USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 5
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
The king and his adherents in Scotland were assiduous in their efforts to corrupt the government of the Church. By degrees, by means of bribery, treachery, persecution, and by raising sectional jealousy among clergymen themselves, and by overawing the Assembly which met at Perth, in obedi- ence to the royal mandate, they at length partially accom- plished their object. The Five Articles of Perth were carried by a majority, one nobleman, one doctor, and forty-five ministers voting in the negative.t By these, kneeling at the communion,
* Neal's History of the Puritans, i., 252.
+ August 27th, 1618.
43
THE BLACK SATURDAY.
the observance of holidays, episcopal confirmation, private bap- tism, and the private dispensation of the Lord's supper were authorized ; points which were innovations upon the discipline of the Church of Scotland, and the precursors of still greater innovations. On Saturday, the 4th of August, 1621, the five articles of Perth were ratified in the Parliament of Scotland by a small majority. The act was ominous of evil, and not without singular coincidences, which were noted at the time, and were long remembered in Scotland.
" The morning," says the historian, "had been dark and lowering, and clouds piled on clouds gathered over the capi- tal. At the very moment when the Marquis of Hamilton and the Lord High Commissioner rose to touch the Acts with the royal sceptre, in token of their ratification, a keen blue flash of forked lightning blazed through the gloom, followed by another and another, so bright as to blind the startled and guilty Parliament in the act of consummating their deed. Three terrific peals of thunder followed in quick succession, hailstones of prodigious magnitude descended, and sheeted rains, so heavy and continued as to detain in durance the perpetrators of this treason against the King of kings, by subjecting his Church to an earthly monarch. This disastrous day was known for long years in Scotland as 'the black Saturday'-black with man's guilt and the frowns of Heaven."* "The sword is now put into your hands," writes the King to Spotswood, Archbishop of St. Andrews ; "go on, therefore, to use it, and let it rest no longer, till ye have. perfected the ser- vice intrusted to you."t In the same year in which the ar- ticles of Perth were adopted in the General Assembly, the Synod of Dort assembled in Holland. James had joined with the House of Orange in the convocation of this Synod; and under his appointment, Carleton, Bishop of Landaff ; Dave- nant, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge; Ward, Mas- ter of Sydney College ; Hall, Dean of Worcester; and Bal- cangual, a Scotch divine, attended as deputies. James, however, had conceived a disgust alike for the Presbyterians of Scotland and the Puritans of England ; he associated with them the Calvinistic faith and the limitation of the royal pre- rogative, and became by the operation of these causes favor- able to the Arminian creed.
Three years after these events, on the 27th of March, 1625, James I. departed this life, leaving behind him, in England and
* Hetherington, p. 126.
t Calderwood, p. 784.
44
KIRK OF SCHOTTS.
Scotland, a misgoverned people, a country harassed with reli- gious differences and with party feuds, and possessing in active operation the elements of change and revolution. In Scotland he had been decent in conduct. In England, " the land of promise," he yielded himself up to luxury and licen- tiousness. His language was often obscene, his acts indecent, his speech profane, nor was he free from the crime of drunken- ness. Two acts of his alone remain fruitful in good, which, however, were not of his own original suggestion. One was his setting on foot the English version of the Sacred Scriptures, which Dr. Reynolds, in behalf of his Puritan brethren, requested might be undertaken, and which had been suggested by the Assembly in Scotland two years before, and cordially enter- tained by him .* The other was his project of colonizing the northern provinces of Ireland with a Protestant population, which has had so salutary an influence on Ireland itself, and had so much to do with the planting of Presbyterianism in America, and especially in the State of South Carolina.
The forty-five years intervening between the death of James and the first settlement of South Carolina, were replete with great events. Charles I., the son and successor of James, was not wanting in intellectual gifts and refined culture. In his religious belief he was an Arminian, in church government a zealous promoter of Episcopacy, and in private life unblem- ished ; but, as a King, his life was a series of wretched blunders. " He had an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways," and "was perfidious from constitution and habit, and on prin- ciple also."t A season of great trial was now approaching the Church of Scotland, and to prepare her for it her Lord and Head poured out upon her his gracious Spirit. For a period of five years, from James's death, at Irvin and Stewarton, there was what Fuller calls " a great spring-tide of the Gospel," so that, "like a spreading moor-burn, the power of godliness did advance from one place to another." In the Kirk of Schotts, in 1630, there was a still more powerful demonstration of the Spirit, under the preaching of John Livingston, then but a li- centiate, and but 17 years of age, when 500 persons experienced conversion under a single sermon.
