USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > Freehold > History of the "Old Scots" church of Freehold from the Scotch immigration of 1685 till the removal of the church under the ministry of the Rev. William Tennent, Jr > Part 2
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The appearance of the young minister, Rev. John Boyd, at the same court sessions was another act of precaution to preserve the person of the preacher from the outrages and tyranny of the Governor. Cornbury's treatment
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THE "OLD SCOTS" CHURCH.
of Morgan of Eastchester [who was Boyd's successor at Freehold,] of Hubbard of Jamaica, of McKemie and Hampton when preaching at Newton, and even of Epis- copalian ministers in New Jersey who fell under his displeasure14 gave abundant warrant for taking every step to ensure safety from the attacks of the man who, Bancroft says, "joined the worst form of arrogance to intellectual imbecility." [Hist. of U. S. ii. p. 41.]
The court, in December, 1705, deferred action upon. Rev. John Boyd's request until the following May. In- asmuch as they had no action in a similar case to guide them as precedent, and as most of the judges on the bench were unfamiliar with judicial duties, the court probably felt unwilling and unable immediately to de- cide the rather intricate question of the status of a dis- senting minister in the province, without opportunity for consultation, and possibly for reference to authori- ties in England for advice.
In May, 1706, Mr. - Boyd appearing again before them, he was permitted to "qualify " by subscribing to the provisions of three acts, made in the reigns of Elizabeth, Charles II., and William and Mary, which contained an abjuration of Transubstantiation, an assent to the doctrine of the Trinity as taught in the xxxix Articles and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy;15 all being contained in the Toleration Act of 1689, which freed dissenting ministers from the obnoxious restrictions of the Five Mile Act and Conventicle Act.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST PRESBYTERY MEETING.
The First Page of the Minutes. The Beginning of American Presbyterian Church History. McKemie. Andrews. Hampton. No Elders Present. The Ordination.
" De Regimine ecclesiæ." Concerning the govern- ment of the church-with these striking and characteris- tic words, in the midst of a broken sentence, the history of the Presbyterian church in America begins. This incomplete phrase ushers us into the midst of an inter- esting scene. The place is the " Old Scots " church of Freehold, or some spot near it, the day is Friday, De- cember 27th, 1706. The revered Francis McKemie, " Father of the American Presbyterian Church," is occupying with appropriateness the Moderator's chair, the other ministers present are Jedediah Andrews of Philadelphia, and John Hampton of Maryland, and the Presbyterial action is the examination of Rev. John Boyd, with a view to his ordination to the gospel minis- try and his connection with the Freehold church.
A reproduction of this first page of the minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia is given herewith.
" 1706. De Regimine ecclesiæ, which being heard was approved of and sus- tained. He gave in also his thesis to be considered of against next sederunt.
Sederunt 2d, Iobris, 27.
Post preces sederunt, Mr. Francis McKemie, Moderator, Messrs. Jedidiah Andrews and John Hampton, Ministers.
Mr. John Boyd performed the other parts of his tryals, viz. preached a pop- ular sermon on John i. 12; defended his thesis; gave satisfaction as to his
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THE "OLD SCOTS" CHURCH.
skill in the Languages, and answered to extemporary questions; all which were approved of and sustained.
Appointed his ordination to be on ye next Lord's day, ye 29th inst., which was accordingly performed in the publick meeting house of this place, before a numerous assembly; and the next day he had ye Certificat of his ordination."
This memorable scene is the beginning of organic Presbyterian history in the new world. This is the first known Presbytery meeting, and the first known Pres- byterian ordination. There may have been Presbytery meetings and ordinations prior to this. There probab- ly were ordinations before this, and ordinations presup- pose a Presbytery to ordain.16 Vet in tracing back to its sources the wondrous course of the development of the church, history stops at John Boyd, and the " Old Scots " meeting house of Freehold. Back of this point lie the uncertainties of tradition or conjecture. Onward from this, all is clear, cogent and connected. From the threshold of the little meeting house on Free Hill began the tiny current of the stream, which, as in the prophet's vision, has spread through distant deserts, deepening in its progress, watering thirsty places, and bringing its nourishment to the trees of life.
