USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
During the period antecedent to our national independence, the church in America felt a lively and quick sympathy with the church in Great Britain. The same controversy as.
189
SUBSCRIBERS .- NON-SUBSCRIBERS.
1720-1730.]
to the propriety of insisting upon rigid subscription arose in the synod of Philadelphia. In 1727 the Rev. Mr. Thompson, of Lewistown, introduced an overture requiring of all candi- dates, and actual ministers coming into their bounds, strict subscription, or acknowledgment coram presbyteris, of the Confession. Mr. Dickenson opposed it, affirming that "to shut out of the ministry non-subscribers is to make the Con- fession, not the Bible, our standard, and is an invasion of the royalty of Christ." The synod, however, passed what is called "the Adopting Act" in 1728, adopting the Confession and Catechisms, except the clauses in the XXth and XXIst chap- ters, respecting the powers of the civil magistrate .- (Hodge, i., p. 150.)
We have the testimony of the church in Charleston that Mr. Bassett " sat in Presbytery." On March 1st, 1750, they addressed a letter to Drs. Guise, Doddridge, and Jennings. At this time they state that they had come to prefer the con- gregational form of government. They speak of the charter of the colony as granting liberty of conscience, and say that soon after the Act of Uniformity many Dissenters came into it. " Upwards of sixty years ago," say they, " a church, con- sisting of English and Scotch Dissenters, settled here, and had its ministers from New England." " About fifty years since a minister, who was born and educated in Scotland, happening (in his travels) to come into the province, was made pastor of the church, and being strongly attached to the Presbyterian form of government, some uneasiness arose and continued in the congregation even through the whole time of his succes- sor, who was a minister from Ireland, and proved more mod- erate in respect to church government. After the death of the latter an invitation was sent to New England, whence we had our next minister, who being also a moderate man (though he associated with the ministers of, and sat in, Presbytery), our brethren of the Scotch nation saw fit to separate," &c. The Scotch minister here referred to was Mr. Stobo, the Irish was Mr. Livingston, the minister from New England, Mr. Bassett. There was a Presbytery then in existence in South Carolina during the ministry of Mr. Bassett. At what period it was organized we are unable to discover.
It might be argued that as the Scotch ministers sent out to New Caledonia were directed to form a Presbytery immedi- ately in that colony, Mr. Stobo would not postpone the organ- ization of one here longer than was necessary. Mr. Living- ston joined him in 1704 or earlier. Mr. Witherspoon, of
190
THE FIRST PRESBYTERY.
[1720-1730.
James Island, may have entered the colony early in the cen- tury. Cotton Mather, in 1715, could speak of the worthy Scotch ministers, fugitives from Carolina, then near him. Dr. Hewat's testimony, whose arrival in Carolina was thirty-five years later, must have rested on the statements of others. Yet as Mr. Livingston's name is not mentioned by him as among its founders, and he died some time after 1720, it is not proba- ble that this Presbytery, or Association, as he terms it, ex- isted much earlier than 1728. It consisted of Scotch, or Scotch- Irish ministers, to whom some others of a different origin prob- ably became united. The same differences of opinion alluded to in the preceding extract partially prevailed in it, and it was agitated with the same controversy about subscription to the Confession which pervaded the Presbyterian churches of Britain and America. "The Rev. Josiah Smith, of Cain- hoy," says Mr. Webster, whose industry and research brought to notice the proofs which remain of this controversy, " and Mr. Bassett, of Charleston, appeared as non-subscribers. The former represented to Dr. Colman that the matter was urged in an unbrotherly and unchristian manner by the Scotch brethren. He published a sermon in 1729-" Human Imposi- tions proved unscriptural ; or, the Divine Right of Private Judgment." The Rev. Hugh Fisher, of Dorchester, South Carolina, published, on the opposite side, a sermon entitled " A Preservative against Dangerous Errors in the Unction of the Holy One." Smith's reply was headed, "No New Thing for Good Men to be Evil spoken of." Smith said they denied the right of private judgment, and insisted on his putting the Confession on the same footing with the Bible. This they of course denied, and charged him with saying that Pierce, of Exeter, had as good right to hold his heretical views of the Trinity as they had to hold the truth. He declared that he believed everything in the Westminster Confession except the clauses on the power of the civil magistrate, on the divine right of ruling elders, and on the subject of marriage with a wife's kindred. " There is but one book I prefer to it." His adherence was read in Presbytery, but the majority refused to accept it, unless he subscribed also seven articles of their framing. The probability is that Mr. Smith, if a member before, ceased to act with Presbytery from this time. The difficulty continued from March 1728-9 to 1731. The " White Meeting House" in Charleston had been occupied by Presbyterians and Independents : the Presbyterians with- drew, and the line of separation was drawn between the two
:
191
LETTER OF JOSIAH SMITH.
