USA > North Carolina > Sketches of North Carolina, historical and biographical : illustrative of the principles of a portion of her early settlers > Part 11
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But the rigor of James, towards the latter part of his life, and the severity of Charles I., and Archbishop Laud, in their en- deavors to enforce conformity to the Established Church, had become more and more oppressive, till, after the failure of the attempt at emigration in the EAGLE WING, the Presbyterian clergy left the country in 1637, and retired to Scotland. The congregations to which they had ministered were left without instruction, except what they received from their more eminent laymen, who conduct- ed public worship for the people that would come together ; and many were inclined to do this, notwithstanding all the efforts of Lord Stafford, the Deputy in Ireland, to make them conform to the Established Church. By the petition sent by these Presby- terians to the Long Parliament, we learn that after all efforts for their destruction, they continued a numerous people. The re- vival had subsided, but religion had not died away ; and although King Charles had forgotten the obligations of his father to them, they had not forgotten their obligation to the great head of the church, or lost their love for his truth.
The introduction of the Scottish army into Ulster, to quell the rebellion that broke out October 13th, 1641, changed the face of affairs in these congregations, and was the means of forming a presbytery, and restoring pastors to these suffering flocks. The Papists had made insurrection and furious rebellion, with design of cutting off the Protestants, and restoring the ceremonies and wor- ship of the Church of Rome. Their plans were laid for concerted action, and the energy with which they were carried out may be judged from the fact that in a few months, at the lowest calculation 40,000, and as some Catholic writers, and some Protestants also, assert, 150,000 persons were brought to an untimely end. These sufferers were Protestants ; but a small part only were Presbyte-
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rians, for the nobles and clergy of that denomination had fled to Scotland some time before, to escape the persecutions and impo- sitions of the Established Church. This rebellion was at first encouraged by King Charles, as an event that would operate fa- vorably upon his interests ; and both he and the Papists agreed in sparing the Scotch Presbyterians,-probably because they had not declared for the parliament against the king. The flight of the Scotch in 1637, and onwards, was pre-eminently their safety ; they escaped from the unreasonable Prelates first, and then from the massacre of the Papists. God knows how to deliver his people. The company of emigrants in the Eagle Wing must not reach America, neither must it be cut off in this massacre ; it had a great and glorious work to accomplish, and that work was to be done in Ireland, and the bright day of its accomplish- ment should break after a most tempestuous night.
After many horrible massacres perpetrated during the winter of 1641-2, Major General Monro was sent over from Scotland in the spring, with a force of 2,500 men ; with these, in conjunction with the Scotch and other Protestants in Ulster, after many battles and sieges, he succeeded in crushing the rebellion. The Lagan forces (or those from the northern part of Donegal) had signalized them- selves before the arrival of the Scotch army, and continued their brave and enterprising efforts after that event, stimulating them by an honorable rivalry, to a speedy accomplishment of their mission, the suppression of the rebellion. The Scotch forces were from seven dif- erent regiments, each of which had its chaplain. The Rev. Hugh Cunningham was attached to Glencairn's regiment; Rev. Thomas Peebles, to Eglenton's ; Rev. John Baird, to Argyle's ; Rev. James Simpson, to Sinclair's; Rev. John Scott, to Home's; Rev. John Aird, to Lindsay's, or Monro's ; and the Rev. John Livingston, who was so much beloved in Ireland, was sent along with the army by the Council. These ministers were active and fervent in their preach- ing to the army ; and in the parishes near the encampment, where their labors were highly appreciated, "as cold waters to a thirsty soul," "and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The country was entirely without a Protestant clergy ; the Scotch had been driven off before the rebellion, and the Prelates and their clergy fled from the murderous hands of the Papists. After the rebellion was crushed, public attention was turned to procuring pastors and spiritual guides for the vacant parishes ; and the incli- nation of the people was speedily manifested in the efforts to obtain ministers. Those who had been Presbyterians previously, re-
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mained so still ; and many others were now inclined to unite with them, very few of the laity being attached to the Prelates or the Established Church. Those who had fled to Scotland during the rebellion returned, and all declared for Presbytery ; and many that had been inclined to Episcopacy, were disgusted with the transac- tions in England, and united with the Presbyterians in settling their church in a formal manner as a distinct church. The plan of Archbishop Usher would probably have been acted out in Ireland, but for the intolerant disposition and principles of Laud and his master, King Charles. Whether under any circumstances it could prosper, can never be satisfactorily determined till a more complete trial be made than the few years of imperfect action during the re- vival in Ireland.
