod. They adopted no fixed ec- clesiastical standards. They only professed adhe- rence to the Westminster confession of faith in its essential doctrines, and each person was to be judge in his own case of what was essential. In this constitution were laid those seeds of discor- dant principles and general debility which have since characterized the Presbyterian Church in this country, under the direction of a general as- sembly. Mr. Craighead, with apparent fervency, objected to the deficiency of the system upon which the Presbyterian Synod was constituted, and with seeming sincerity, joined himself to the support of the languishing cause of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. He did not, however, possess stability. Over- strained zeal is seldom permanent. This man, after having co-operated w^ith the Covenanters, with an ardour which appeared to some of them enthusiastic, left his profession and vows, and turned to the flocks of his former companions. The societies which he now had forsaken, w^ere again left destitute of a fixed pastor. Eight years they continued in this distressed condition, until J)8 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW moved by their entreaties, Mr. Cuthbertson ar- rived in America, from the Reformed Presbytery in Scotland, in the year 1752. Twenty years did Mr. Cuthbertson serve alone the Church in America. He visited the different societies which were formed throughout the diffe- rent colonies upon reformation principles. He animated them to perseverance. Exposed to dan- ger almost constantly from the servants of the British crown, who were then endeavouring to confirm over the American colonies the doubly grievous yoke of tyranny and episcopacy, he en- deavoured to inspire his friends with confidence in the justice of their cause, and with hopes that God in his Providence would, in his own time, deliver them from bondage. Mr. Cuthbertson re- ceived assistance in the year 1774. Messrs. Linn and Dobbin were sent to this country by the Re- formed Presbytery of Ireland, Upon their arrival, a judicatory was constituted, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church put on a regular appearance as an organized visible society in the colonies of America. Soon after this event the American w^ar com- menced. The inhabitants of the colonies met in the city of Philadelphia, by their representatives, and declared themselves an independent nation on the 4th of July, 1776. When the revolutions of nations are considered as a work of the head of the Church, for the sake of his peculiar people, the era of American independence will be view- ed as important. The declaration of indepen- dence, and the subsequent state of the American republic, demand the serious attention of the Chris- tian divine and the moral philosopher. The visible Church in the United States, at the commencement of the revolution, was very much OF THE CHURCFI. 99 divided. All the national Churches of Europe, whether popish or protestant, appeared here in miniature, and all the sectaries arising from each of the European establishments, were also to be found in the land. Those religious denomina- tions which had in Europe laboured under re- strictions, finding themselves at liberty in Ameri- ca, acquired additional animation. Various other circumstances contributed to give an enterprising turn to the minds of men in this country. Emi- gration always produces enterprise. Necessity calls for invention. Success encourages further endeavours. A new country, settled from old kingdoms, in which poverty and oppression were the portion of the majority of the inhabitants, could not fail to excite the mental faculties, by rewarding industry with power and wealth. Men were thus prepared to act with less caution, and with more boldness, than formerly, in religious affairs. It is not at all surprising, that we find instances of unsteadiness and enthusiasm very frequently among the inhabitants of the United States. A deficiency in the system of education also fosters ignorance and enthusiasm. Semina- ries of literature are as yet in their infancy. The plan of instruction is universally frivolous and un- substantial. The youth are especially neglected as to religious education, and those who publickly officiate as the ministers of religion, are often alto- gether illiterate, and too generally superficial scho- lars. In this state of society, men mingling wath one another daily in their callings, without respect to national or religious peculiarities, are likely, in the present degenerate state of our nature, to ex- change bigotry to ancient systems for a specious liberality, participating of the nature of indifference to religion under every form. The acquisition of 100 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW national independence, by cherishing enthusiasm for civil and religious liberty, did, by a very na- tural perversion, contribute to render the public mind impatient of the restrictions of a regular ecclesiastical system. Many persons, notwithstanding, v^ere sensible of the propriety of those principles which declare the visible Church One body; and were determined to use exertions for uniting those Churches into one, which were already supposed to hold the Head Christ, and to embrace the leading doctrines of the gospel. Men cannot easily divest themselves of selfish principles. There were powerful mo- tives to the ministers to seek a general union. Their support in the United States depended on the voluntary contributions of those who waited on their ministry. The salary thus collected was often inadequate to supply ministers with the ne- cessaries of life. The diversity of opinion among the people was, of course, a peculiar uneasiness to the ministers, while it was very injurious to the people themselves in depriving them of a regular ministration of the ordinances of religion. The descendants of the Church of Holland, of the English Puritans, and of the Presbyterians of Great-Britain and Ireland, were numerous in the United States. It was thought proper to use means for uniting them. The forms of national policy are very apt to warp the judgment of the best men. It is the ef- fect of human wisdom; and even Christian minis- ters are prone to substitute the maxims of human prudence for the precepts of inspiration. In Ame- rica there were now several independent states united under a general confederation, which ex- ercised a general government over the whole in matters of common concern to all : and yet gua- OF THE CHURCH. jqj ranteed to each its own independence of every other state in the Union. In conformity to this plan, it was expected Churches retaining their pe- cuhar habits and prejudices, might be preserved distinct bodies, and yet united by certain general regulations which should be obligatory on all these denominations. This plan would have subverted the form of Church government established in di- vine revelation. The Church of Christ ought to bo one visible society in every nation under heaven; and the subordinate parts regularly governed by the superior representative judicatories. This plan has proved abortive. There is, how- ever, a correspondence regularly maintained be- tween the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and the General Association of the Con- gregational Churches. A union also was formed by the Reformed Presbytery, and the Associate Presbyteries; by which, instead of combining two denominations into one, a third one was formed by the junction of some parts of the other two, which continues under the name of the Associate Reformed Church. This new Church has adopted the name commemorative of its origin. From the Reformed Presbytery, the term Reformed is adopt- ed ; and from the Associate Church, the former epithet. The Associate Church is a secession from the revolution Church of Scotland. The present Eras- tian establishment of religion in Scotland opened a wide door for acts of mal-administration in the Church. Ministers were imposed upon congrega- tions, against their will, by the pernicious act of patronage. This evil required redress. The Rev. Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, a minister of the establish- ment, preached a discourse before one of the su- bordinate Synods, in w^hich he inveighed with 9* 102 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW severity against this infamous invasion of Chris- tian privilege. This discourse gave great offence to the prevaihng party in the ecclesiastical courts, both superior and subordinate. It gave rise to an ahercation which ended in a rupture. Mr. Ers- kine, and those who took part with him, protested against the decisions of the majority in the Church, and erected a new religious society under the name of the Secession or Associate Church. This event took place in the year 1732. Some of the sece- ders were influenced to separate from the esta- blishment, on account of radical defects in the constitution ; together with the various acts of mal-administration which flowed from it. Others were influenced by the latter consideration alone. They testified not against the constitution, but the administration. In the year 1746, the secession body was rent into two, and have since been known under the designations of Burgher and Antiburgher Seceders. The division was occa- sioned by diversity of sentiments respecting the burgher oath. In some towns in Scotland, those who were admitted to the privileges of citizens, were obliged to take a certain oath, which implied an acknowledgment of the religion established by the laws of the land. Such of the Seceders as considered the constitution of the Church of Scot- land radically defective, condemned this oath as perjury to a seceding juror. They were called Antiburghers. Those, however, who separated from the Church merely upon the ground of the abuses in the administration, thought themselves at liberty to swear that they approved of the true religion as it was established by law. These were called Burghers; and, on account of their supposed heresy, were solemnly excommunicated from the fellowship of the visible Church, by their OF THE CIIURCFI. 