1720-1730.]
bodies, not because of their different modes of church govern- ment, but as subscribers and non-subscribers."*
These proceedings seem to have annoyed Mr. Smith. In a letter to Dr. Colman, dated at Cainhoy, October 12th, 1730, among the MSS. of the Mass. Hist. Soc., he says :
"I am not only censured as an Heretick in General, and opposing the Doc- trines of the Westminster Confession, but charged with the particular opin- ions of Arius and Arminius, though' no minister of my years has preached them down more than I. For these Reasons I lately Preached the Sermon that is herewith sent to the Press." "I observe in your last Letter a Friendly Reproof for Engaging in a Controversy, which indeed has been a Wasp's Nest all over the World where it has come, and as You justly observ'd to Me, has no mercy upon Names, Families, Serviceableness, nor nothing else. But had you been here upon the Spot, and seen what our Scotch Brethren were aiming at, Had you heard the Sermon which Mr. Fisher Preached (in the room of which he has plainly published another), and did you know the long Consultation of my own Mind and the previous advice of some judi- cious Friends upon which I acted, I believe I should not appear so sudden in conduct as you are ready to think."
These extracts reveal to us the existence of that Presbytery afterwards recognized under the names Presbytery of the Province, Presbytery of South Carolina, and Presbytery of Charlestown, and which never was connected with other similar bodies in this country under any provincial or national synod or assembly. Its clerical members, as far as we can gather, were at this time, Rev. Archibald Stobo, Rev. Hugh Fisher, Rev. Nathan Bassett, Rev. Josiah Smith, Rev. John Witherspoon, whose history we are not able to ascertain, but who died as pastor of the Presbyterian church on JAMES ISLAND, whose death alone is noticed in any contemporaneous document known to us, and which occurred on the 15th of August, 1734. The Rev. William Porter, we have reason to believe, was at this time minister of the Wappetaw Inde- pendent church, on Wando Neck. His name appears in this controversy, as a non-subscriber. (Fisher's Reply, pp. 93, 97).
The Presbyterian church on JOHN's ISLAND must have ex- isted as early as 1720, if not before. Dr. Hewatt says, that at the formation of the Presbytery, churches had been erected " in three of the maritime islands." John's Island is needed to make up the three. It is the current tradition, as was admitted on both sides in the Chancery suit in 1840, that this church existed in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It is possible that the Rev. Mr. Turnbull, whose name will be mentioned hereafter, was preaching here during some of the years of which we are now speaking.
* Webster, Hist. Pres. Ch., p. 109, and the Library of the Mass. Hist. Soc.
192
FRENCH CHURCHES OUT OF CHARLESTON.
[1720-1730.
CHAPTER II.