The chaplains first formed regular churches in four of the regi- ments,-Argyle's, Eglenton's, Glencairn's and Home's-choosing the most grave and pious men for elders, and setting them apart to their office in due form, according to the Scotch Confession. On the 10th of June, 1642, five ministers, Messrs. Cunningham, Peebles, Baird, Scott and Aird, Messrs. Livingston and Simpson being necessarily absent, with an elder from each of the four sessions, met and constituted a Presbytery in the army. Mr. Baird preached from the latter part of the 51st Psalm-" Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion; build thou the walls of Jerusa- lem." Mr. Peebles was chosen stated clerk, and held the office till his death, a period of about thirty years. The ministers pro- duced their acts of admission to their regiments, and the elders their commissions from the Sessions ; and the Presbytery was constituted in due form. As the formation of the Presbytery was speedily known in the country, applications poured in from all sides to be received into their connexion, and to obtain the regu- lar ordinances of the gospel ; and the ministers proceeding to visit the congregations, in a short time there were sixteen regular sessions formed in important parishes.
By the prudent and zealous efforts of these seven ministers the foundations of the Presbyterian church were relaid in Ulster pro- vince, in conformity with the model of the Church of Scotland. From this period the complete organization of the Presbyterian church in Ireland takes its date, and the history of her ministers, her congregations, and her ecclesiastical councils, can be traced in uninterrupted succession ; the principles then adopted, and the form of worship then introduced, continue to this day ; and the government and discipline then adopted continue in all essential
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points unaltered, and all are to be found in the Presbyterian church in the United States, to which they have descended as from parent to child.
The people agreed to petition the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which was to meet in July, for supplies, and various papers were drawn up and signed by the inhabitants of different parishes, requesting that those ministers who had formerly labored among them might be sent back to them, and others along with them, to fill the numerous vacancies in that spiritually desolate province. The Assembly listened kindly to these petitions, and appointed a commission of six ministers to visit Ireland and instruct and regulate congregations, and ordain to the ministry such as might be found properly qualified. The ministers were to go two and two on a tour of four months. Mr. Robert Blair and James Hamilton for the first four months, Ro- bert Ramsay and John McClellan for the next four, and Robert Baillie and John Livingston for the last four. These brethren were everywhere received with joy ; congregations were organ- ized on Presbyterian principles, members received into the church, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper administered. Their preachings were incessant, and the congregations large ; people renounced prelacy, and those who had taken the Black oath, as it was termed, by which they solemnly engaged not to resist the king, were called to public renunciation and repent- ance. No person was admitted to the privileges of the church who did not possess a competent degree of knowledge, or who did not fully approve of her constitution and discipline, or was unable to state the grounds of that approbation. The congrega- tions took possession of the parish churches that were standing vacant, and likely to remain so, and many who had been episco- pally ordained, came and joined the Presbytery, but were not recognized as members until they had been regularly called and inducted to the charge of some congregation. Thus those min- isters who had first been led to go to Ireland because they could not exercise their ministry in Scotland, and after being success- ful in Ireland were driven back to Scotland, now came again to Ireland, having been driven back from America by a tempest, and set up the Presbyterian church which has flourished so gloriously, and been the parent church of so many in America, particularly in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina.