103 Antiburgher brethren. Without submitting to this awful sentence, these burghers erected themselves into an independent Church. Both branches of the secession professed an attachment to the co- venanted reformation. They held themselves bound by these vows to covenant duties, and ex- pressed their approbation of the constitution of both Church and state, as settled by the reforma- tion between the years 1638 and 1650. They adopted as their ecclesiastical standards the at- tainments of that period. The Reformed Presbyterian Church beheld with joy, the early rise and progress of the secession. They expected, that, having left the tents of the apostate establishment, the Seceders would have come forward to the ground upon which they had stood ever since that period, which, by the most solemn acknowledgment of Seceders themselves, had been the most pure and regular. These new contenders for the faith were invited to join a vir- tuous minority, who, steadfastly adhering to their oaths and covenants, had continued a consistent testimony against the revolution settlement, in Church and state. Conferences were held for this purpose. Arguments were used to persuade the secession body to embrace the whole reformation settlement. They were, however, unavailing. Se- ceders did not find it convenient to proceed so far. They condemned the constitution of the Church as Erastian, but they justified the state constitution which produced Ihe evil. They considered it a duty to refuse submission to the administrations of the ministry of the Church, because the ministry had been corrupt ; but a heinous sin to refuse submission to the civil administration, which cor- rupted the ministr3\ They deemed it criminal to incorporate with a religious society, whose su- 1Q4 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW preme judicatory could not act independently of the king's commissioners ; but they enforced alle- giance to the king himself, although to be head of the Church of England is essential to his crown. They blamed the Church of Scotland for the evils of the revolution settlement, and prayed for its re- formation, while they professed allegiance to the throne, which was founded upon the ruins of the covenanted reformation, and prayed for its esta- blishment and prosperity. The Seceders knew, from the history of the sufferings of the Covenanters, that it was less dangerous to their worldly ease and comfort to despise the censures, and disown the authority of the Church, than to dissent from the civil consti- tution, by condemning its principles, and disown- ing its magistrac3\ Both the associate bodies have vehemently op- posed the Reformed Presbytery, for dissenting from the constituted authorities of both Church and state. The practice of Reformed Presbyte- rians was consistent with their principles. They lived peaceabl}^ acted the part of good members of society in private life, and endeavoured, as far as in them lay, to answer the end of civil govern- ment ; living in all godliness and honesty. The constitution of Great Britain they considered to be immoral, and to an immoral establishment they could not own allegiance. They adhered, as a small minority, to a civil constitution, to which the nation was bound by oath; and although over- turned by perjury, they contended it was still the law of the land. They of course dissented from the resolutions of the majority. They also viewed the throne and the prelacy, inseparably connected in England, as stained with the blood of their mar- tyred brethren, and as one of the pillars of anti- OF THE CHURCH. IQ5 christianism. They could not, therefore, wish for its estabhshment. They would not pray to God for prosperity to a system which they really de- sired to see removed, and which they knew must be overturned when the Redeemer should esta- blish his kingdom upon the ruins of the man of sin. The difference between them and the Sece- ders became daily greater. From false principles consistency must produce erroneous conclusions. Every effort to defend by argument the secession opposition to the principles of the Reformed Pres- byterian Church, led them on to multiply erro- neous sentiments. The Associate Church main- tained, that Christians had nothing to do about the constitutions of civil government, but to submit to whatever order men should establish, whether good or bad. They taught that the proper sub- mission even to immoral governments, did not consist merely in a peaceable behaviour without tumult or disturbance, but in a conscientious alle- giance and support to them, as the ordinance of God. They condemned all distinction between such rulers as happened in Divine Providence to have the power of a nation upon unlawful princi- ples, and such as ruled by the Divine approbation. The only question which they would permit a Christian to ask, is in respect to the matter of fact — Is there any person actually in power? If so, he must be recognized as the ordinance of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. The Scottish Seceders exceeded the University of Ox- ford itself, in maintaining the doctrine of passive obedience. The controversial writers of the seces- sion do, indeed, sometimes disclaim the doctrine of passive obedience, and admit that it is lawful to resist usurpers and tyrants. Sometimes they plead for no more allegiance to the national go- 106 ^ BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW vernment than what is implied in resignation to God's providence, vv^hile we are suffering for our correction. But in their arguments they uni- formly, and indeed necessarily, contradict these maxims. They deny that there is any difference, as to lawfulness, between one government and another. — The fact of possessing power consti- tutes right. There is no distinction between sub- mission, for fear of wrath, to an unlawful ruler, and obedience, for conscience' sake, to legitimate authority. Nebuchadnezzar was the worst of ty- rants. Nero was one of the most brutal and in- famous men that ever possessed power. Both Nebuchadnezzar the tyrant, and Nero the bloody persecutor and monster of iniquity, were the ordi- nance of God. And even unto them obedience was due, for conscience' sake, as unto the legiti- mate authorit3^ Every man who is in power, is commissioned as God's own deputy. — Such are the arguments of the Seceder disputants. In order to preserve consistency, they were led to main- tain, substantially, the following sentiments, and, as a Church, to embody them in their ecclesias- tical standards: — Divine Revelation is not the rule by which men are to act in the formation of their civil constitu- tions and laws. Jesus Christ does not, as Mediator, govern the world. His authority is confined to the Church. Nations, as such, are not bound to acknowledge Christ, or his religion. Magistrates have nothing to do with Christianity. The Redeemer has not purchased temporal benefits for the saints. The w^orld stands, not on purpose to exhibit the system of grace, but in order to bring into being the children of Adam, that they might be punished by the curse of the covenant of works. OF THE CHURCH. 107 The world would have stood, and all the gene- rations of men would have appeared in it, even if there had been no redemption provided for sinners. These general principles, and the practical ap- plication of them, carried the secession Churches daily further away from the Reformed Presbyte- rian standards. Happily, however, for human society, experience shows that the doctrine of passive obedience to the powers that be, is absurd. The British nation, not excepting even the Oxford professors, resisted the existing authorities, under the reign of King James, and established the Prince of Orange. The seceders who were in America, also agreed to overturn the existing authorities, at the commencement of the revolution. The very persons who vehemently opposed the Reformed Presbytery for disowning the British government in the year 1774, joined in its destruction, in the years which immediately succeeded. The Decla- ration of American Independence is a national comment on that great principle for which Cove- nanters uniformly contended : " We are not bound to own, as God's ordinance, every one, without exception, who may providentially have power in his hands." Great national revolutions produce a current of popular opinion, which it requires firmness of mind in any man to resist. The Covenanters in America perceived with joy the United States rising in a body, to resist the arm which had been uplifted for their oppression. Their expectations of immediate advantage to the Church, however, were too sanguine. Their love of liberty exceed- ed its due bounds. Many of them were carried away from their former principles; and, during the American war, the Reformed Presbytery was 108 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW dissolved. The three ministers ah'eady mention- ed, joined with some ministers of the Associate Church in communion, and formed that society which now bears the name of the Associate Re- formed Church. The union with the Reformed Presbytery was closed by the Associate Presbytery of New York, in the year 1780, upon the footing of ten articles which had been agreed to by the Reformed Pres- bytery in the year 1779. The Associate Presby- tery of Pennsylvania acceded to this union, upon the basis of six articles, nearly of the same signi- fication with the ten already referred to. The union was completed in the year 1782, after hav- ing been five years in agitation. A party of the Seceders dissenting from this union, and appealing to the Associate Synod in Scotland, continued upon their former ground, retaining the name and the power of the Associate Presbytery of Penn- sylvania. These articles of union contain many valuable concessions to the Reformed Presbytery, and considered in connection with the present state of affairs in the United States, approached the Reformation Testimony. The practice of Seceders and the whole nation, during the contest for throwing off the British yoke, determined the point, that in some cases it is lawful to disown the constituted civil authori- ties. This was an explicit declaration, that Chris- tians are not under obligations to