THE FRENCH CHURCHES out of Charleston began, in the period of which we now treat, to become more assimilated to the Episcopal church, and to lose their distinctive Presby- terian character. That on the western branch of Cooper river had already surrendered its independent existence. This may have arisen in part from their desire to become as- similated to the established religion of the country in which they had found refuge and protection, and so to remove those causes of national jealousy from which they had suffered ; in part from the similarity of worship in both churches arising out of the use of a liturgy ; in part from the difficulty of obtaining ministers of their own faith ; and in part, also, from the fact that pastors were provided by the zeal of the Eng- lish church, their salaries paid, and their churches, parson- ages, school-houses, built and kept in repair at public expense ; while all these things came as a heavy burden upon a people few in numbers and settled in a new country. Probably their greatest reason was the difficulty they encountered in their attempts to keep up the succession of their ministry. Their agents, by whom they sought to bring out other clergymen, had proved unsuccessful or unfaithful. They had been included within the parish bounds marked out as the cure of the Epis- copal clergy ; and they fell in, at length, with those arrange- ments which were furnished to their hand. Much more con- sistent would it have been in them to have perpetuated, as other branches of the Presbyterian church have done, their own distinctive character, or to have cordially united with their Presbyterian brethren of Scotch, Irish, and English descent, in making one common cause in favor of those principles which the ancestors of each maintained. In 1720, Rev. Albert Pou- derous, a French clergyman, was sent over by the Bishop of London, and became the successor of the Rev. Claude Phi- lippe de Richebourg, the Huguenot pastor of the French church on Santee. Dr. Dalcho has put Richebourg in the list of Episcopal clergymen. The Act of the Legislature of 1706, constituting the French settlement on the Santee a parish, at the same time declares, that "no payment for the support of a minister shall commence before the arrival in the province of a minister sent by the Right Reverend Father in God, Henry, Lord Bishop of London, or his successor."
1720-1730.] EXTRACT FROM MS. OF DANIEL RAVENEL. 193
Mr. Pouderous was the first minister so sent, and the first rector therefore of St. James, Santee. There was wisdom displayed in sending a Frenchman to gain the French. He continued rector of the parish until his death, in 1730. The Huguenot church on the western branch of Cooper river had already become merged in the parish church of St. John's, Berkley, on the death [in 1712] of their minister, Rev. Florent Philippe Trouillart. La Pierre, minister of the Huguenot set- tlement at Orange Quarter, died in 1728. Being in necessi- tous circumstances, he had received from the assembly appropriations from time to time, and additions to a scanty salary. The Rev. John James Tissot was appointed to the parish of St. Denis, in which this congregation was, in 1729, and arrived in 1730. It has however been doubted whether the Huguenot church ceased to exist so early as this, or whether it still preserved its independent organization.
We have seen that Rev. Mr. Boisseau was minister of the FRENCH CHURCH IN CHARLESTON in 1712. The duration of his ministry is unknown. There seems to have been an interval of difficulty. "In 1724, the minutes of the French Reformed church in London mention the receipt of a letter from the French Reformed church of Charleston, asking their aid in obtaining a pastor; but no notice of their action." (Burns' History of the For. Refd. Chhs. in G. B.)
" I have read," says Daniel Ravenel, Esq., of Charleston, from whose man- uscript we now quote, "in the letter-book of Isaac Mazyck, the Immigrant, two letters addressed by him to Mr. Godin, a refugee to So. Carolina, then in Europe. The first was dated in 1724, the second in 1725. The first is a reply to a letter to Mr. Godin, who must have been requested to make efforts to procure a minister, and who had stated that having occasion to leave London, he had committed the matter to his brother. Mr. Mazyck complains that he transferred so important a commission to one known to favor 'the union of your church with the Episcopal.' His second letter is despondent. He says 'efforts will now be too late. The church is going over to the Church Estab- lishment.' His apprehensions we know were not formally realized. But they show how nearly this church had then lost its distinctive character. It had no doubt been deeply agitated and divided. Their brethren in the country parishes had relinquished their original worship, by accepting incor- poration under the Church Act of 1706. The same method had been adopted by tlie Refugees in the other colonies. Men with families were anxious to provide for them a worship less liable to interruption than their own. We recognize grounds for conflict in many minds. The building of St. Philip's church was commenced during these difficulties. The Act for building it was passed in March, 1710. It was to be built at public cost. It was to be sus- tained on part of the Establishment. It had the promise of permanency and prosperity. And the wisdom of an Establishment was the general sentiment of the day. The oldest book now owned by St. Philip's church is a book of the minutes of the vestry and wardens, commencing 10th of April, 1732. At that date we find the names of Samuel Prioleau and Gabriel Manigault
13
194
FANATICISM.
[1720-1730.
among the vestrymen, and soon after, of John Laurens as a warden. These were Huguenots. Pierre Manigault, another Huguenot, holds the grant for his pew (No. 20), which bears date 17 Aug., 1724, and his descendants have ever since worshipped there. But the name lias always been until within a few years in the membership of the corporation of the French church. The family have an ancient vault in the cemetery, in which the dead of succeeding generations have reposed.