* " The Scottish divines of all parties adhered to the Geneva Bible until about the year 1640, when the present translation, originally designed only for the English Church, and too partial to Prelacy, was at length silently established in general use." Memorial for the Bible Societies in Scotland, p. 87 (published anonymously, but written by Rev. John Lee, D. D., F. R. S. E., quoted by Reid, Pres. Ch. of Ireland, i., p. 239). + Macaulay, i., 78.
45
JENNY GEDDES .- THE LEAGUE.
Charles and Archbishop Laud now determined to force the English service, or rather, one still more closely conformed to the Romish missal, on the people. The first step was to frame a book of Canons, which bound the Liturgy yet to be pub- lished, upon the Scottish Church. After this followed the Lit- urgy in 1637, and this was ordered to be used in Edinburgh on Sabbath, the 23d of July. It was more than could be borne by people who had been long weighed down by ecclesiastical oppression. In the church of St. Giles, the dean in his sur- plice began to read the service of the day, when Jenny Geddes, an aged woman of the common people, unable to restrain her anger, rose and exclaimed, " Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" and seizing the stool on which she had been sitting, hurled it at the dean's head. Missiles flew in all directions and the dean was glad to escape with the loss of his sacerdo- tal garments. In all the churches the Liturgy was performed either amid scenes of great confusion, or of sorrow and lamen-' tation. The people, clergy, and nobles of Scotland rallied in behalf of an oppressed church. On the 28th of February, 1638, it was appointed that Scotland should resume and renew her solemn covenant with God. A form had been prepared embodying the former covenant, and after prayer to God by Henderson, and an address by the Earl of Loudon, Johnston unrolled the vast parchment and read it aloud. A solemn stillness ensued, and all felt themselves in the dread pres- ence of God, to whom they were about to avow their alle- giance.
At length the aged and venerable Earl of Sutherland stepped forward, and with great solemnity, and a hand trembling with emotion, subscribed Scotland's covenant with God. Name after name followed, till the entire congregation within had subscribed it. The roll was then taken to the churchyard, spread upon a tombstone, and subscribed by the assembled multitude. The emotion deepened every moment. Some wept, some broke forth in exultation, some added, after their names, till death ; some opened a vein and subscribed it with their own blood,-sad prophecy of what was to come! As the space on the parchment became less, many wrote their names in a more contracted form, others subscribed with their initials, till not a spot was left. " Again," says the historian, "they paused. The nation had formed a covenant in ancient days, and violated it. What if they should prove faithless too! With heartfelt groans and flowing tears they lifted up their right hands to heaven, and called God to witness, in solemn
1
46
DUNSE LAW.
adjuration, that they had joined themselves to the Lord in everlasting COVENANT, which shall not be forgotten."
Thus, "the first performance of the foreign ceremonies pro- duced a riot : the riot rapidly became a revolution."* The King despatched a fleet to Scotland, and marched at the head of an army to coerce his ancient dominion. The Lords of the Covenant were ready for him. They encamped an army on Dunse Law, a conical hill, in sight of the royal forces, and about six miles distant. In a few days it numbered 24,000. The hill bristled with field-pieces. The regiments were en- camped, each in its own cluster, around the sides. At the tent door of each captain a banner-staff was planted, from which floated the Scottish colors, displaying also the inscription, in letters of gold, " For Christ's Crown and Covenant !" Regu- larly as morning dawned, or the shades of evening drew on, the beat of drum or clangor of trumpet summoned each regi- ment to their worship, which was conducted mostly by the same pastors who ministered to them at home. Even a Ba- laam might have said, " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob ! and thy tabernacles, O Israel !" Before such a host Charles recoiled, and negotiated with his accustomed perfidy.
These attempts and this resistance was the beginning of English and American liberty. The king could not carry out his measures without an army-nor have an army without treasure-nor impose taxes contrary to law any longer. It became necessary to summon a Parliament. On November 3d, 1640, met at his summons the Long Parliament; so famous in English history-so much reviled and ridiculed-but which, in spite of its minor errors in judgment, has laid so widely the foundations of British freedom.