During the year 1643, the SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT WAS adopted by the Westminster Assembly and the British Parliament
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on the one side, and the Scottish nation on the other. This League and Covenant was presented to the Presbyterians in Ulster, and during the year 1644 was adopted by great numbers in Down, Derry, Antrim, Donegal, and parts of Tyrone and Fermanagh. The English parliament on the 16th of October, 1643, requested the Scotch commissioners to take steps that the Covenant " be taken by all the officers, soldiers, and Protestants of their nation in Ireland." After some correspondence and va- rious plans, this important business was committed to those mi- nisters who had been appointed by the assembly to visit Ireland, the Rev. Messrs. James Hamilton, John Weir, William Adair, and Hugh Henderson. The civil and ecclesiastical authorities of Edinburgh made choice of the first of these, Mr. Hamilton, mi- nister of Dumfries, to be the bearer of the Covenant; the others were associated for the work of presenting it to the churches. In sending word to the forces in Ireland of their appointment, these ministers say, " As our cause is one, and has common friends and enemies, so we must resolve, with God's assistance, to stand or fall together." They reached Carrickfergus the last of March, and were all present at the Presbytery held there on the 1st of April, 1644. " The Covenant was taken on the 4th of that month, with great solemnity, in the church at Carrickfergus, by Monro and his officers, and in ten days afterwards, by all his soldiers. Major Dalzel (afterwards so well known in the dis- tresses in Scotland) was the only person who refused." It pro- duced the same effects in Ulster it had in other parts of the king- dom, ascertaining and uniting the friends of liberty, and inspiring them with fresh confidence in the arduous struggle in which they were engaged, and diffused through the country a strong attach- ment to the Presbyterian cause ; and what is of higher moment, it revived the cause of true religion, so that from this period is reckoned the second Reformation.
Notwithstanding the difficulties and trials to which the Presby- terians in Ireland were exposed, on one side by the authorities of King Charles, and on the other by the parliament, which ultimate- ly brought the king to the block, the church continued to prosper. In the year 1647, there were about thirty ordained Presbyterian ministers in Ulster, besides some chaplains of regiments ; on ac- count of some severe laws which drove many to Scotland, there were, in the year 1653, but about twenty-four ; and again in the year 1657, by the relaxation of the laws, there were about eighty in the different counties of the province of Ulster.
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In the year 1655, it was agreed there should be what is called MEETINGS, in Down, Antrim, and Route with Lagan, consisting of the contiguous brethren who met for consultation, putting over the more important matters that required action, to the regular meeting of the whole Presbytery. Two years after, these meet- ings were increased to five, Route being separated from Lagan, and Tyrone being added ; and in a little time there became five Presbyteries, by dividing the original Presbytery ; which number continued till 1702, when four more were added, making the whole number nine. At this present time there are twenty-four in the Synod of Ulster. From the close connection between Synod and Presbytery in Ireland, it probably happened that the first Presby- terian Synod in the United States, made by the division of a large Presbytery, frequently performed acts which are now, by common consent, performed only by the Presbytery or at their order. At the time of the Restoration, in 1660, there were in the province of Ulster not less than seventy regularly settled Presbyterian minis- ters ;- about eighty congregations, comprising not less than one hundred thousand souls. If the statement of one of their ene- mies be true, the population connected with the Presbyterian min- isters must have much exceeded that number ; he says-"in the north (of Ireland) the Scotch keep up an interest distinct in garb and all formalities, and are able to raise 40,000 fighting men at any time." This number of fighting men would require a greater popu- lation than 100,000. That they would raise an army and fight for their lives, their enemies knew from fatal experience.
From six ministers, in about forty years of constant resistance to oppression, under the two Charleses, and of their predecessor, James I., the congregations had increased to about eighty; and the preachers to nearly the same number, though repeatedly driven off and kept in banishment for years, on every return increasing in numbers and influence. This perseverance of a harassed people impresses the mind with the strong conviction, that they felt in their consciences, that their principles of civil and religious liberty were the truth of God, and imperishable. In 1689, the time the Toleration Act came in force, there were in the five Presbyteries about one hundred congregations, eighty ministers and eleven licentiates. The vine of the Lord's planting grew, though "the boar out of the wood did pluck at her," and they that passed by did trample her down.