" While we may lament the diversion for which there were so many just reasons, and to which in process of time all had to yield, we must admire the constancy of those who under so many discouragements preserved and transmitted the original character of this church.
-
The church was vacant in 1725. The next minister of whom we have any knowledge was Rev. Mr. Lescot, but it cannot be ascertained in what year his ministry commenced. Dr. Ramsay dates the commencement of Rev. Francis Gui- chard's ministry in 1722, and its termination in 1753, but more accurate information fixes its commencement at 1734, in the next decade.
Among the descendants of the French refugees, there existed an instance of fanaticism, surpassing in some particu- lars those which were exhibited in the South of France at the close of the preceding century and the commencement of this, and which had been stimulated by the reveries of Pierre Jurieu, French minister of the Walloon church of Rotterdam, who had declared, in his exposition of the Apocalypse, that France was the place of the great city where the witnesses mentioned by St. John (Rev. xi.) lay dead but not buried; and who computed the time of their resurrection to life. These wild notions were taken up by some of the more ignorant and excitable of the refugees in England, to the great scandal of the more sober and intelligent, and were made matters of church discipline by the elders of the Savoy Congregation in London, in 1706, 1707. An instance of still more deplorable delusion occurred in Carolina, of which Rev. Alexander Gar- den, of Charleston, gave the following account :
" The family of Dutartre, consisting of four sons and four daughters, were descendants of French refugees, who came into Carolina after the revocation of the edict of Nantz. They lived in Orange-quarter, and though in low circumstances always maintained an honest character, and were esteemed by their neighbors persons of blameless and irreproachable lives. But at this time a strolling Moravian preacher happening to come to that quarter where they lived, insinuated himself into their family, and partly by conversation, and partly by the writings of Jacob Behman, which he put into their hands, filled their heads with wild and fantastic ideas. Unhappily for the poor family, thosc strange notions gained ground on them, insomuch that in one year they began to withdraw themselves from the ordinances of public worship, and all conversation with the world around them, and strongly to imagine they were the only family upon earth who had the knowledge of the
195
FANATICISM.
1720-1730.]
true God, and whom he vouchsafed to instruct, either by the immediate impulses of his Spirit, or by signs and tokens from heaven. At length it came to open visions and revelations. God raised up a prophet among them, like unto Moses, to whom he taught them to hearken. This prophet was Peter Rombert, who had married the eldest daughter of the family when a widow. To this man the Author and Governor of the world deigned to reveal, in the plainest manner, that the wickedness of man was again so great in the world, that, as in the days of Noah, he was determined to destroy all men from off the face of it, except one family whom he would save for raising up a godly seed upon earth. This revelation Peter Rombert was sure of, and felt it as plain as the wind blowing on his body, and the rest of the family, with equal confidence and presumption, firmly believed it.
"A few days after this, God was pleased to reveal himself a second time to the prophet, saying, 'Put away the woman whom thou hast for thy wife, and when I have destroyed this wicked generation, I will raise up her first husband from the dead, and they shall be man and wife as before, and go thou and take to wife her youngest sister, who is a virgin, so shall the chosen family be restored entire, and the holy seed preserved pure and undefiled in it.' At first the father, when he heard of this revelation, was staggered at so extraordinary a command from heaven; but the prophet assured him that God would give him a sign, which accordingly happened; upon which the old man took his youngest daughter by the hand, and gave her to the wise prophet immediately for his wife, who without further ceremony took the damsel and deflowered her. Thus for some time they continued in acts of incest and adultery, until that period which made the fatal discovery, and introduced the bloody scene of blind fanaticism and madness.