Most of the early English Puritans were favorable to the Presbyterian form of Church government. But as the English Bishops under Elizabeth admitted the validity of Presbyterian ordination, and they themselves admitted the validity of ordi- nation by Bishops, the greater part of them had remained in connection with the Church of England. Some of the more zealous Puritans had, however, secretly organized a Presby- terian church at Wandsworth, county of Surrey, on the Thames, about five miles from London, as early as 1572. On the 20th of November eleven elders were chosen, and their offices de- scribed in a book called " The Orders of Wandsworth." A Presbytery was also formed, consisting first of nine clerical
* Macaulay, i., 88.
47
THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY.
members, who were afterward joined by six others, and to them were united a considerable number of influential lay- men. The isles of Guernsey and Jersey had been a place of refuge for the French Huguenots, and they were allowed to use the Geneva or French Discipline. Cartwright, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, who had been expelled the Univer- sity and driven into exile for favoring Presbyterianism, became pastor in Guernsey, and drew up for them a Confession and Form of Discipline similar to that afterward adopted by the Westminster Assembly, which continued in force until the Act of Uniformity under Charles II. In 1586 there were said to be more than 500 ministers of the establishment, many of whom were accustomed to meet privately for mutual counsel, and this years before the Westminster Assembly was ap- pointed .*
The Long Parliament, in June, 1643, passed an ordinance for "calling an assembly of godly and learned divines and others, to be consulted with by Parliament for settling the government and liturgy of the Church of England." Ten from the House of Lords, twenty from the House of Commons, and one hundred and twenty divines, were named in the ordi- nance as members. The Assembly met at Westminster, on the 1st of July, 1643; and the Scotch being invited to form a union with the English Parliament, and to send delegates to the Assembly of Divines, proposed the Solemn League and Covenant as the basis of their union with the English nation, and appointed commissioners to the Assembly. The Solemn League and Covenant was sworn to by the House of Commons, the Westminster Assembly, and the Scotch commissioners, on the 25th of September, and by the House of Lords on the 15th of October. The result of the deliberations of the Westmin- ster Assembly is well known. The Confession of Faith, Cate- chisms, and Forms of Government by them elaborated, in 1,163 sessions by them held during a period of FIVE YEARS, SIX MONTHS, AND TWENTY-TWO DAYS, have become the standard of all the Presbyterian churches of Great Britain and Amer- ica, except that in England, the Book of Discipline, under the opposition of Parliament, of Cromwell, and through the events which followed, failed of being carried out fully into practice.
While these things were maturing, the contest was going on between the king and the Parliament, until it was taken out
* Neal, i., 126; Price, History of Non-Conformity, i., 237} Bogue and Bennet, History of Dissenters.
48
PRESBYTERY IN ENGLAND.
of the hands of Parliament by the army they had called into existence, who arraigned the king for high treason and put him to death, January 30th, 1648. To accomplish this they ex- cluded from assembling the majority of the House of Com- mons, shut up the House of Lords, and erected a revolutionary tribunal, before which the king was tried. The Westminster Confession, as to its doctrinal articles, was approved by both houses of Parliament ; those articles, reduced into the form of the Longer and Shorter Catechisms, were also approved by Parliament. The Book of Discipline and Form of Govern- ment were adopted by the General Assembly and Parliament of Scotland, but the Parliament of England could not be brought to adopt the Presbyterian government as of divine right ; they did indeed adopt it upon trial, to see how it would succeed, but insisted that an appeal should lie from the Na- tional Assembly to Parliament in the last resort ; that appeal should lie from every classis or presbytery to commissioners of Parliament appointed in every province, and from these to Parliament itself ; and that the National Assembly should only be legally constituted when summoned by Parliament. Against these things the Presbyterians loudly exclaimed as derogatory to the Supreme Headship of Christ over his Church. They contended vainly for an absolute uniformity of worship. But so far as those of England were concerned, they were obliged to yield to the power of Parliament, who would not be pre- vailed on to abate in one iota the limitations they had set to the power of Presbytery .*
Parliament did, however, on the 6th of June, 1646, adopt the Presbyterian government, to be used in the churches of England and Ireland, and give directions that it should be carried into execution. The ministers in the several counties were ordered to form themselves into distinct Presbyteries, and the Provin- cial Assembly or Synod of London was directed to be held on the 3d of May, 1647. This meeting was attended by 108 per- sons. The Province of London was divided into 12 Classes or Presbyteries, and to this Synod three ministers and six ruling elders were, delegated from each classis. This Synod con- tinued to meet yearly till 1655. The county of Lancaster was formed into another Presbyterial Province, and assembled at Preston, February 7th, 1648. None were formed by law in other parts of England, but in various counties the ministers entered
* See contrary to this, Hetherington, History of Westminster Ass., p. 234.
