USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. II pt 1 > Part 21
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If the friends of the constitution maintained the ascendency,
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HISTORY CONTINUED.
1810-1820.]
they would maintain their favorite constitution, it is true, but they would empty both Churches of a very large number of effective members. These would go away and rear a hostile Church, the germ of endless animosity, leaving this Church reduced, wounded and bleeding in every part. It is no trifling consideration too, that this state of things would rear the demon of discord in the bosom of private families. How many cases are there, where the nearest connection, not ex- cepting husband and wife, differ from one another. In the best issue therefore to which the contest might or could be brought, we should have much to lament and regret as indi- viduals-and much as a Church. How deeply would it suffer in its friends and in its vital interests, it is impossible to fore- tell. It is even to be apprehended that it might lose, not only the whole body of the vanqui hed party, but that others either from personal connection with them or from uneasiness of mind, would seek peace in the bosom of some other Churches. Many years at least must roll away, perhaps the present generation must pass, before the Church would re- cover. If our principal fears and alarms are from the hazzard of organizing a Socinian Church in this city, that event would be at least as certain in the issue we are now contemplating, as in any other that might occur. Opposition is sometimes the parent, but always the nurse of Sectarianism. The pas- sions of men always mingle with their principles, whether political or religious, and never fail to push those principles further, and give them more activity and effect than they would ever have attained by their own accord. Men may, through spite and opposition, become rooted and confirmed, where, if left to their cool and dispassionate judgment, they would have forsaken the soil into which they had become transplanted in the first moments of schism. It is very cer- tain that a great many of the present adherents of Mr. Forster profess to disbelieve the facts of his being of Arian or Socin- ian principles, and some have declared that if it turn out otherwise, they will forsake him. How many would adhere to him after his avowal of these principles, and whether there would be a number sufficient to maintain a distinct church, it is difficult to say. But of one thing we may be certain, that the number will be greater when the establishment is made through the medium of angry passions, than when it springs from the unaided force of mere opinion.
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HISTORY CONTINUED.
[1810-1820.
If the character and views of Mr. Forster are not greatly mistaken, he will be more governed by the necessity of a parochial establishment than by his zeal for revolutionizing the theological opinions of the public ; and if he finds, as we trust the truth is, that the favorers of those opinions are comparatively few, the opinions will be submerged, and we shall hear nothing of them. But let us for a moment reverse the scene and suppose the possible case, that the other party shall obtain a constitutional majority, and be proud in pos- session of a complete victory. Then they will have it in their power to alter the whole. constitution-to expunge all articles of faith, to abolish everything that distinguishes this Church from any other, and to bring to the communion table any man of any sect who merely professes to believe the Scrip- tures. It cannot be doubted that the principles avowed and pub- lished by Mr. Forster go most decidedly that whole length. His publication is their text-book, and what would be the result of this? It must drive our present pastor out of the pulpit, the body of the communicants and a large portion of the supporters from the church forever, and both buildings become the temple of every sect, as mixed and heterogenous as the audience of a theatre. Should the heat of the triumphant party abate a little when the paroxysm of triumph is over, they might deign to allow us to collect in the Archdale Street Church. The qualified negative of the body of the com- municants, that most valuable protecting principle. would probably be abolished in both churches; for the party possess great hostility to it. Indeed, so much darkness and horror surround the church in this event of things that it is equally difficult and painful to anticipate the result. If this result should not be the worst that could occur, it would not be for the want of mischievous passion to work the engine of destruction. And if the future situation of the constitutional worshippers should be better than our fears, they must enjoy it under the humiliating sense that they owe it to the clemency and concession of the dominant party. There is a third result to which the contest might be brought, perhaps full as probable, and not less disastrous in its consequences than either that has been contemplated.
Our opposers might obtain a decided majority at the church meeting, though not quite a majority of all the voting mem- bers of the church. To what extremity they would carry
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RESULT REACHED.