submit to every civil ruler who providentially possesses power ; that in some cases the constituted authorities are not the ordinance of God. It was a full conces- sion to the Reformed Presbyterian Church of the great principle, in relation to a constitution of civil government, "z7 is not the fact that it does exist, but its moral character, that determines whether it he OF THE CHURCH. jqq the ordinance of God or noV^ The union Seceders forsook the secession testimony in other very im- portant principles. The sixth, of the ten articles of union, declares, that the administration of the kingdom of Providence is committed to the Medi- ator; and that the Church has the sanctified use of that and every common benefit, through the grace of Christ. The seventh declares, that Divine revela- tion is the rule by which magistrates ought to be re- gulated. And the eighth admits that a people may, by their own voluntary deed, make a religious test, essential to the very being of a magistrate among them. The ninth article pledges both par- ties, when united, to adhere to the standards com- piled by the Westminster Assembly. In one of the six additional articles, covenanting is termed an important duty, and it is referred to the future de- liberations of the whole body. These articles are certainly agreeable to the principles of the Re- formed Presbyterian Church, and even they who disapproved of the union, were happy in hearing Seceders make such declarations. When Messrs. Cuthbertson, Linn, and Dobbin, joined in the Associate Reformed connection, there remained in America but one minister, Mr. Mar- tin, professing to teach the whole doctrine of the reformation. Mr. Martin had arrived in South Carolina, from Ireland, in 1773. Although he pro- fessed the most cordial attachment to reformation principles, he did not long possess the confidence of those who were intimately acquainted with his conduct. He continued, nevertheless, for some time to administer ordinances. Several indivi- duals and societies were scattered through the diflferent states, like sheep without a shepherd, who refused to join w'ith the Seceders, and chose to wait upon God, in the private ordinances of his 10 no A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW grace, rather than recede from their covenanted testimony. They disapproved of the union, and considered their former ministers as guilty of apos- tacy. The Presbyterian system, they believed to be of Divine appointment; and it was directly contrary to its spirit to leave a Church, without assigning any reason for it, and especially, with- out having a reason to assign. The ministers who embraced the union from the Reformed Presby- tery, declared, that they still remained attached to reformation principles — that if they were still in Britain or Ireland, they would continue with their former connections. They broke off from a con- fessedly pure communion, without consulting their former brethren in the ministry, or conferring on the important subject with their sister judicatories in Europe. They had vowed to support the unity of the Church, and pursue no divisive courses; and yet, under pretence of repairing a breach which they had no hand in making, they, in spite of their profession, and their vows, made a new schism, by their own voluntary act. It was also believed by the Covenanters, that the parties who formed the union wanted unanimity. The Seceders, notwith- standing their concessions to the Reformed Pres- bytery, in the articles of union, still courted the friendship of the secession Church, and even de- clared, however inconsistently, their approbation of its testimony. The ministers formerly belong- ing to the Reformed Presbytery, still professed to approve of their own former testimony against that of the secession Church. It was expected that a union of such discordant materials would not prove beneficial to the Reformed Presbyterian cause. There was little prospect that three minis- ters who had already betrayed one cause, could in- fluence a powerful majority, who exhibited already OF THE CHURCH. Ill a dislike to the principles of the covenanted refor- mation. A great part of the Church joined their nainis- ters in the schism from their former connection, to unite in a new body with Seceders, who had also irregularly departed from their former eccle- siastical brethren. Those who did not join, turned their attention again toward Europe, and called for minisierial assistance. This could not be im- mediately obtained. The Reformed Presbyteries in Europe were not able to supply the demand for ministerial services at home, and did not find it convenient to send any missionaries to America. The Church was in danger of becoming entirely extinct, in America, about four years after the de- fection took place, which contributed to the orga- nization of the Associate Reformed body. Mr. Martin, in Carolina, had more than once fallen into intemperance, and his services were no longer acceptable to the people. They were now reduced, throughout the continent, to the state in which they were before they had any organized congre- gation. They were reduced to their private fellow- ship meetings. They did not, however, despair, even at their low^est state. They expected, and received help. The Rev. James Reid was sent as a missionary, by the Reformed Presbytery of Scot- land, to examine the state of aff\\irs in the United States; and after having travelled from Carolina to New York, and remained several months in America, he returned to Europe in the summer 1790. The Presbytery then determined to use means fur reorganizing a Church in the States of America. Mr. M'Garragh was ordained by the Reformed Presbytery of Ireland for the Church in America, and arrived in South Carolina about the year 1791. The Rev. William Kins^ was commis- 112 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW sioned with instructions to join Mr. M'Garragh, and, as a Committee of tlie Reformed Presb3'tery of Scotland, tliesc gentlemen were empowered judicially to manage the concerns of the Reform- ed Presbyterian Church in America. Mr. King arrived in the United States in the year 1702. After having remained some time in Pennsyl- vania, and visiting New York, where he had an interview with the Rev. James M'Kinny, a mem- ber of the Reformed Presbytery of Ireland, who emigrated to America in the year 1793, he re- turned to South Carolina. Mr. King received under his care, as a student of divinity, shortly after his arrival in Carolina, Mr. Thomas Don- elly, a young man who had received in Glasgow a collegiate education, with a view to the ministry of the gospel. The Rev. Mr. Martin was, after the regular steps had been taken with him, ad- mitted a member of the committee; Mr. King was settled in a pastoral charge, and the affairs of the Church began to wear a regular appearance in the South. Mr. M'Kinny was not inactive in the northern States. He possessed talents admirably adapted to the present situation of the Church. He pos- sessed an intrepidity of character, which could not be seduced by friendship, or overawed by opposition. An extensive acquaintance with men and with books, furnished his mind with various and useful knowledge; and his inventive powers never left him at a loss for arguments to defend the system to which he was piously attached. Capable of enduring fatigue in an uncommon degree, active, inquisitive, and enterprising, he sought out, he discovered, and he visited, every where, the few Covenanters who were scattered throucrh the wilderness, and formed them into re- OF THE CHURCH. 113 gular societies. The sublimity of his conceptions, the accuracy of his judgment, the fervour of his devotion, and the vehemence of his eloquence, qualified him to rouse into the most active exer- tions, for the good of Zion, these lonely societies, who had been so long unaccustomed to the public preaching of the gospel. By his instrumentality, the Church rapidly increased in the States of Pennsylvania and New York. In May, 1793, he preached in Princetown, a few miles from the city of Schenectady, for seve- ral Sabbaths, and with much success. Although there were only two men in that place who had been Covenanters, the number soon increased to a congregation. The people of Princetown and Duanesburgh, uniting with the congregation of Galway, petitioned the Presbytery of Ireland, praying that they would dissolve his connection with his present pastoral charge, and settle him among them. In the year 1797, Mr. M'Kinny accepted the invitation, and receiving his family from Ireland, settled as the pastor of the united congregations of Galway and Duanesburgh. Mr. M'Leod was among the first fruits of Mr. M'Kinny's ministry in Princetown. He had re- ceived in Scotland, which he had left about nine months before, the rudiments of an education for the ministry in the established Church. The second sermon which Mr. M'Kinny preached in Princetown, was from the fourth verse of 27th Psalm, and determined Mr. M'Leod to embrace the principles of the covenanted reformation. He also determined to pursue his studies, in order to qualify himself for the ministry in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. He obtained liis collegiate education in Union College, Schenectady. The troubles which prevailed in Ireland, during 10* 114 ^ BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW the insurrection of those who were united for the purpose of throwing off the British yoke, proved advantageous to the Church in America. In that country, the Reformed Presbyterians were placed in a very critical situation. They had, for a long time, stood alone the advocates of civil liberty, and of the independence of the Church of the crown. The insurgents considered them as the enemies of the present constitution of government, and the royalists viewed them in the same light. They were courted by the former, and suspected by the latter. The principles of united Irishmen were, however, very different from those of Pres- byterian Covenanters, and consequently they could not consistently make common cause with them, although they sincerely desired the abolition of the prelacy, and the overthrow of the Erastian sys- tem, which despotism had established in Ireland ; they had not much cause to commit with confi- dence their civil and religious privileges to the protection of the great body of the people of Ire- land, acting under French influence, in case of a revolution. The expected revolution offered, at best, but a gloomy prospect to the witnesses against the man of sin. Three millions of Roman Catholics, in op- position to less than half a million of true Presby- terians, could not be supposed to erect a system of government which would prove favourable to the interest of Presbyterian Covenanters. They could not, therefore, co-operate with freedom, in elevat- ing into power these votaries of Antichrist. The torrent of popular opinion, how^ever, flows with too much rapidity to admit of deliberate rea- soning. Some of the witnesses of the covenanted reformation were hurried away, by this torrent, from their former land-marks, before they had OP THE CHURCH. 