All of the men appearing in this scene are well-known. Francis McKemie, the apostle of Presbyterianism, foun- der of half a dozen churches in Maryland, energetic, practical, determined, devout, the embodiment of the Scotch-Irish character, presides with fitness over the gathering, for no other man had been more active or successful in fostering the nascent Presbyterianism scattered throughout the land. He was at this time on a trip eastward and three weeks later, after preaching in New York and Newtown, together with Hampton, was arrested by Governor Cornbury on the frivolous
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The "First Page" of the Minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia : the Account of the Ordination of Rev. John Boyd of Freehold. [Kindness of Presbyterian Historical Society.]
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2I
THE FIRST PRESBYTERY MEETING.
charge of preaching without the Governor's license. Af- ter imprisonment, he was released on bail, and although subsequently acquitted, was unjustly compelled to pay heavy costs. The indignation aroused by this out- rage throughout the colonies and in England was one of the many causes determining Cornbury's recall the following year. McKemie died in 1708, " a venerable and imposing character, distinguished for piety, learn- ing, and much steady resolution and perseverance." [Hodge's History, i. 76.]
Jedediah Andrews was the first pastor of the first Presbyterian church of Philadelphia. He was graduat- ed from Harvard College in 1695. He came to Phila- delphia in 1698 and took charge of the Presbyterian congregation who had previously worshipped with the Baptists in the "store house on Barbadoes lot." Mr. Andrews attended every recorded meeting of Presbytery and Synod, from this first meeting at Freehold until his death, forty years afterward. He was thrice moder- ator of the Presbytery and of the Synod of Philadelphia. He was a peace maker in the constitutional debates of 1721 and 1729, a moderate man who neither protested nor signed counter-protests.17
John Hampton, the third presbyter present, had come from Ireland in 1705, under McKemie's charge, and supported by the London ministers. He was pastor of the lately organized church at Snowhill, Maryland. It is worthy of notice that McKemie, Hampton and Boyd had all been students at Glasgow University; McKemie in 1675, Hampton in 1696, and Boyd in 1701.18
Dr. Hodge, in his History of the Presbyterian Church, [i. 95] notes the fact that this first Presbytery meeting at Freehold is the only one in the records at which no
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THE "OLD SCOTS" CHURCH.
elders sat as members of the body. The lack of a rep- resentative of the church with which they were meeting is the more remarkable on account of the excellent and godly men, such as Walter Ker and others, who were in the direction of the spiritual matters of the church.
Upon the following Sabbath, was performed the sol- emn act of dedicating the life of the young minister to the service of the Church of God. Upon his brow in this symbolic ritual descended the ordination touch of the old world ministry. The new order of the American presbytery was born that day. The difficult question of validity of ordination which brought dissension into other churches, such as the Dutch Presbyterian church of America, was solved in the act. John Boyd heads the long list of Presbyters in the ordination roll of the American Presbyterian Churches.
By the actions on these two days, the Freehold Church became the first recognized Presbyterian Church in New Jersey. "In Jersey, the Church in Freehold was the only one at first belonging to the Presbytery," [Hodge, i. 75.] Abraham Pierson, who was at Newark in 1667, Jeremiah Peck, at Elizabethtown in 1668, Benjamin Salsbury, at Woodbridge in 1674, and Thomas Bridge, at Cohanzy in 1692, all ministered to apparently Inde- pendent congregations. The churches at Woodbridge and Cohanzy came into connection with the Presbytery two years later, in 1708,19 the churches of Maidenhead and Hopewell followed in 1709.20
On that last Sabbath day of the year 1706, the Cov- enanters gathered with gladness, at the sound of the conch shell, or the rolling drum, in their house of relig- ious assembly. One whose services had been approved by over a year of trial, the man of their choice, and of
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THE FIRST PRESBYTERY MEETING.
their nation, was to be empowered to exercise his full ministry, and to administer to them the precious sacra- ments of the Church of Christ. For the first time in the lives of most of them, the exiles of 1685 would now enjoy the full privileges of the church which they had loved and suffered for; privileges which they had been denied by tyrannous intolerance in their native land, and by the undeveloped character of their church life in their new home.
The throngs that would assemble, drawn by deep and prayerful interest in the events, or by the curiosity ex- cited by the wide reputation of Francis McKemie, might not be contained within the narrow walls; and some of those outside the building would pass above the spot where less than two years later rested the ashes of the young Presbyter, who this day was consecrating the ar- dor of his youth to the service of the Church of Christ.
CHAPTER IV.
REV. JOHN BOYD.