49
ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
into voluntary associations, many of the Independents joining with them, and ordained ministers .*
The Scots had never consented to the death of the king, and as soon as it was known in Scotland, the Scotch Parlia- ment proclaimed his son king, under the designation of Charles II. He accordingly landed in Scotland on the 16th of June, 1650, having previously subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant. Cromwell met the Scotch army at Dunbar, and routed it. The king resolved upon the desperate expedient of marching directly into England, but he was overtaken by Crom- well at Worcester, and defeated the year after, and after many hairbreadth escapes fled to the Court of France. The Pro- tectorate of Cromwell continued for nine years longer, and under it England enjoyed a high degree of peace and pros- perity. It expired in the person of his son, who was unable to control the elements around him, and had no taste for the tur- moils of public life. A new Parliament under new auspices invited Charles II. back to his country, and his return was hailed with the utmost enthusiasm by the people. The Com- mons decreed that the Covenant should be burnt by the com- mon hangman, that the Sacrament according to the forms of the Liturgy should be taken by every member on pain of expulsion ; the old ecclesiastical policy was revived, the Liturgy restored, and Episcopal ordinations made indispensable to church preferment. The retaliation upon the clergy was bitter in the extreme. About 2,000 Presbyterian ministers were driven from their churches and deprived of their livings in one day by the Act of Uniformity, which was to take effect on St. Bartholo- mew's day, a time purposely chosen because their salaries would not be then quite due.t The five-mile act prevented their coming within five miles of the places of their former charges. The act against Conventicles made it a crime to at- tend their worship, and the punishments were imprisonment, fine, and banishment to the plantations-New England ex- cepted, where they might find sympathy, and Virginia, where they might disturb the established church.
"The terms of conformity now were : 1. Reordin wion, if they had not been Episcopally ordained, which involve vinci- ation of Presbyterian orders. 2. A declaration ed
** Neal, ii., pp. 25, 43, 79.
+ " St. Bartholomew's Day [August 24, 1662], as pitched upon, that if they were deprived, they should lose the profits of the whole year, since the tithes are commonly due at Michaelmas."-Bp. Furnet.
50
ENGLISH ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S.
assent and consent to all and everything prescribed and con- tained in the Book of Common Prayer, and administration of the Sacraments, etc. 3. The oath of canonical obedience. 4. Abjuration of the Solemn League and Covenant. 5. Abju- ration of the lawfulness of taking arms against the king, or any commissioned by him, on any pretence whatever."* These conscientious men were the butts of ridicule on the stage, in the streets, and too often in the pulpit. "Here were many men," says Burnet, "much valued, some' on better grounds, and others on worse, who were now cast out ignominiously, reduced to great poverty, provoked by much spiteful usage." Some sought an asylum in foreign countries ; some became tutors in noble families ; some turned their attention to medi- cine or law; a few having property retired to live upon it ; the great majority suffered unspeakable hardships. One of the Conformists speaks of the great trials of his brethren who re- fused to conform, " by uncomfortable separations, dispersions, unsettlements, and removes ; disgraces, reproaches, chargeable journeys, expenses in law, tedious sicknesses, incurable dis- eases, ending in death ; great disquietments and affrights to their wives and families, and their doleful effects upon them. Though they were as frugal as possible, they could hardly live : some lived on little more than brown bread and water ; many had but eight or ten pounds a year to support a family, so that a piece of flesh had not come to one of their tables in six weeks' time. One went to plough six days and preached on the Lord's day.+" Mr. Baxter, who was one of them, says : " Many hundreds of them, with their wives and children, had neither house nor bread. The people they left were not able to relieve them. Many, being afraid to lay down their min- istry, preached to such as would hear them, in fields and pri- vate houses ; till they were apprehended, and cast into jail, where many of them perished." Of their characters, when the names of Calamy, Bates, Owen, Howe, and Baxter are mentioned as examples, though illustrious ones, of the re- mainder of their persecuted brethren, there can be no doubt. Bishop Br et testifies that "many of them were distinguished by th lity and zeal. They cast themselves upon the f God and the charity of their friends, which had
1.
pro a farr apyear oce of men that were ready to suffer persecution for their conscients. This begot esteem and raised compas- sion ; whereas the old clergy, now much enriched, were as
-
* Conder, View of all Religions, 21:30.
t Conformist's Plea, part iv., p. 43.