115 time to consider the consequences. They were all known to be the determined foes of that monstrous system, in which the monarchy and the prelacy were combined. The tools of oppression might, therefore, at any time, mark any of them as his prey; and while martial law or arbitrary power prevailed, every one was in danger. These trou- bles brought an accession of strength, froQi dis- tracted Ireland, to the American Church. The Rev. William Gibson was among the emigrants. He arrived in this country in the year 1797. He was accompanied by Messrs. Black and Wylie, who had completed a collegiate education in the University of Glasgow, and were now preparing for the work of the ministry. The arrival of these gentlemen encouraged the Churches now suffer- ing for the want of a preached gospel, and con- firmed Mr. M'Kinny in the propriety of adopt- ing a plan whereby a more complete organization should be given to the Church, than that which now existed. He considered it more advan- tageous to the interest of the reformation in the United States, that its affairs should be conducted by a Presbyterial judicatory, subsisting in a con- nection with its sister Presbyteries in Scotland and Ireland, than that they should retain the form of a committee subordinate to one of the European courts. He always disapproved of the method of performing judicial transactions by a committee, at so great a distance from the parent judicatory. When he visited Carolina, although he acted as a corresponding member of the committee of Pres- bytery, he would net be considered as fully ap- proving that organization. He was there, how- ever, informed, that it was never intended by the Presbytery in Scotland, that the committee should continue in its present state any longer than con- 116 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW veniency required. It was no more than a tempo- rarv^ expedient. All were sensible that a Presby- terial organization should be speedily given to the Church. After consultation with Mr. Gibson, and the elders of the Church in Philadelphia, it was resolved to organize a Presbytery. This resolu- tion was adopted, and carried into execution. The committee of the Scottish Presbytery which acted in Carolina, was now providentially dis- solved. Mr. M'Garragh had, on account of irre- gular conduct, been suspended from the exercise of his office for a specified time, and before the removal of his suspension, Mr. Martin had recur- red to his former liahits of intemperance. In con- sequence of such conduct, Mr. King and the elders could no longer recognize him. Mr. King, stand- ing now alone, was invited to a conference at Alexandria with the northern ministers. They, seeing the intrinsic propriety of the measure, the dissolution of the committee, took four young men as candidates for the ministry under their care, and and seeing the Church requiring a speedy adminis- tration of discipline, did constitute the Reformed Presbytery of the United States of North America, in the*^ city of Philadelphia, in the spring of the year 1798. Mr. King did not live to meet his brethren in a Presbyterial capacity. He departed this life before tlie time appointed for the meeting. The Presby- tery, however, increased in number. Messrs. Do- nelly, Black, VVylie, and M'Leod, were licensed to preach the gospel by the Reformed Presbytery, met at Coldenham, in June, 1799. The Church was in a very scattered condition when these young men entered upon her public service. Co- venanters were thinly dispersed through the vast extent of the American empire, like ancient Israel, OF THE CHURCH. 117 as dew among the nations. The preachers had to encounter toil and danger. Their elder brethren had, however, set them an example of sacrificing, without reluctance, bodily ease to the welfare of Zion, and this example they felt it their duty to follow. It was esteemed a light thing for each of them to travel upwards of a thousand miles in one season. Some of them have in less than a year performed journeys of upwards of two thousand miles in extent. They had the happiness, how- ever, of seeing the saints refreshed, sinners turned unto the Lord, and the visible Church putting on gradually the appearance of a regular organi- zation. In the course of two years they were all ordain- ed to the ministry, and had fixed pastoral charges committed to them. This measure increased ra- ther than diminished their toils. To the care of the numerous vacancies which they were still bound to visit and supply with public ordinances, was added the care of a special charge, of which each had taken the oversight. The Presbytery turned their attention to their fathers and brethren in the British empire for assistance. The Rev. Samuel B. Wylie was com- missioned to the Presbyteries of Scotland and Ire- land, in the year 1802, and sailed for Europe. He was instructed to inform these judicatories of the constitution of the Reformed Presbytery in Ame- rica — to consult with them about some plan expe- dient to preserve an intimacy and unity among the sister Churches, until they could be united under one common judicatory — and to request ministe- rial assistance for the American Churches. Mr. Wylie returned in October, 1803. The constitution of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States, w^as fully recognized l\g A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW by the ecclesiastical judicatories of the same Church in Scotland, and in Ireland; a friendly correspondence was established between the three Presbyteries, and some encouragement afforded of receiving ministerial help at a future period. This help was now become more necessary. Mr. M'Kinny was removed from the State of New York, having accepted a call from a congregation in Carolina; and he there ended his life in August, 1803. The members of the Reformed Presbytery were widely scattered over this extensive empire. Those who resided in the States of Vermont and South Carolina, were not less than one thousand miles apart. For the more convenient exercise of ec- clesiastical authority in the Churches under their care, it was necessary to separate themselves into distinct committees, authorized to exercise Church power within specified limits. The northern com- mittee received ecclesiastical jurisdiction over their Churches situated between the northern boundary of Pennsylvania, and the line which separates the United States from the British dominions in North America. The middle committee was empower- ed to regulate the ecclesiastical concerns of the Churches between the Pennsylvania line and the northern boundary of North Carolina. The juris- diction of the southern committee, extended from the Carolina line to the southern limits of the United Stales. This arrangement rendered the exercise of discipline more convenient, and it pre- pared the way for the erection of distinct Presby- teries under the inspection of one Synod, as soon as an increase of ministers should render such an organization eligible. The acts of these commit- tees were, in the mean time, subject to the review of the Presbytery at its yearly meetings. The OF THE CIJURCH. jjg southern committee was very soon dissolved, by the death of the Rev. Mr. M'Kinny. Mr. Do- nelly vi^as the only minister belonging to the Re- formed Presbytery, who resided within these limits. Whatever business occurred, which the session was incompetent to settle, was referred immediately to the Presbytery. The middle com- mittee consisted of the Rev. Messrs. Wylie and Black, and the ruling elders who acted with them in judicature. Mr. Wylie was pastor of the Church in Philadelphia, and Mr. Black of the Church in Pittsburgh and its vicinity. The Rev. Mr. Gibson, pastor of the Church in Ryegate, Ver- mont, and Mr. M'Leod, of the Church in the city of New York, constituted, with ruling elders, the northern committee. Mr. Matthew Williams, who was educated in Canonsburgh, and licensed to preach in September, 1804; and Mr. James Will- son, a graduate of Jefferson college, and upon trial, were the only candidates for the ministry under the Presbytery's care. Double the number of minis- ters would not have been sufficient to furnish their Churches with a regular and constant administra- tion of ordinances. Nevertheless, as an ecclesiastical judicatory, ex- ercising authority in the name of Christ, the head of the Church, they deemed it their duty to bind up the testimony, and seal the law among his dis- ciples. After mature deliberation, the Presbytery resolved to exhibit their sentiments to the world in the most simple form. They were unanimous in opinion, that the Church should be one in every nation under heaven, and that the subordinate ec- clesiastical standards should also be one. They were certain this could not be the case if any thing local or peculiar to any one part of the world were admitted into these standards. Such 120 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW an admission would necessarily prevent the unity of the Church. Truth is not local. Abstract prin- ciple is universally the same in every part of the world. The particular application of this one sys- tem, however, should be left to each part of the Church, and should be regulated by local circum- stances. This