His Past. His Ministry Prior to Ordination. His Examination. His Ordination. His Three Overtures in Presbytery. His Mission Work. Contemporaneous Events. His Tombstone. Its Inscription. Its Con- dition. Its Proper Preservation.
Concerning the history of the first minister of Free- hold, but little is known before his appearance at the County court in 1705.21 A John Boyd appears on the list of Lord Neil Campbell's expedition of 1685, a time when Boyd of Freehold, from the dates upon his tomb- stone, was five or six years of age. On March II, 1701, the name John Boyd is enrolled in the fourth class in Glasgow University, with signs that he was a native of Scotland.22 The general belief was that the Freehold minister came from Scotland.23 Webster, [History, p. 90] considers it not unlikely that he came over with McKemie, McNish and Hampton in the autumn of 1705.
Since the Monmouth Court, in December, 1705, term- ed Boyd "Minnister of ye said Presbiterians," a whole year before he had received ordination at the hands of the Presbytery, and also " qualified " him before he had gained full ecclesiastical standing as a minister, it may be assumed that Mr. Boyd, in proper and orderly man- ner, had been exercising his function as a licensed preacher, for at least a year in Freehold before the Pres- bytery meeting of 1706.
Mr. John Boyd's examination for ordination before Presbytery on December 27th, 1706, which included
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REV. JOHN BOYD.
" skill in the languages," a thesis to be defended, a Latin essay " De Regimine ecclesiae," and a popular ser- mon, indicate an academic and university training, cor- roborating the view that he had been a student at Glas- gow University. The chosen text for his sermon was John 1: 12, " But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that be- lieve on his name." This is one. of those texts that Luther aptly names "little Bibles," and in it the young preacher, before his stern but kindly critics, could man- ifest his ability to expound, defend and apply the great doctrines of Election, Adoption, Faith and Conversion.
His ordination, on the following Lord's day, did not lead to his installation as pastor of the Freehold church- There is also no record of the installation of his suc. cessor in the ministry at Freehold, and that the act of in_ stallation was not then universally observed is seen in the fact that William Tennent, Sr., in 1736, is found in the minutes of Synod not to have been installed over the Neshaminy church, with whom he had lived for ten years; the Synod declaring that "he is still to be es- teemed as the pastor of that people, notwithstanding the want of a formal installment among them."
Mr. Boyd became an active and efficient member of the Presbytery, for the following year, 1707, in the meet- ing at Philadelphia, although his name is omitted from the list of those present, he is appointed, with Rev. Jedediah Andrews, to “prepare some overtures to be considered by the Presbytery, for propagating religion ' in their respective congregations." On the next day the overtures are presented and agreed upon. They are as follows:
"First: That every minister in their respective congregations, read and
.
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THE "OLD SCOTS" CHURCH.
comment upon a chapter of the Bible every Lord's day, as discretion and circumstances of time, place, etc., will admit."
The hand of Mr. Boyd may be seen in this first over- ture for the reason that in the following year, Mr. An- drews is mentioned by name as not having complied with the provisions.
"Second over : That it be recommended to every minister of the Presby- tery to set on foot and encourage private Christian societies."
The bearing and significance of this injunction is not clear. It would appear as prophetic of the multitudes of Leagues, and Young People's Societies, and Mission organizations and Bands, Brotherhoods and Clubs, which are buzzing so actively in the machinery of the modern church, the
" Wheels within wheels With living creatures wedded."
The third overture relates to the aggressive work of Home Missions, Synodical or local.
"Third over .: That every minister of the Presbytery supply neighbour- ing desolate places where a minister is wanting, and opportunity of doing good offers."
The spirit of John Boyd is in this recommendation also, for along with his Presbyterial appointment at Co- hanzy, in West Jersey, participating in an ordination service, he was also directed, with the consent of his Freehold congregation, to proceed every third week to Woodbridge, where the Scottish portion of the congre- gation, apparently in antagonism with the older New England settlers, might profit by his sympathy and ad- vice.
Like his successor, Morgan, Mr. Boyd probably preached in various parts of Monmouth county, besides the meeting house upon Free Hill. At Middletown24 and Shrewsbury, in the neighborhood of the present
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REV. JOHN BOYD.
Tennent church, and in the regions of Allentown, or Crosswicks, he found opportunity to proclaim the faith- ful message of his Master, sowing the first seeds of the Gospel upon soil that still bears fruit of his ardent and unrecorded labors.