1810-1820.]
their power under the passion now excited and the aggrava- tions that would attend the struggle it is difficult to say and painful to anticipate. They would probably leave nothing undone that is constitutionally in the power of a majority to do, calculated to draw the minority into terms of their pre- scribing. But as men, when possessed of power and strong- ly excited do not always measure their steps by the rules of legitimate right, they might seize one or the other of the churches for their favorite minister, and leave us to contest the question of right in the courts of law. They might flatter themselves that we would submit to almost anything, rather than embrace a long contested, and acrimonious and distract- ing litigation, or that our ranks would become thinned while the contest lasted, while they would be in possession, and not without the chances of a sufficient number of individuals join- ing their party, for the sake of putting an end to so painful and unprofitable a controversy. In the meantime the shep- herd might be drawn away and the flock scattered-the foun- dations of the ancient and venerable church torn up-the aged worshipper driven from the sanctuary and left to mourn between the porch and altar.
Your committee could not contemplate either of these results with minds prepared to embrace them. Neither re- sentment, nor indignation, nor zeal for victory, nor any nor all personal considerations could stimulate them to put so much to hazard. They had a meeting by themselves prior to the joint meeting, and taking a calm and solemn view of the state of things, they resolved upon the expedient of dividing the congregation, if they should find the party ready to go into the measure on proper principles. They saw that some difficulties in detail might occur, but they were not of such a nature. but they might not be adjusted either by previous arrangement or by individual negotiations."
The result that was reached at last was that the two churches or congregations of Archdale and Meeting Streets should be separated wholly, and be thereafter established as independent churches with power to elect their own Pastors, and that the church in Meeting Street should be liable for two-thirds and that in Archdale Street for one-third of the church debt, which liability of Archdale Street Church should be a condition in the deed of conveyance of said church. After the separation some 89 male members were found
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REV. ANTHONY FORSTER.
[1810-1820.
adhering to the Circular Church, and 63 to the Archdale Street Church. A number of the members, especially female members, returned to the Circular Church and some left both churches for other churches of the Presbyterian faith or of other denominations that had not been involved in this strife.
Mr. Forster had addressed a letter to the Presbytery of Harmony, covering his dismission from the Presbytery of Orange to put himself under the care of that Presbytery. This letter came before Presbytery on the 28th of October, 1814. Presbytery appointed him as a supply to the churches of Charleston and Beaufort Districts and appointed a meeting for his ordination. This was held on the 19th of November, 1814, and on the next day his ordination as an Evangelist took place in the Second Presbyterian Church in the city of Charleston, Dr. Leland preaching the sermon from I Tim. iv. 16: "Take heed to thyself and to thy doctrine; continue in them, for in so doing thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." Mr. Forster's name appears on the minutes of Presbytery until April 30th, 1817. In a letter to the Mod- erator dated April 29, 1815, he announced his declination of its jurisdiction on the ground of "the inconsistency" of the Presbyterian "system of Church government with our civil institutions-with our habits and our mode of thinking on other subjects ; its establishment of a tribunal, by whose de- cisions the exercise of private judgment is fettered, and by which a difference of opinion might be tested as involving as much of a crime as a violation of moral duty," little remem- bering that, "What think you of Christ?" was the searching question of our Saviour, the answer to which involved the moral character and eternal destinies of man. In November of the same year the following overture was made to the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia for their decision : "What shall be done in a case when a man places himself under the care of Presbytery, professed our doctrines and consents to our Government, receives ordination, and thus becomes a member, afterward renounces our government, rejects our doctrines, preaches heresy and demands a regular dismission ?" The Synod directed that the Presbytery should "proceed with such persons as directed and authorized by the Book of Discipline." The final action of the Presbytery of Harmony at Columbia, April 30th, 1817, was as follows :
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REV. ANTHONY FORSTER.
1810-1820.]
"WHEREAS, Rev. Anthony Forster having at our last Spring session, brought forward and submitted to Presbytery a written document in which he declined the authority of the Presbyterian Church, in consequence of conscientious scru- ples as to the scriptural anthority of its discipline, and where- as he voluntarily declined availing himself of whatever rights and advantages he considered himself entitled to from said declinature for some time. It is therefore hereby
Resolved, That the said Anthony Forster be and he is here- by dismissed from all connection with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and that his name be stricken from the records of this Presbytery as a member thereof." MS. Min. Vol. I., p. 259 -- 270.