application should be plain, pointed, and argumentative, adapted to convince, to per- suade, and to confirm. The Presbytery expected that a period would come in which the Reformed Presbyterian Church would be found in the diffe- rent nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Ame- rica. It was their intention, in exhibiting a Testi- mony for truth, and agamst error, to render it such as might be acceptable to Reformed Presbyterians in Italy and in Egypt, in India and in Tartary, as well as in Great Britain, or in the United States of America. They ordered a member of Pres- bytery to prepare a draught of such a system. They appointed a committee to examine it. By order of committee, copies of it were transmitted to the two sister Presbyteries in the British em- pire, and to each minister and Church session be- longing to the Church in America. Those who received copies were, at the same time, requested to return them to the Presbytery, accompanied with such additions, alterations, and amendments, as they might deem it expedient to propose. The Presbytery, while they were endeavour- ing to provide for such a Testimony as would be universally applicable, were equally anxious to provide for a particular application of their prin- ciples. The members had several parts of this extensive work assigned them. They were seve- rally appointed to examine the systems of other Churches and the constituted civil authorities and laws, and to prepare particular Testimonies apply- OF THE CHURCH. J21 ing the general principles of the ecclesiastical stand- ards, against the evils and errors of these systems, in a full and explicit manner. The Presbytery wished to go thoroughly into this business. They felt that it was a work of time, of labour, and of importance. They chose rather to disappoint the earnest and honest expectations and wishes of their people, than injure the Declaration and Tes- timony which they were about to make, in exhi- bition of their principles as a Church, by inter- mingling with it a review of other Churches, which must necessarily have been so short as to be feeble and unsatisfactory. The Reformed Presbytery met in the city of New York, agreeably to appointment, upon the first Tuesday of May, in the year of our Lord 1806; but in consequence of the absence of seve- ral members, they adjourned until Wednesday evening without proceeding to business. They continued in session for ten days. During this period, they considered the Draught of a Testimo- ny, which had been previously prepared. The Reformed Presbytery of Scotland had kindly favoured them with their remarks upon that Draught, and a variety of animadversions from the different parts of the Church in America, were also submitted to their consideration. Such addi- tions and alterations were made as appeared pro- per to the Presbytery; and with these, the Draught was unanimously adopted as the Testimojiy of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and committed to a committee for publication with all convenient speed. In the course of this session two acts were passed by the Presbytery, which are important, as containing practical directions for the conduct of individual members of the Church — an act ro- ll 122 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW specting giving oath, vi^hen summoned before the constituted authorities of the nation — and an act respecting serving as jurors in courts of justice. The Reformed Presbyterian Church approve of some of the leading features of the Constitution of Government in the United States. It is happily calculated to preserve the civil liberty of the in- habitants, and to protect their persons and their property. A definite Constitution upon the repre- sentative system, reduced to writing, and rendered the bond of union among all the members of the civil association, is a righteous measure, which should be adopted by every nation under heaven. Such a constitution must, however, be founded upon the principles of morality, and must in every article be moral, before it can be recognized by the conscientious Christian as an ordinance of God. Were every article which it contains, and every principle which it involves, perfectly just, except in a single instance, in which it was found to violate the law of God, Christians cannot con- sistently adopt it. When immorality and impiety are rendered essential to any system, the whole system must be rejected. Presbyterian Covenanters perceiving immorality interwoven with the general and the states' con- stitutions of government in America, have uni- formly dissented from the civil establishments. Much as they loved liberty, they loved religion more. Anxious as they were for the good of the country, they were more anxious for the prosperi- ty of Zion. Their opposition, however, has been the opposition of reason and of piety. The wea- pons of their warfare are arguments and prayers. They consider themselves as under obligations to live peaceably with men, advancing the good of society, conforming to its order in every thing OF THE CHURCH. 123 consistent with righteousness, and submitting to every burden which God in his Providence calls upon them to bear; thankful to his goodness for every favour, spiritual or temporal, which they enjoy. Esteeming it their duty to assist in the execu- tion of justice, and yet to discountenance an im- moral magistracy, many of them hesitated about the propriety of giving testimony upon oath before the courts of law. Desirous, also, to maintain among themselves the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace, by a uniform practice in such cases, they looked up to the superior Judicatory of the Church for direction. The Presbytery con- sidered the subject, and passed an act respecting it. Anxious not to impede the execution of jus- tice, and yet to maintain a consistent Testimony, they declare in that act, that an oath may be made before the constituted authorities, if these authorities are given to understand that it is not made as a recognition of their official right of administration. An oath being an appeal to the omniscient God, for the truth of what we assert, or for the integri- ty of our hearts, in making a promise, does not necessarily imply any official administrator, either civil or ecclesiastical. It is, nevertheless, proper, and it is customary, to commit the administration of oaths to official characters ; and it is, of course, necessary to prevent a misunderstanding, that a Presbyterian Covenanter should explain the princi- ple upon which he appears to observe this religious ordinance. Let it be perfectly understood, that the oath is an act of homage, performed voluntarily to the Supreme Being, and by no means a recognition of the magistrate's authority, or an act of commu- 124 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW nion with him in his official capacity. If these terms are understood and admitted by the men in power ^ no charge of inconsistency can be justly preferred against the members of the Church, nor can the conscience of a brother be offended. But if these terms are not admitted by those who call for the oath to be made, Covenanters cannot com- ply. In such case, they must prefer suffering to sin. The act of Presbytery respecting serving on juries, is absolutely prohibitory. There are moral evils essential to the constitu- tion of the United States, w'hich render it necessa- ry to refuse allegiance to the whole system. In this remarkable instrument, there is contained no acknowledgment of the being or authority of God — there is no acknowledgment of the Christian re- ligion, or professed submission to the kingdom of Messiah. It gives support to the enemies of the Redeemer, and admits to its honours and emolu- ments Jews, Mahometans, Deists, and Atheists — It establishes that system of robbery, by which men are held in slavery, despoiled of liberty, and pro- perty, and protection. It violates the principles of representation, by bestowing upon the domestic tyrant who holds hundreds of his fellow creatures in bondage, an influence in making laws for free- men proportioned to the number of his own slaves. This constitution is, notwithstanding its numerous excellencies, in many instances inconsistent, op- pressive and impious. Since the adoption of the constitution in (he year 1789, the members of the Reformed Presby- terian Cfiurch have maintained a constant Testi- mony against these evils. They have refused to serve in any office which implies an approbation of the constitution, or which is placed under the OF THE CHURCir. 125 direction of an immoral law. They have abstain- ed from giving their votes at elections for legisla- tors or officers who must be qualified to act by an oath of allegiance to this immoral system. They could not themselves consistently swear allegiance to that government, in the constitution of which there is contained so much immorality. In all these instances their practice has been uniform. Some persons, however, who in other things profess an attachment to reformation principles, have considered serving on juries as consistent with their Testim.ony. In order to expose the inconsistency of this practice, the Presbytery have determined, at a convenient time, to publish a warning against it; and in the mean time they deemed it expedient to pass a prohibitory act. Jurors are executive officers created by the constitution, and deriving from it all their power. They sit upon the bench of justice, as the ultimate tribunal, from whose verdict there is, in many instances, no appeal. They mingle together — the virtuous and the vicious. Christians and infidels, the pious and the profane, in one sworn associa- tion. They incorporate with the national society, and in finding a verdict, represent the nation. They serve under the direction of constituted courts, and are the constitutional judges of what is laid before them. The constitution itself is, in criminal cases, the supreme law, which they are bound upon oath to apply; and in civil cases the hench determines the law by which the jury is to be directed. The juror voluntarily places himself upon oath, under the direction of a law which is immoral. The Reformed Presbytery