The twenty short months of his ministry were con- temporaneous with the most brilliant portions of the reign of "Good Queen Anne," and Marlborough's suc- cesses at Ramillies and Oudenarde were celebrated in the Jersey colonies with loyalty and enthusiasm. The Kingdoms of England and Scotland were united in 1707, and the intensity of feeling between patriots of the two British nationalities, which had been manifested in bitter party spirit in East Jersey, was mitigated and in time removed.
A letter presented by the Freehold people to Presby- tery, in 1708, "about the settlement of Mr. Boyd is re- ferred to the next meeting." His premature and ap- parently sudden death in the summer of that year ends the matter; or, as quaintly expressed in the Presbytery minutes of 1709, "The Rev. Mr. John Boyd being dead, what relates to him ceases."
The tombstone of Mr. Boyd stands in a conspicuous spot in the center of the church grounds, close to the site of the building. It is of brown sandstone, some four feet in height. The stone faces the east, and as the rays of the sun at noon-tide strike across the worn and weather-beaten front, the long Latin inscription, covering the stone to the edges, stands out with char- acters that are decipherable through most of the sixteen lines.
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THE "OLD SCOTS" CHURCH.
ENTISSIMI DOMINI JOANNIS. BODIJ CINERES ECCLESIAE HUJUS CAL VINI PASTOR HIC DEFODIUNTUR EI OPERAM QUAMVIS STERLI SOLI(?) CONSUMPTAM NON PERDIDIT QUI ILLUM PERNOVERUNT AQ VIRTUTIBUS IN ED(?) INATIS ILLO TE MPORE DIGNITATEM EIUS EX PLORAVERUNT LECTOR VESTIG IA ILLIUS PERSEVERE ET (?) E(?)EA TEMPORE SPERO MOR TEM OBIIT TRIGESIMO DIE AUGUSTI MILLESIMO SEP TEM CENTESIMO OCTAVO AETATIS SUAE VICESIMO NONO
"The ashes of the very pious Rev. John Boyd Pastor of this church of Calvin, are here buried, whose labour, although expended on a sterile soil, was not lost.
They who knew him well also proved his worth as (?) in virtues.
Reader, persevere in his footsteps, and I hope in that time (?)
He died on the thirtieth day of August,
one thousand, seven hundred and eight, in the twenty-ninth year of his age."
What relic of the primitive Presbyterianism of the land should be more prized, more jealously guarded, and more reverently preserved than this memorial of the first born of American Presbyterian ministers, who was the first also to fall from the ranks of the ministry, and find burial in the new continent ?
In some place of protection from the storms that for well nigh one hundred and ninety years have been striving to efface its significance, in a spot where will be the recognition of its value as a historical and ecclesias- tical monument, this weather-beaten, but time-honored stone should rest, and in its place, should. stand a
SOMSTUPE AGTIG NE PERLIDLE
The Tombstone of Rev. John Boyd, First Minister of Freehold. The First Presbyterian Minister Ordained in America.
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REV. JOHN BOYD.
replica of the original, joined with a suitable and stately memorial of the "First Presbytery Meeting," when the Presbyterianism of the continent first woke to conscious life.
CHAPTER V.
REV. JOSEPH MORGAN.
His Early Life and Prior Settlements. His Qualifying. His Connection With the Dutch Church. With the Presbytery. His Inventions. His Publications. His Tract on Church Unity. The Charges Against Him. Missionary Activity. His Later Life.
The second minister of the Church was the Rev. Joseph Morgan, a man of literary ability and versatile gifts, a ready and prolific writer, whose absorption in mechanical inventions, and in essays on Predestination and Church Unity, followed by periods of spiritual earnestness and fervor, left a mingled and dubious impression upon his strict Scotch congregation. His reputation was lessened by his evident short-comings, and by contrast with the fame of his illustrious successors of the honored name of Tennent.
Rev. Joseph Morgan was born in New London, Conn. November 6, 1674,25 of stock of which he himself said "that [for Americans] they are a credible family." He was ordained by the Association of Ministers of Fairfield County, Conn. He was at Greenwich in 1696,26 Bedford in 1700, Eastchester, and Westchester, where, in 1704, he was dispossessed of his charge by Lord Corn- bury, who placed Rev. John Bartow, Missionary of the S. P. G., in his place.27 Mr. Morgan then retired to New England, probably again to Greenwich.