" Those deluded wretches were so far possessed with the false conceit of their own righteousness and holiness, and of the horrid wickedness of all others, that they refused obedience to the civil magistrate, and all laws and ordinances of men. Upon pretence that God commanded them to bear 110 arms, they not only refused to comply with the militia law, but also the law for repairing the highways. After long forbearance, Mr. Simmons, a worthy magistrate, and the officer of the militia in that quarter, found it necessary to issue his warrants for levying the penalty of the laws upon them. But by this time Judith Dutartre, the wife of the prophet, obtained by revelation, proving with child, another warrant was issued for bringing her before the justice to be examined and bound over to the general sessions, in consequence of a law of the province, framed for preventing bastardy. The constable having received his warrants, and being jealous. of meeting with no good usage in the execution of his office, prevailed on two or three of his neighbors to go along with him. The family observing the constable coming, and being apprized of his errand, consulted their prophet, who soon told them that God commanded them to arm and defend themselves against persecution, and their substance against the robberies of ungodly men; assuring them at the same time that no weapon formed against them should prosper. Accordingly they did so, and laying hold of their arms, fired on the constable and his followers, and drove them out of their plantation. Such behaviour was not to be tolerated, and therefore Captain Simmons gathered a party of militia, and went to protect the constable in the execution of his office. When the deluded family saw the justice and his party approaching, they shut themselves up in their house, and firing from it like furies, shot Captain Simmons dead on the spot, and wounded several of his party. The militia returned the fire, killed one woman within the house, and afterward forcibly entering it took the rest prisoners, six in number, and brought them to Charlestown.
"At the court of general sessions, held in September, 1724, three of them were brought to trial, found guilty, and condemned. Alas! miserable
196
FANATICISM.
[1720-1730.
creatures, what amazing infatuation possessed them! They pretended they had the Spirit of God leading them to all truth, they knew it and felt it : but this Spirit, instead of influencing them to obedience, purity, and peace, commanded them to commit rebellion, incest, and murder. What is still more astonishing, the principal persons among them, I mean the prophet, the father of the family, and Michael Boneau, never were convinced of their delusion, but persisted in it until their last breath. During their trial they appeared altogether unconcerned and secure, affirming that God was on their side, and therefore they feared not what man could do unto them. They freely told the incestuous story in open court in all its circunstances and aggravations, with a good countenance, and very readily confessed the facts respecting their rebellion and murder, with which they stood charged, but plead their authority from God in vindication of themselves, and insisted they had done nothing in either case but by his express command.
"As it is commonly the duty of clergymen to visit persons under sentence of death, both to convince them of their error and danger, and prepare them for deatlı by bringing them to a penitent disposition, Alexander Garden, tlie Episcopal minister of Charlestown, to whom we are indebted for this account, attended those condemned persons with great diligence and concern. . What they liad affirmed in the court of justice, they repeated and confessed to him in like manner in the prison. When he began to reason with them, and to explain the heinous nature of their crimes, they treated him with disdain. The motto was, Answer him not a word; who is he that should presume to teach them, who had the Spirit of God speaking inwardly to their souls ? In all they had done, they said they had obeyed the voice of God, and were now about to suffer martyrdom for his religion. But God had assured them, that he would eithier work a deliverance for them, or raise them up from the dead on the third day. These things the three men continued confidently to believe, and notwithstanding all the means used to convince them of their mistake, persisted in the same belief until the moment they expired. At their execution they told the spectators, with seeming triumph, they should soon see them again, for they were certain they should rise from the dead on the third day.
" With respect to the other three, the daughter Judith being with child, was not tried, and the two sons, David and Jolin Dutartre, abont eighteen and twenty years of age, having been also tried and condemned, continued sullen and reserved, in hopes of seeing those that were executed rise from tlie dead, but being disappointed, they became, or at least seemed to become, sensible of their error, and were both pardoned. Yet not long afterward one of them relapsed into the same snare, and murdered an innocent person, without either provocation or previous quarrel, and for no other reason, as he confessed, but that God had commanded liim so to do. Being a second time brought to trial, he was found guilty of murder and condemned. Mr. Garden attended him again under the second sentence, and acknowledged with great appearance of success. No man could appear more deeply sensible of his error and delusion, or could die a more sincere and hearty penitent on account of his horrid crimes. With great attention lie listened to Mr. Garden, while he explained to him the terms of pardon and salvation proposed in the gospel, and seemed to die in the humble hopes of mercy, through the all-sufficient merits of a Redeemer.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.