During the short period which intervened between the dis- continuance of Mr. Forster's connection with the co-ordinate churches or church, worshipping in Meeting and Archdale Streets, he preached to crowded auditories which assembled in the Hall of the South Carolina Society, drawn thither in part by the excitement of this controversy. But when the final decision was made, his friends, to whom the possession of the church in Archdale Street was accorded, organized under the name of the Second Independent Church in Charleston, but which has since been known properly as the Unitarian Church.
Such was the unforeseen result of the device set on foot by William Tennent before the Revolution, to provide increased church accommodations for the city of Charleston, involving a colleague pastorship and two places of worship, and two congregations under one independent ecclesiastical organiza- tion. It was during this same decade, 1810-1820, that the memorable and open avowal of Unitarianism in the Congre- gational Churches in Massachusetts took place.
Mr. Forster spent the summer and autumn of 1817, while the fever was raging so fatally in Charleston, at the North, where he was sick in Philadelphia. Returning in December, he continued his labors most of the winter. The next sum- mer was, in like manner, spent at the North in pursuit of health. His last sermon was preached on the 7th of March, 1819. He remained with his people till May, 1820, when he went with his family to Raleigh, N. C., where, after nine months of almost insensible decline, he died on the morning of January 18th, 1820. A brother of his, who had no sym-
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WAPPETAW.
[1810-1820.
pathy with his errors, has been long a worthy, honored and useful minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church. A vol- ume of Mr. Forster's sermons, with a memoir of his life, was published at Raleigh in 1821; pp. 335, Svo.
THE INDEPENDENT OR CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF WAPPE- TAW, in Christ Church Parish after the death of Dr. McCalla, in April 1809, appears to have remained vacant for some time, and dependent upon such casual services as could be obtained from neighbouring Clergymen. Near the close of the year 1813, they invited the Rev. Anthony Forster, of whom we have spoken in the preceding pages, who had, in the early part of that year, been licensed by the Presbytery of Orange at its meeting in Raleigh, to settle with them as their pastor. This invitation he was induced to accept and he removed early in January 1814, with his wife to whom he had been re cently married, into the bounds of the congregation to enter upon the duties of this charge. But he discovered the reality of his position there to be essentially different from the expec- tations he had been led to form, and he sought to recall from the congregation his acceptance of their invitation. To this request they assented. He continued laboring among them till the month of June, when their call was formally repeated which he felt it his duty to decline. (Memoirs pre- fixed to his works.) How this Church was supplied between this and the latter part of the year 1817. is unknown. On the 26th of December of this year, Mr. William Perrin, a licentiate of the Royalton Association, Vermont, was receiv- ed under the care of Harmony Presbytery at their meeting in the Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston, when a call from the Congregational Church at Wappetaw for his pastoral ser- vices was laid before that body, and by them placed in his hands and accepted. At an intermediate session held at Wappetaw on the 17th of January 1818, at which Drs. Flinn, Leland and Rev. John Cruickshanks were present, Mr. Perrin was ordain- ed, Mr. Cruickshank preaching the sermon, and Dr. Flinn pre- siding and giving the charge. Mr. Perrin continued their pastor through the remainder of this decade, and we find from the first report of the Religious Tract Society of Charleston which began its operations in 1815, that 634 Tracts were de- livered to Dr. Leland and Rev. Mr. Osborn for distribution in Christ Church Parish, so that Mr. Forster and Mr. Perrin were probably not the only laborers within the bounds of the congregation during the period of which we speak.
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DORCHESTER.
1810-1820.]