The Presbytery of Lagan, embracing the northern part of the county of Donegal, principally that between the Foyle and the Swilly,
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and containing in the year 1660 thirteen members, all of whom were ejected by Charles II. 1661, is peculiarly full of interest to the American Church, as that body which licensed the Rev. FRANCIS MAKEMIE, and afterwards ordained him, for the purpose of sending him to America, the FIRST PRESBYTERIAN PREACHER that ever visited the western continent. This honor belongs un- disputedly to the Church in Ireland, and the Presbytery of Lagan, Those in New England who have been called Presbyterians were not formed into regular Presbyteries as in Scotland and Ireland; but had lay elders and held Presbyterian sentiments. The first preach- ers and the first regular congregations were from Ireland, which poured forth emigrants in swarms all the early part of the eighteenth century. It may be gratifying to many to know the names of those thirteen ejected ministers of the Lagan, worthy of everlasting remembrance. King Charles began the work of ejectment in Ireland under Jeremy Taylor in 1661, giving the front rank in this ecclesiastical martyrdom to the Presbyterians of Ulster. The Puritans of England were called to the same trial in August, 1662, when about 2,000 ministers were deprived of their parishes ; and the same scene of trial and heroic suffering was enacted the following October in Scotland. The ministers of the Presbytery of Lagan were, Robert Wilson, Robert Craighead, Adam White, William Moorcraft, John Wool, William Sample, John Hart, John Adam- son, John Crookshanks, Thomas Drummond, Hugh Cunningham, Hugh Peebles, and William Jack. The first three survived the happy revolution of 1688, when William, Prince of Orange, as- cended the throne of England; and enjoyed the toleration proclaimed in 1689.
The Rev. Thomas Drummond, of Ramelton in Donegal, in- troduced Mr. Makemie to the Presbytery as a member of his charge, and worthy of their notice. In the year 1681,-the same year that four of the members of the Presbytery were put in con- finement, for keeping a fast, after having been fined £20 each, to be kept in confinement till they should give bonds not to offend again, and after eight months' confinement were released,-he was licensed to preach the gospel. These four ministers were William Trail, James Alexander, Robert Campbell, and John Hart; three of them were members introduced after the ejectment by Jeremy Taylor in 1661. The Church in Ireland was like the Israelites in bondage,-the more it was oppressed, the more it grew. From the minutes of this Presbytery it appears that Capt. Archibald Johnson had, as early as August, 1678, applied for a minister for Barbadoes ;
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and in 1680 Col. Stevens of Maryland applied for a minister to settle in that colony; and Mr. Makemie was designated as the man. As the clerk of the Presbytery and three others were imprisoned in 1681, there is a deficiency in the minutes, and the meetings of Presbytery being for some time irregular, no record is pre- served of the time or place of his ordination, though in all proba- bility it took place in 1681 or 1682. This fixes the time of his removal to America, whether to Barbadoes first, or to Virginia and Maryland, for he labored in all these places, as is now satisfactorily ascertained. He led the way for Presbyterian ministers to Ame- rica, and was prominent in forming the first Presbytery, that of Philadelphia, in 1706, a Presbytery which has since spread out into the General Assembly of the United States of America.
No little anxiety has been felt and expressed about the original component parts of this first Presbytery, and what interpretation of the Confession of Faith they may have given. The dis- cussion has been animated, and from the circumstantial evidence collected, the inference general that they did put a strict con- struction on the Articles of our Faith. The facts just related about Francis Makemie and the Presbytery that ordained him, are suffi- cient to justify our belief that the man that took the Solemn League and Covenant, as the candidates of the Presbyteries in Ireland then did, put a strict construction on the Articles of the Confession ; and the following facts, that the year before the Presbytery was formed, he brought over, from a visit to his native land, two minis- ters from the province of Ulster, John Hampton and George M'Nish, who formed part of the first Presbytery,-men educated as he had been, in trouble, and made to choose Presbytery in the face of great opposition and suffering,-will set the matter at rest. Three other ministers soon followed. It is not likely that such a man as Makemie, with two others of like spirit, would have agreed to form a doubtful Presbytery, to please Mr. Andrews and the Church in Philadelphia provided they wished such a Presby- tery, of which there is no evidence ; as there were ministers enough to form a decided and strict one, without going to Phila- delphia, the church of which city was weaker than the church at Snow Hill in Maryland.