ยท
51
PERSECUTIONS.
much despised."* Mr. Locke, who knew many of these noble confessors, says, " The Bartholomew's day was fatal to our church and religion, in throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines, who could not come up to several things in the act." How many suffered under Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., has never been computed. Well-informed persons, living in those times, cal- culated that the Dissenters who suffered under Charles II. and James II. amounted to the number of 70,000 families ruined in England itself, of whom about 8,000 died in prison. Records of about 60,000 persons, who had suffered on account of re- ligion, were collected by Mr. Jeremiah White, more than 5,000 of whom had died in prison, under Charles II. James II., hearing of the manuscript of Mr. White, offered to purchase it for 1,000 guineas, but he refused to part with it ; and reflecting on the consequences of its publication, he afterward gener- ously committed it to the flames, for which no doubt it was destined by James. This oppression contrasted vividly with the conduct of the reforming Parliament ; for though they too sequestered the livings of many obnoxious or unworthy cler- gymen, they appointed one-fifth of their former income to keep them from starvation. Into Scotland the sword of per- secution was also carried : the Duke of Argyle and the Rev. James Guthrie suffered death on the scaffold. Sharp was made Archbishop of St. Andrews. By the Act of Glasgow, passed by the Privy Council, 400 ministers were ejected from their livings, and in many instances their congregations " wept aloud, till their lamentations resembled the wild wailings of a city taken by storm."t In 1664 the Court of High Com- mission, which, with the odious Star Chamber, had been swept- away by the Long Parliament, was established in Scotland. This, through the espionage of the curates, obtained informa- tion respecting every true-hearted Presbyterian. Many were reduced to poverty by fines; some contracted fatal disease in protracted imprisonment ; some were banished to distant and inhospitable parts of the country, and some sold into slavery.# John Neilson and Rev. Hugh Moxail were in 1665 subjected to the torture of the boot, and afterward executed. The former was a gentleman of substance, the latter an elo- quent and learned preacher, in the morning of life. In his last speech he breathed the spirit of the Christian martyr, and
* Life and Times, vol. ii .. , p'315.
# Wodrow, i., p. 390.
t Hetherington, p. 219.
52
PRESBYTERIANS IN IRELAND.
closed with these words, which have rung through Scotland ever since : " And now I leave off to speak any more to crea- tures, and turn my speech to thee, O Lord. And now I begin my intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell, father and motlier, friends and relations ; farewell, the world and all delights ; farewell, meat and drink ; fare- well, sun, moon, and stars. Welcome, God and Father ; wel- come, sweet Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant; wel- come, blessed Spirit of Grace, and God of all consolation ; welcome, glory; welcome, eternal life; welcome, death. O Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit ; for thou hast re- deemed my soul, Lord God of truth."*
CHAPTER III.
PRESBYTERIANISM IN IRELAND.
THE State of South Carolina received a larger Presbyterian population from Ireland than from Scotland, and in pursuance of our plan, we proceed to give a brief sketch of the establish- ment of the Presbyterian interest there. The reformation in the 16th century took but a feeble hold of the population of Ireland. Under the bloody Mary many of the people relapsed . into popery; and yet many persecuted Protestants of England fled to it for asylum, and eluded the vigilance of their per- secutors. Toward the middle of the latter half of the century, in the year 1560, of nineteen prelates who had conformed to Popery under Mary, only two adhered to their profession. Still, under Elizabeth some important bishoprics remained un- filled, many churches went to decay, and there was a great want of learned! and pious ministers. In 1590 the project of the University of Dublin, first proposed by Sir Henry Sydney, was revived ; its first fellows were two Presbyterian ministers ; its two prove Travers and Alvey, were Nonconformists and Puritans.
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.