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF DORCHESTER AND BEECH HILL. The Rev. L. D. Parks, the pastor of the Church at White Bluff below Savannah, was invited early in the decade to supply this Church at a salary of $600 for the year. He wrote to them from Hagget's Hill, Dec. 26, 1811, and on the 20th of May, 1812, accepted their invitation. At the meeting of Charleston Association, May 11th, 1813, he reported the addition of 7 white and II black members to the Church since his connection with it, and the whole membership at 15 whites and 50 blacks. His salary was increased to $700. In March 1814, he declined to serve them further, but is prevailed on to continue till June 27th. Dec. 13, 1814, he informs the Association of his resignation of this charge and of his - pres- ent employment as a Missionary. The congregation next turned their attention to William States Lee, a native of Charleston, who was a graduate of Princeton College in 1812, and was taken under the care of the Congregational Associa- tion of So. Ca. Dec 13th 1814, and by them licensed as a pro- bationer and preached his first sermon in Bethel Church St. Bartholomew's Parish, on Dec 25th of that year. On the 5th of June he was called on a salary of $550, which call he ac- cepted and was ordained on the last Sabbath of February 1816, as their pastor. A meeting of the Association was held at this Church on the 9th of June 1819 at which Mr. Henry White, a graduate of Williams College, Mass., who had been licensed as a probationer by the Association on the 13th of May, 1818, was ordained, Sine titulo, Dr. Palmer preaching the sermon, Mr. Parks offering the ordination prayer, and Mr. Lee delivering the charge. On the 12th of March, 1817, the Congregation resolved to offer for sale 50 and 45 acres of land extending from the road to the river. In January, 1818, they took measures for the erection of a parsonage.
THE INDEPENDENT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF STONY CREEK. The Rev. Robt. M. Adams continued pastor of this church until his death, which took place on the 29th of October, 1811. On the 16th of October, 1810, at the request of the Saltkehatchee Church, he had been permitted to devote one- fourth of his time to its service. The church seems to have been much in arrears for his salary and did not pay it wholly until 1817. Mr. Adams was by no means deficient in ability. His sermons, existing in MSS., and which are written in full, are evangelic in spirit, manly in tone, and often elegant and
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STONY CREEK.
[1810-1820.
eloquent in diction. He did not need to borrow ever from the labors of others.
Mr. Adams was, we believe, never married. Some of his habits were, we judge, somewhat peculiar, and might not have existed to the degree they did if he had not so long re- mained in that state in which the highest of all authorities declared His judgment when He said, " It is not good for man to be alone." Yet he appears to have been a faithful pastor. At the close of an appropriate and eloquent sermon on Public Worship, delivered at the opening of a new house, dedicated to the service of God, he thus alludes to himself : " I trust I shall not be inattentive to preparation for the dis- charge of my public duty. Educated from my earliest years for the labors of the holy ministry, I glory in the name of an ambassador for Christ! I shall neither be found in the society of the dissipated, nor the abodes of the idle ; but with my labors for your spiritual and eternal good, I shall unite my prayers with yours at the throne of grace. And happy shall I be-inexpressibly happy-if I shall be honored to be the instrument of your salvation. The night is far spent, the day is at hand ; let us, therefore, gird up the loins of our mind, and prepare for that state of existence where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest; where hope shall be no more pained by disappointment, and where the sorrows of time are forgot in the joys of eternity ! "
This Church was incorporated in 1785 (Statutes at large, VIII, 127), but the knowledge of the fact seems to have been lost, for it was again incorporated in 1816 (Idem, 279, 280). Both are perpetual charters. The second was adopted by the Church, with the name therein contained.
Mr. Adams himself was doubtless a member of the old (Scotch) Presbytery of Charleston. The old Stony Creek Church claimed from the beginning to be independent, formed much on the model found in the writings of John Owen. Its Confession of faith, substantiated by scripture- proof-the work, probably of its first pastor, Wm. Hutson- though wrong in its theory of church government, is an ad- mirable document.
After the death of Mr. Adams, the church seems to have labored under great difficulty in obtaining supplies for their pulpit. There is evidence in the Minutes of the Trustees of con- tinued efforts to have the vacancy filled, but without any other
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REV. L. D. PARKS.
1810-1820.]
success than the serving of occasional supplies. From 1817 the Rev. L. D. Parks occupied the pulpit-whether as pastor or stated supply is not clear, and this was the condition of things through this decade.
In relation to Mr. Parks the following minute is found on the records of the Congregational Association of South Car- olina, under the date of Dec. 14. 1819 :
"The Association have heard with regret, that the Rev. L. D. Parks, one of the members, has associated in an ordination with persons holding sentiments which they deem subversive of the fundamental principles of the Gospel, they consider such conduct contrary to the spirit of the Constitution and calculated to produce serious evil :- Wherefore agreed. that the Rev. Mr. Parks be cited to assign reasons for his conduct to be laid before the Association at the meeting to be held in April, 1820." This has reference to the part taken by Mr. Parks in the ordination of Rev. (afterwards) Dr. Gilman as pastor of the Archdale Street Church, popularly known as THE UNITARIAN CHURCH.