The solemn League and Covenant first framed by John Craig, and called Craig's Confession, or the first National Covenant of Scotland, and subscribed by the leaders of the people, December 3d, 1557; and subscribed by King James and household, and the nation generally in 1581 : enlarged and signed again in 1588 : and
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again in 1638 enlarged, and made to consist of three parts-the first, the old Covenant by Craig,-the second, condemning Popery, by Johnston of Warriston,-third, the application of the whole to the present time, by Alexander Henderson ; and signed by the people at large in 1638 : and again remodelled by Henderson and adopted in August, 1643 : and also by the Westminster Divines and the Parliament of England, September 25th of the same year; and in the spring of 1644 by the Churches of Ireland; and continuing to this day a binding instrument in Scotland, and making a part of their printed Confession and Discipline, and also acknowledged as binding to this day by a large number of the descendants of the Scotch and Irish emigrants to America,-leaves no rational doubt what views of the Confession of Faith those that lived so near the times of the grand national subscription of 1643 and 1644 must have had. In matters of conscience they had been accustomed to resist the king ; they bound themselves by this solemn oath to do it ; and this solemn League was inseparably connected with their doctrinal creed and form of church government, which were strictly Presbyterian.
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CHAPTER IX.
THE POLITICAL SENTIMENTS OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH EMIGRANTS.
THE religious sentiments of the emigrants having been given, as Calvinistic and Presbyterian, for the holding of which they had suffered, and were ready to suffer again, we will glance at their political principles, which had no small influence in their emigra- tion and location, and after life,-forming one of the three grand motives to cross the waters,-Religion, Politics, and Property.
I. In the truest sense of the word they were loyal. They, and their ancestors, were well convinced of the importance of a regular and firm government ; and were true to their promises and their allegiance. James I. chose the Scotch for the colonizing Ireland, for two reasons : first, from their habits they were more likely to overcome the difficulties of a settlement ; and second, from their principles of allegiance, most likely to make Ireland what he wished it-pacific and prosperous. In the first he was not disappointed ; and his hopes of the second were crossed only as he and his successors failed to extend to the emigrants that protection he had promised, and was well able to give. They always maintained the conceded authority of the king, as supreme ruler according to the Solemn League and Covenant, by which they held themselves bound from the time it was taken in 1644, till they left Ireland about a century afterward ; and some of their posterity in America profess to feel its binding power in some respects to this day. They opposed those violent measures, in parliament and out, which led to, or hastened, the king's death. They desired a reform of abuses, and a fulfilment of the Solemn League, on the part of the king, and designed a fulfilment of their own promises, and had not been found deficient in any emer- gency. They expected the king to be honest while they were , loyal.
Their views of the parliamentary authority, after the king's death, are well expressed by one of their ministers, on examination before the military authority of the Parliament, at Carrickfergus, in 1650. Being required to take the Oath, or Engagement of submission to Parliament, which was to be in place of the Solemn
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League of obedience to the king; the parliament having, by en- actment, made it high treason to acknowledge a government by King, Lords, and Commons :- " We must be convinced," said this minister in the name of the rest, " that the power which now rules England is the lawful parliamentary authority of that king- dom." Col. Venable replied : " They call themselves so !" The minister replied : " It seems to us a strange assertion that they are a parliament because they say so ; or are a power because they place power in themselves. Kings and other magistrates are called by the ordinance of man, because they are put in their office by men. Men are called to the magistracy by the suffrage of the people, whom they govern ; and for men to assume unto themselves power, is mere tyranny and unjust usurpation."
They would rather be governed by a lawful king than an usurp- ing or doubtful parliament ; by one they chose, even though he might be a tyrant in disposition, than by a company they had not elected, though they might do some things well. They fully be- lieved that the liberties of the subject might consist with the regal authority ; that the privileges they asked were no infringement of the necessary rights of the crown, and that their enjoyment would render the government more stable, entrenching it in the hearts of the people, in whose affections all governments rest at last.
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