declare this practice inconsistent with their Testimony, and warn Church members against serving on juries 11* jog A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW under the direction of the constituted courts of law. Presbyterian Covenanters, in consequence of those two acts, have no remaining difficulty about the proper application of the principles of their Testimony. Slavery, the principal practical evil in America, had long since been removed from the Church. In the year 1800, Mr. M'Leod had received a call to the congregation of Wallkill, and among the subscribers there were holders of slaves. He urged this fact as a motive for rejecting the call. The Presbytery, now having the subject regularly before them, resolved to purge the Church of this dreadful evil. They enacted that no slaveholder should be retained in their communion. This measure was greatly facilitated by the spirited and faithful exertions of the Rev. Messrs. James M'Kinny and Samuel B. Wylie, who had been appointed a committee to visit the southern states, and regulate the concerns of the Church in that part of America. These gentlemen set out upon iheir mission in the month of November, 1800. They travelled through Pennsylvania, and from Pittsburg sailed down the Ohio to Kentucky. They rode from thence to South Carolina, and having settled the affairs of the Church, and abo- lished the practice of holding slaves among Church members, in the south, they returned in the spring to the state of New York. The Presbytery ap- proved of the services of their committee, and re- quired of their connections a general emancipa- tion. No slaveholder is since admitted to their communion. Moreover, there is good evidence that Mr. King, some years previously, had applied the principles of the Church, as now understood, to this great evil, in his own bounds. OF THE CHURCH. 127 In thus settling the testimony, and guarding the Church from the evils to which, in practice, she is exposed, the leading and distinctive doctrines of the covenanted reformation had been enforced from the pulpit, in many sessions of the judicato- ries, and by the press. They were discussed by the disciples of Christ in prayer meetings, and in defending them against those without, who op- posed them. The Rev. Mr. M'Kinny had pub- lished an invaluable sermon on the Rights of God. The Rev. Mr. Wylie had published two sermons, one entitled Covenanting; the other the Sons of Oil. The leading object of the latter is to illus- trate the moral evils of the United States' consti- tution, which prevent the members of the Church from swearing the oath of allegiance. The Rev. Mr. M'Leod published a discourse, entitled Mes- siah, Governor of the Nations; and another, Negro Slavery Unjustifiable. In the latter he distinctly charges this evil on the United Slates' constitution and government. The Rev. Mr. M'Master pub- lished the Duty of Nations, for the purpose of illustrating the sins of this nation, in the formation of the civil constitutions without regard to the Headship of Messiah, or his laws. These tracts were extensively circulated and read. On the Saturday evenings immediately preceding the dis- pensation of the Lord's Supper, when the terms of ecclesiastical communion are read and explained to the congregation, explicit testimony was borne against the dishonour done to Christ and his law, and the violation of the rights of man by negro slavery. Intended communicants were instructed, that in receiving tokens of admission to the com- munion, they pledged themselves to abstain from the recognition of the moral evils of the govern- ment, and that in partaking of the Lord's Supper, 128 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW ihey bound their souls not to pollute themselves by becoming partakers of the national guilt. On the Mondays immediately after the communion, the same topics were discussed at large, among the other duties of the Christian profession. The works of our reforming ancestors, publish- ed in Britain, especially those issued while our fathers were suffering under the house of Stuart, and after the revolution settlement, in the course of the secession controversy, were eagerly sought after and read with great profit. By all these and other means, the distinctive doctrines of Reformed Presbyterians were disseminated, and became, in many places, topics of earnest inquiry and argu- ment. Being dear to every pious heart, as soon as they are understood, the Church increased ra- pidly in the number of her members, and the dis- ciples were of one mind, " striving together for the faith of the gospel." A very remarkable degree of brotherly love — the usual result of harmony in doctrine — every where prevailed. Of other de- nominations, many acceded to the Church, having become dissatisfied with the use of human compo- sitions in the celebration of the praises of God; with the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline; with the prevalence of the Hopkinsian and other errors, and with the carnal, worldly spirit of pro- fessors, in the churches which they left. Fellowship meetings were regularly attended. Family worship was duly performed, morning and evening. Members emigrating beyond the bounds of settled congregations, formed themselves into societies, and, on petitioning the proper judica- tory, were promptly furnished with the dispensa- tion of gospel ordinances. The contributions of these societies were very liberal, usually covering the expenses of those who were sent to minister OF THE CHURCH. 129 to ihem the bi-ead of life. Few, in any age, have conlributed with greater liberality to missionary purposes, than these infant congregations. To supply the Church with an able ministry, a theo- logical seminary was organized by Presbytery in 1807, and the Rev. Mr. Wylie appointed professor. By the blessing of the Church's Head upon these efforts, the branches of the Reformation vine ex- tended, in a few years, to the Mississippi on the west, and to the Canadas on the north. For the general government of the Church thus stretching out the curtains of her habitation, the Presbytery met biennially. At a meeting held in Philadelphia, that judicatory was dissolved, and the ministers, with the delegated elders, being as- sembled, agreed to constitute a Synod. The se- nior minister. Rev. William Gibson, being called upon for that purpose, did constitute with prayer, in the name of the Lord Jesus, the only King and Head of the Church, the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, on the 24th of May, 1809. The deeds of the Presbytery were all recognized by the Synod. The former com- mittees were erected into Presbyteries. An addition of one member had been made to the middle committee by the ordination of Mr. Matthew Williams to the pastoral charge of Pine Creek congregation, in 1807, and to the northern committee, by the ordination of Gilbert M'Master in 1808. In 1810, Rev. D. Graham received a call from the congregation of Canonsburg, but on account of difficulties in the way, was not installed by. the Middle Presbytery. ln*1812 this Presby- tery reported to Synod, that Mr. Graham had been suspended from the office of the ministry and from church privileges, on the ground of his hav- ing withdrawn the expressions of penitence, which 130 ^ BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW he had made when reh'eved from a former cen- sure. Mr. Graham continued to preach, and the greater part of his congregation, with some others, adhered to him for a time. The agitation pro- duced by this event subsided gradually, and most of the people returned and were received into the Church, on their expression of penitence. While the Church was thus afflicted, the nation was suffering under tokens of God's wrath. On account of the impressment of American seamen, depredations on commerce and attacks on armed vessels, the United States' congress had declared war against Great Britain. In the commence- ment, the war was disastrous to these states. Bat- tles were lost on the Canada frontier, and many small towns on the seaboard were ravaged. Re- formed Presbyterians generally thought it their duty to aid in the defence of their country, as they believed there was just cause for the declaration of war. Many of them, especially in the cities of the seaboard, were aliens ; all having conscien- tiously abstained from taking the oath of naturali- zation. The government had passed an order for all aliens to remove to a distance into the interior. In order to relieve members of the Church from the danger of being harassed, by this order, and other ditficulties, Synod, at its sessions in 1812, appointed a committee to repair to the seat of the general government and offer to the nation a pledge, to be given by aliens in the Church, that they renounced all foreign allegiance, and would defend the integrity of the .country against all enemies. This measure was adopted on the ground, that the Synod would not permit the members of the Church to swear the oath of alle- giance. The committee did not attend to the duty assigned them. The act was passed in pri- OF THE CHURCH. 