"Lycen D. Parks," says Rev. John Douglas in his history of Steel Creek Church, N. C., "Was the eldest son of Captain Hugh Parks of that congregation, and was licensed in 1813 or 14 to preach the Gospel," and alludes to his becoming connected with the Congregational Asso- ciation, speaks of their action disapproving his course, and of the pub- lications respecting him in the public prints, especially that over the signature of Rev B. M. Palmer, Sr. D. D. He says that even in these Dr. Palmer did not accuse him of being a Unitarian. That after this he married the widow of Mr William Hayne and settled on a plantation near Walterboro. And that not many months before his death, he was sent for by a neighbor who was on his death bed, who wished the pies- ence and prayers of a minister of the Gospel. As he approached the bedside, the dying man thus addressed him: "Mr. Parks, I am a dying man, and I wish prayers of mercy for me before I go. Tell me frankly do you believe in the Godlead, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost ? Are you a firm believer in the adorable Trinity !" To which he replied : "To you, a dying man, I aver my solemn belief in the adorable Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." "Then," said the dying man, "kneel down and pray for my soul." Mr. Parks died early, short of middle life, either in 1822 or 1823, and is buried at "Hayne Hall" near Bethel Church, S. Paul's Parish, S. C. History of Steel Creek Church, by Rev. John Douglas, Columbia, 1872.
The CHURCH IN BEAUFORT. The Church in Beaufort was served by the Rev. B M. Palmer (afterwards D. D.) until November or December, 1813. when having been afflicted with a severe illness, and despairing of adequate support, he
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BEAUFORT.
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removed to Charleston as has been already mentioned, and was elected soon after the successor of the Rev. Dr. Keith in the Circular Church .* The Rev. Anthony Forster was ap- pointed on the 28th of October, 1814, a missionary for Charles- ton and Beaufort Districts and for this end he was ordained, as has already been mentioned. The Church in Beaufort now came under the care of Harmony Presbytery as a Presbyte- rian Church and Dr. Flinn and Messrs Leland and Forster were directed to preach in it one Sabbath each before the next meeting of Presbytery. These appointments were not fulfilled, and Dr. Leland reported in behalf of himself and the others. "That owing to the peculiarly exposed situation of the Town and Island of Beaufort to the incursion of the British cruisers, the inhabitants had generally removed." At the meeting of the Presbytery in November, 1816, Rev. Mr. Cruickshank was ordered to supply one Sabbath at Beaufort.
The Church at WAYNESBOROUGH, BURKE COUNTY, GEORGIA had a similar history. It was supplied by Rev. John Boggs. On the 5th of April, 1811, it applied to the Presbytery of Har- mony informing them that owing to the removal of their late pastor they were destitute of the means of grace and petitioned for supplies. The Rev. John R. Thompson of Augusta and Rev. Ezra Fisk, then a missionary employed by the Presby- tery, were appointed to visit them. The Rev. John Joyce also at a later period. January 21, 1818, Mr. E. Caldwell, a licentiate of the Salem Association (Mass.) was received as a candidate under the care of the Presbytery of Harmony, and a call was presented for his pastoral services by the Congre- gational Church of Waynesborough which he accepted. Pres- bytery met at the Church in Waynesborough on the 3rd of July, 1818. Present, the Rev. William McWhir, Murdoch Murphy. & Thomas Goulding. The Rev. Murdoch Murphy preached the sermon from I Timothy 3:2; the Rev. Mr. (afterwards Dr.) McWhir presided and propounded the Consti- tutional questions. Mr. Caldwell was ordained by prayer and the imposition of hands, and a charge was delivered to
*During the residence of Dr. Palmer in Beaufort, the Beaufort Bible Society was organized, of which Robert Barnwell, Esq., was president and he one of the secretaries. It was formed in the latter part of March 1810. A Beaufort Religious Tract Society is also spoken of in the first annual report of the Religious Tract Society of Charleston June 10, 1816, which had received from the Charleston Society 1,900 tracts for distri- bution.
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