The statement is made, on high authority, that he was one of the graduates of Yale College in the first class that completed a regular course in that institution, 111 1702, two years before the college received its corpor- ate powers.28 28 President Woolsey wrote that " some in-
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REV. JOSEPH MORGAN.
terest is attached to Mr. Morgan from the fact that he was not only one of the members of the first class in Yale College, but also the only one who did not also take his degree at Harvard, that is the only one verit- ably educated at Yale alone.''29
Mr. Morgan came to Freehold in the latter part of the year 1708, or in 1709. He appeared before the court to qualify in September, 1709, and is then termed “ Min- ister of ye Presbiterians in Freehold and Middletown." Mr. Morgan was " presented by several of said congre- gation, viz .: Jacob Lane, John Wicof, John Sutfin, William Hendrickson, John Essmith, William Wilkins, and Auri Marbison, in behalf of themselves and the rest of their breathren." The first three of these names were in the communion of the Dutch Reformed Church of Freehold, the other four are said to represent the Presbyterian church.30 Between Mr. Morgan's applica- tion to the court and his qualifying, he was installed on October 17, 1709, as first pastor of the Reformed Church, of Freehold and Middletown, a double congre- gation of Dutch settlers, sometimes called "the congre- gation of the Navesink," the second act of installation in the Reformed Church in the Jersies.31 He was received as a member of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, after debate, in September, 1710. At this meeting the following action is taken:
"It being reported that one Walter Kerr defamed the Presbytery, and Mr. Morgan, minister to said Kerr, desiring advice therein how to behave, it was referred to the said Mr Morgan to take cognizance of the offence, and to act either by private or public censure, as the nature of the thing should appear to him, and that report thereof should be made next meeting."
The differences between Walter Ker and the Presby- tery may probably be resolved into differences between Ker and Morgan, for the sturdy consistent old Coven-
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THE "OLD SCOTS" CHURCH.
anter, with his strict notions of the Church and zeal for the advancement of his own faith, would probably not relish the union with the Reformed congregation under Morgan's ministry, nor would his hard Scotch sense appreciate many of the eccentric Dominie's schemes and dreams.
Although Mr. Morgan's ecclesiastical connection from this time onward was with the Presbytery and Synod of Philadelphia, he appears to have received more sym- pathy and more support from the Dutch than from the Scotch congregation. He occupied the parsonage belong- ing to the Dutch church with a glebe of "one hundred acres of good arable land, as good as any in Freehold, on which a family may subsist comfortably ; " and on which the Dominie seems to have lived comfortably indeed, realizing from it thirty pounds a year, "besides his own bread.">32
Mr. Morgan appeared at the original Presbytery of Philadelphia only once after his reception in 1710. His continued absences prompt the Presbytery in 1716 to direct Jedediah Andrews to write him a letter "inform- ing him that if he comes not, nor sends sufficient reasons against next year, we shall take it for granted that he has altogether deserted us." The loss of the Presbytery minutes of the following year do not allow us to know the result of this mild warning.
An explanation of his absence from Presbytery during these years appears in the Archives of New Jersey for 1714, [I series, iv., 190-195]. It is a communi- cation from Mr. Morgan to the Lords of Trade concern- ing a wondrous scheme for the improvement of navi- gation by an invention, which will work against wind at sea, will save many a ship from ship-wreck, will
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REV. JOSEPH MORGAN.
shorten voyages by many weeks and months, and be excellent in war. This prophecy of the days of steam, and ocean grey-hounds, consists in a combination of wheels, cranks, booms, and oars, "Found out in ye year 1712 [to 1714] by Joseph Morgan of Freehold in New Jersey in North America." There follows a description of thirteen modes of applying the invention to ships so that "if any one of these thirteen ways be good my art is good, although twelve of ye ways were good for nothing." Beside his experiments exhibited before "The Governour and Assembly and City of New York " [on June 17th, 1714, and his writing to "ye Governour of Boston with ye same desire " his brain was occupied with "another art (hitherto unknown to the world) of far (yea an hun- dred times) greater consequence and benefit to the world," an art unfortunately still unrevealed. He published in the same year a treatise on Bap- tism, reviewing the "Portsmouth disputation exam- ined." If we add his quiet practice of astrology, it is little wonder that, as he confessed to Cotton Mather, a few years later, "he had no leisure for reading, nor for writing discourses for the church, and often knew not my text before the Sabbath."
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