131 vate session, — was never more than an incipient nneasure; the pledge contained no recognition of the government, — was never acted on, — and never appeared before the public by the order of Synod. Its first publication w^as in tjhe "American Chris- tian Expositor," unauthorized, and eighteen years after its passage. It only merits a place in his- tory, as it was an expression of the patriotism of the members of Synod, and of their adherence to their dissent from the government in very trying times. In 1812 Dr. M'Leod commenced a course of sermons on the subject of the late war. The dan- ger of the country, and the able, argumentative discourses of the preacher, drew together crowded auditories. Their publication was called for, and two large editions soon found purchasers. In these discourses. Dr. M'Leod charges this nation with disrespect to God, in refusing to recognize the government, laws, and Church of Messiah; and with trampling on the rights of men; and all this under constitutional sanction. A spirit of patriotism was manifested among Reformed Presbyterians in all their congregations. While they refused to bind themselves in sinful oaths, they were willing to expend their property, employ their influence, and risk their lives in de- fence of their country. The congregations grew in number and in powder during all the calamitous years of the war. God increased them, whilst he afflicted the nation. The Seminary began soon to furnish a supply of ministers for the growing wants of the Church, in the congregations that were organized from year to year. In 1816, one year after the close of the war, the Board of Su- perintendents reported five students of theology in the school of the prophets. In the following year J32 ^ IJHIKF IIISTOIUCAL VIKVV Dr. Wylic resigned the professorship. The ope- rations of the Senninnry were thus suspended. Tfie students of the Northern Presbytery were put under tlie care of Rev. Janncs 11. Willson, who was ordained to the pastoral charge of the Colden- hann congregation in 1817. Those of the West- ern Presbytery were placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. Black ; and a few rcnnained, for sonfie time, under the care of the late professor. Though tfie Church was thus prospering, little progress was made in preparing, and none in pub- lishing, the argumentative part of the Testimony, promised in the first edition of Reformation Prin- ciples. The various evils in the corrupt consti- tutions of Church and state, against which the Synod thought it a duty to bear testimony, had been classified and members appointed to furnish for publication, essays on topics assigned them. A few of these essays were written and read be- fore Synod. None of them were published. An indisposition to carry forward this part of the plan of the Church's testimony, began to show itself on the part of some influential members. This was among the first sym[)toms of that declension, which afterwards produced painful results. At the sessions of Synod in 1819, a Book of Discipline and a Directory for Worship, both of which had been published some years previously in overture, were, after various amendments, adopted. They were, however, never published as law in the (Jhurch : were afterwards made the subject of amendments, which produced much dis- cussion; and were at last indefinitely postponed, at the sessions of 1823. At the sessions of 1819, Rev. James R. Willson read a Form of church government, prepared according to previous ap- pointment. At the same time Drs. M'Leod and OF THE CHURCH. j 33 VVylie and Mr. Will-on were appointed a com- mittee to correspond with the sister judicatories in Britain, on the subject of entering into a solemn League and Covenant in support of the Reforma- tion cause. Some measures were also taken for the republication of the Testimony. This business was resumed in 1S21, when it was resolved, " That the two acts in the Narrative of our Testi- mony, respecting swearing of oaths before magis- trates and sitting on juries, be left out of the Nar- rative in the publication of the Tesliniony: and that these acts be transcribed into the Statute Book, and, together with other statutes in force, shall in due time be published in the form of a Digest."* In 1823, a petition on the subject of the Jury Act was presented to Synod from members under the care of the Southern Presbyter3% On tliis petition the following resolution was adopted : "That the inferior judicatories of this church be directed to determine, on due /consideration of the practice of the several courts of jurisprudence, whether the juror comes under the operation of an immoral law in the several courts in their bounds; and give instructions^ to the people, ac- cording to the special state of the case." This act did not satisfy the petitioners, and application was made to Synod at next meeting, 1825, to ex- plain its import. Whereupon the following expla- natory act was passed. " Resolved, That this Synod never understood any act of theirs, relative to their members sitting on juries, as contravening the old common law of our Church on that subject." As the common law and statute were both absolutely prohibitory, * Minutes of Synod, p. 120. 12 j'j^ A l!l!Ii;J' niH'/OlMCAL VIKVV il, was Irnj)ossil)If) to rriisinlorfirrjl tliis ucA. From iho or^rrinizalion of ilic ('hiirch it was not known, lh?if. any rnnrnbnr liar] served on juries or volorJ at cloctions, without f)ci()j^ cnn.surcd. All sulj- rriitlcd with cliccrfulDOss to rcproac;h and priva- tion for the sake of a good conscience. A few of tfic ministers, however, who, for many years and in their better days, had continued steadfast, mani- fested, in their diseussions of tfie jury act, a dis- position to tenipfuize. 'J'fieir eH'orts to alter the act, while th(;y were confined to tliis one object in the judicatories, tended lo a compiomitment of the whole testimony on the subject of civil go- vernment. 'J'here were also f»ther evidences, that 1f)c spurious liberality ol' the a^e, and a spirit, falsely called catholic, which trifles with all truth when it interferes with (;asc and accommodation, Iijid beirun to infect, in some d(;gree, the (Church. ( )! this kind was a motion presented to Synod by Dr. I)lack in IS2;{, for openiiifr a correspondence with the judicatories of other denominations, '^i'hou^h this measure was vehemently oj^poscd by Dr. M'liCod and others, and the motion finally withdrawn, it evidenced a dis[)osition to imitate the s|)iril of amalgamation in other bodies. In IH^.'J the consiifution of the sn]:)rcme judica- tory was remodelled by the following act: " Rrsnlrcjl, 'i'hat a General Synod of the lie- formed ]*rcsbylerian ('hurch, to meet biennially, be formed by delegation from the several Presby- teries. "That each Presbytery shall have the right of sending two ministers and as many ruling elders, and that the ratio of increase of the number of del(;gatcs be, until fiuther order be taken on the subject, two ministers and as many ruling elders, for every tln'ce ministers of which the Presl)ytery OF THE CHURCH. jgg consists." It was thought the increase of the Church rendered this measure expedient. Previously to this time, several probationers had been ordained to the office of the ministry and set- tled in the pastoral charge of congregations. While the number of ministers was thus aug- mented from year to year, the increase of con- gregations was much greater. Application hav- ing been made to the Northern Presbytery, by church members resident in the city of St. Johns, New Brunswick, for the dispensation of ordinan- ces, the Rev. Messrs. James R. and S. M. Willson were sent on a mission to that region in 1821. — They found seven families certified from the Church in Britain. These were organized into a fellowship meeting. Many others were found to be in Pictou, Miramichi, Truro, and other parts of the province of Nova Scotia. Letters were written by the missionaries to members of the Scottish and Irish Synods, informing them of the organized society and of the numerous scattered families, and requesting attention to them. From these representations the Rev. Mr. Clark was soon after sent to their aid. The Rev. Mr. Sommer- ville has since been sent to the same field of la- bour. — Both these missionaries are from the Irish Synod. The Rev. Mr. Milllgan, after his settlement in Ryegate, made missionary visits to the scattered families of emigrants in Upper and Lower Canada. Societies were formed at Henryville, La Chute and Perth settlements. The latter has been orga- nized into a congregation, and is flourishing under the cultivation of the Rev. Mr. M'Lachlan, a mis- sionary from the Scottish Synod. The press continued to be employed in diffusing a knowledge of the doctrines of the Covenanted 136 A GRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW Reformation. The Rev. Mr. M'Mastcr published a Defence of Fundamental Doctrines, an Analysis of the Shorter Catechism, and an Apology for the Psalms of David. Dr. M'Leod issued Lectures on the Revelation and Sermons on True Godliness. Mr. Black, a Sermon on Church Fellowship Mr. Milligan, a Defence of Infant Baptism, a Narra- tive of the Secession controversy in Vermont, and a Sermon on Grace and Free Agency. Mr. Chrystie, about the time of his accession to the Church, published Strictures on Mason's Plea for Catholic Communion. Mr. J. R. Willson issued a work on the Atonement and Sermons on the Sub- jection of the Kingdoms to Messiah, Civil Govern- ment, the Book of Life, the Safety of the Church, the Sabbath, &c. Mr. Roberts published essays entitled, " Subjection to the Powers that be." In 1822 the American Evangelical Tract Society was organized for the purpose of publishing a monthly journal, and the Rev. James R. Willson appointed editor. The journal was entitled, The Evangelical Witness — was continued through four successive volumes, and was liberally patronised by the Church. By all these means the Testimony of the Church was exhibited and she greatly en- larged her boundaries. But with the enlargement of her borders, the spirit of the age invaded her territories. The General Assembly had for years maintain- ed a correspondence, by delegation, with the Con- gregational Associations of New England. In imitation of this, the Reformed Dutch and Asso- ciate Reformed Churches had corresponded with the General Assembly and with each other. The delegates had a right to take part in all discus- sions, but not to vote. Intercommunion at the Lord's table among all these became common, as OF THE CHURCir. 137 the fruit of their ecclesiasiical correspondence. In these bodies many persons who did not receive the whole doctrines of their standards were ad- mitted to sealing ordinances. The relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline and the love of many to the truth waxing cold, were everywhere to be deplored. All this too was complimented as cha- rity, liberality and Catholicism. The Semi-pela- gianism, or, as it is called, the Hopkinsianism, of the New England churches was extensively dif- fused and gaining ground in several of these de- nominations, especially the General Assembly. The Associate Reformed Synod dissolved and went into this body. In 1825 a proposal to open a correspondence was made by the General As- sembly to the Synod of the Reformed Presbyte- rian Church. A committee on the part of Synod met a committee that had been appointed by the Assembly, and they agreed on a treaty of corres- pondence. The result of their deliberations was laid before Synod by Dr. M'Leod, one of its com- mittee. The chief provisions were, that the two judicatories should always recognize the validity of each other's acts and ordinances, consonant to the Scriptures; and yet, that any judicatory be- longing to either body, might examine persons or receive cases of discipline, on points at present peculiar, or distinctive to themselves; and that each of the bodies should appoint two delegates to attend with the other, enjoying all the rights of membership, except voting. In submitting this plan of correspondence, Dr. M'Leod read a long and elaborate argument in favour of its adoption by Synod, as it had, in the preceding May, re- ceived the sanction of the General Assembly. After a protracted and earnest discussion, the subject was indefinitely postponed, wnth the under- 12* 138 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW standing that the treaty was finally rejected. Dr. M'Leod published and circulated extensively, in the Church, his argument for the treaty, notwith- standing Synod had refused to adopt it. The na- ture of these articles of correspondence and their dangerous tendency had been discussed in the pages of the Witness before they came up in Synod ; and the subject had excited an intense interest amon^ the members of the Church, the great body of whom were zealously and wisely opposed to the whole measure. The vigorous efforts of its friends disturbed the repose and inter- rupted the harmony of the Church: — awakened a dangerous ambition among some, especially such as were swayed by personal influence, and weak- ened their attachment to the truth, to the Church, and to their brethren. Evidence of all this was soon furnished in the abandonment of the Church by the Rev. James R. Johnston, son-in-law of Dr. M'Leod, Mr. E. D. M'Master, son of Dr. M'Mas- ter, and some others, who joined the General As- sembly. Before going out from us, they had learned to talk of liberality, Catholicism, and great enterprise, and to boast of superior illumination. The doctrines, order, judicatories, and character of the members of the Church, they began to slight and assail with reproach. We shall pre- sently see that all this led to painful results. While this treaty was under discussion, and for some time afterwards, a correspondence had been conducted in writing between Synod and the supreme judicatory of the Associate Church, on the subject of civil government and on other col- lateral topics. It led, however, to no beneficial results. As it had been opened, so it was discon- tinued, by the Associate vSynod. The last impor- tant communication, on the part of the Reformed OF THE CHURCH. 239 Presbyterian Synod, was made at its sessions in 1828. After liberal quotations from the standards and approved authors of the Secession Church, Synod say : — " Such conclusions as the following would appear to us naturally and necessarily to flow from them. 1. "That nations, favoured with the light of divine revelation, are not under a positive and in- dispensable obligation to form their civil govern- ment by it as the supreme standard. And further, should these nations act in direct opposition there- to, still their deeds are to be viewed as valid. 2. " That if the sanction of the consent of the majority be obtained, that will legitimate their government, and the substance of the deed must be considered, as agreeable to the preceptive will of God, let the conditions otherwise be as sinful as they may. 3. " That there is no such thing as tyranny in any government on earth. — That if the govern- ment exists, it is by the providence of God, and therefore his ordinance. Every providential go- vernment is preceptive." These erroneous sentiments, the Synod thought there was good reason, from their approved works, to charge on the Associate Church. As the go- vernment of the United States has refused to fulfil the "positive and indispensable obligation" of con- forming their constitutions to the word of God, though they have obtained the consent of the ma- jority, Synod, in this article, decides against their claim to be the ordinance of God. The subject of the rejection of the Bible as the standard of legislation, by the civil authorities of the land, was discussed at large, in the report of a committee made to Synod in 1830. This com- mittee, consisting of Rev. Dr. Willson and Rev. J. 140 A BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW Chrystie, had been appointed at the previous meet- ing to report on the subject of our relations to the civil constitutions of the land. Dr. Wylie and some others affirmed, that they agreed to all the doctrines of the report, in which it was argued at large, that the governments of this land are infidel, and therefore not entitled to the honour due to the ordinance of God. The report was referred to a committee for revision and publication. Notwith- standing their declarations, it became abundantly manifest in the course of the discussions on this report, that Dr. Wylie, and some who followed him, were not zealous as they had been, in bear- ing testimony against the evils that exist in the corrupt constitutions of Church and State in this nation. They did not, however, at that time, ad- venture to avow their relinquishment of the testi- mony, to which all w^ere bound by many and solemn vows. A sense of consistency and dread of public opinion in the Church, had still a re- straining power over them. The spirit of declension became more mani- fest at the next sessions of Synod, 1831: though still without a direct avowal of opinions adverse to the doctrines of the standards and known usages of the Church. Shortly before this meet- ing of Synod, the Presbytery of Philadelphia had ordained as missionaries, J. H. Symmes and W. Wilson. That Presbytery had but one vacancy; there was no designation of the missionaries to any field of labour ; and the ordination took place but a short time before Synod convened. The intention of the Presbytery was evidently to in- crease their delegation for sinister ends. When Synod was organized, it appeared there were seven delegates, who claimed seats, from the city of Philadelphia, where there was but one congre- OF THE CHURCH. 141 gation. These were Dr. Wylie, pastor of the con- gregation, Mr. Crawford, who had left his charge for the more lucrative business of teaching, J. IJ. Symmes, and four ruling elders. The whole Pres- bytery was entitled to four delegates only. Those who claimed seats, voted on the question of their own admission. Mr. Symmes, soon after the ad- journment of Synod, connected himself with the General Assembly. The Rev. William Henry, a delegate from the Irish Synod, was present at these sessions, accord- ing to an arrangement previously made. The Rev. Mr. Clarke, the missionary from New Bruns- wick, was also present. Dr. M'Leod presented to Synod the draught of a League and Covenant, which had passed the Scottish Synod in overture. This document was accompanied with a paper containing amendments by the Irish Synod. After various remarks on the draught, it was referred to a committee to report at next meeting. A petition was presented to the court from some members of the congregation of Coldenham, pray- ing Synod to adopt efficient measures for arrest- ing, in the Church, the progress of opinions ad- verse to our testimony against the corruptions of the age. On motion by Dr. WyHe, it was re- solved, that the subject of civil government be dis- cussed "through the medium of the A. C. Exposi- tor, under the head of Free Discussion." This magazine had originated under the sanction of Synod in 1830, and Dr. M'Leod had been appoint- ed editor. He signified to the court, when the motion for free discussion was under considera- tion, that every person who wrote on the subject, must sign his name to the article and be responsi- ble. It was also stated by several members, that 142 ^ BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW should sentiments, adverse to those of the Church, be pubHshed in the Expositor, their patronage would be withdrawn. Jt was thought that with all these guards, — the editor well known to have laid out his strength for more than thirty years in bearing witness against the government— the name and responsibility of every writer, — there was no improper license granted in this act. The mover, as afterwards appeared, had designs subversive of the truth. Synod at these sessions divided the Northern Presbytery into three Presbyteries, the Southern, Northern and Western. These, with the Phila- delphia Presbytery, were authorized to constitute an Eastern Subordinate Synod: and the Presby- teries west of the Alleghany mountains, to consti- tute a Western Subordinate Synod. We have now arrived at a period in the history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, when those errors, which had been secretly gain- ing ground from the time of the overture of corre- spondence with the General Assembly, concen- trating their energies and assuming a bold front, were uttered upon the high places of the field. In April, 1832, the Eastern Subordinate Synod was constituted. Soon at^ter its constitution, Dr. Wylie moved that a committee should be appointed to draft a pastoral address to the people under its charge. For that purpose he was appointed chair- man of a committee. In his report, there were several articles that Synod expunged as unfit to go to the people. These offensive sections con- tained doctrines utterly subversive of the Whole Testimony of the Church, relative to civil govern- ment, for more than one hundred and eighty years; and allusions intended as violent personal denun- ciations of those who were faithful in its mainte- OF THE CHURCH. 143 nance. When the writer of the report found a naajority against him, he intimated to the court his disregard of its decisions. Immediately after the adjournment of Synod, he invited all those who weie favourable to the publication of the whole a