INTRODUCTION.

A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE INTRODUCTION AND PROGRESS OF THE ASSOCIATE CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

The first Petition for Supply of Preaching-The Mission of Messrs. Gellatly and Arnot-Their constituting themselves into a Presbytery-New Castle Presbytery's Warning-Results favourably to the cause of the Missionaries-Mr. Arnot returns-Death of Mr. Gellatly-Messrs. Proudfit, Henderson and Mason, sent over by the Associate Synod-The admission of, and union with some Burgher Ministers-Disapproved of by the Synod in Scotland-Arrival of Messrs. Smith and Rodger-Union with the Burgher brethren dissolved—Proposed union with the Synod of New-York and Philadelphia-Division of the Presbytery.

THE history of the Associate Church in North America, may be said to commence in the year 1750, when the first application for a supply of preaching was made to the Associate Synod of Edinburgh. This was seventeen years after the rise of the Secession in Scotland, dating this event from November 17, 1733, when Messrs. Ebenezer Erskine, Alexander Moncrief, William Wilson, and James Fisher, gave in their Protestation, to the Commission of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, declaring their SECESSION from the prevailing party in the judicatories of that church.

The design of the Associate Brethren in Scotland in declaring their secession, was, that they might maintain in their original purity, the doctrine, order and discipline, set forth in the standards of the Church of Scotland, and which they found themselves no longer able to maintain in connection with the majority in the judicatories of that church; without subinitting to terms which they deemed sinful. It was not, then, from any of the principles or doctrines of that church, nor from the order and discipline which was in accordance with

her received standards, that they seceded. Accordingly, in the same Protestation, in which the Associate Brethren declared their secession, they also appealed "to the first free, faithful. and reforming General Assembly of the Church of Scotland," that should ever meet.

The importance of that secession was soon acknowledged throughout Scotland, and to a considerable extent among the Presbyterians of Ireland. Large accessions in these kingdoms were in a short time made to that cause. And so early did the knowledge of the cause and grounds of the Secession reach America, that in 1750, but three years after the division on account of the Burgess oath,* a respectable number from the Province of Pennsylvania, forwarded a petition to the Associate [Anti-Burgher] Synod of Scotland, for the dispensation of gospel ordinances.

These petitioners were chiefly emigrants from Scotland, or Ireland, who were intelligently and conscientiously attached to the principles of the Reformation, as maintained by the Church of Scotland in her purest times; and who, not finding among Presbyterians in America, that strict regard to those principles which they believed the word of God required, could not unite with them. They were, therefore, shut up to this mode of obtaining the dispensation of gospel ordinances; or submit to many things, which they believed not in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. The Synod in Scotland did not, however, find itself in circumstances to comply immediately with the prayer of the American petitioners. It was not until three years afterwards, that a mission was sent to America.

In the making of this appointment, the Synod either designedly followed the example of our Lord, the great Head and Patron of his church, in sending out his disciples two and two, when they were employed in the capacity of missionaries; or, in this instance, when it was so essentially necessa

It was this separation in the Associate Synod that gave rise to the names Burgher and Anti-Burgher. It took place on the 9th of April, in the year 1747. Each party retained the name "Associate Synod." But the public affixed to them the names of Burgher and Anti-Burgher, as they had been respectively for, or against the propriety of the oath. However convenient these names have been, as distinguishing epithets, but little necessity now exists for longer retaining them. The different divisions, first and last, which have sprung from the Associate Presbytery, that seceded from the Judicatories of the Church of Scotland, have so changed and intermingled ecclesiastical connections, that the original name seems now to be left almost exclusively in the possession of the Associate Church in North America, where we trust the original principles in doctrine, practice, and discipline, are still to be found, and where we hope they will long remain. The Burgher Synod never had an organization in the United States.

ry to the success of the work, it was brought about by Divine Providence, that two missionaries should be appointed. These were the Rev. Messrs. Alex. Gellatly and Arnot, minister of Midholm. The former was sent with a view to a permanent settlement in this country. Although enterprises of this kind have become familiar in the present age, yet at the middle of the last century, it evinced no ordinary degree of zeal in the cause of spreading the gospel of salvation, to volunteer as a missionary to America; then deemed in Europe a wilderness and land of savages.

Mr. Gellatly was not connected with a particular congregation. He cheerfully yielded to the authority of the Synod appointing him on the mission. Some difficulty was experienced in finding another as suitable to engage. Mr. Arnot, who had been but recently settled in the pastoral charge of the congregation of Midholm, in the south of Scotland, observing some who were named for the mission. appearing backward in undertaking it. declared his willingness to go for two years, on the condition that the Synod would supply his congregation during his absence. This condition was readily accepted, and he was accordingly appointed with Mr. Gellatly. They were authorised to organize congregations, ordain elders, and if they judged it proper, to constitute themselves, with ruling elders, into a Presbytery.

The two missionaries set out with the prayers and blessings of the church, and arrived in safety in the summer of 1754.* They proceeded without delay to the people, who were seeking their aid. The first applications were confined chiefly, if not wholly, to a few of the eastern counties of what was then the Province, now the State of Pennsylvania, and the largest body of the people who were together, were in parts of Lancaster and Chester Counties. In these places the two brethren found a people anxiously expecting their arrival, and ready to learn the law at their mouth. They soon found. also, that an extensive field and a pressing call for their labors were before them. They, according to the authority committed to them, constituted themselves into a Presbytery, under the name and style of the "Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania, subordinate to the Associate Synod of Edinburgh."

The brethren were not, however, left long in their new field

In the copy which I have of the inscription on the grave-stone of Mr. Gellatly, his arrival is dated 1753, but all the other documents I have consulted, give 1754 as the date.

of labor, without an occasion to lift up their special testimony in defence of those truths and doctrines, for which their fathers and brethren had to contend in Great Britain, and which contendings indeed gave rise to the Secession at first. But their new troubles sprung up from a quarter, whence none had been anticipated.

A Synod, called the Synod of New-York and Philadelphia, [now the General Assembly Church of the United States,] organized on Presbyterian principles, and professing a general adherence to the standards of the Westminster Assembly, had already, for some time, existed in the American Colonies.*

The Presbytery of New Castle, belonging to this Synod, embraced within its limits some of the same territory occupied by the labors of the Associate Brethren. This Presbytery appears to have regarded Messrs. Gellatly and Arnot as intruders, and to have treated them accordingly. They had been but a short time engaged in their new field of labors, when this Presbytery issued a Warning against them, in which the Associate Brethren are not only denounced as schismatics and separatists, but the whole Associate Church is charged with holding and teaching error concerning the gospel offer the nature of faith-the obligation of the religious covenant engagements of our Reforming forefathers on their posterity. And, not content with these weighty charges, the New Castle Presbytery declared the Secession in Scotland to be schismatical, and represented the Associate Brethren as seceders from the Presbyterian Church in America as well as in Scotland.

These brethren considered themselves now called upon, in Divine Providence, not only to vindicate their right, in obedience to the call and appointment, which they had receiv ed to come to this country to preach the gospel; but also to vindicate the necessity of the Secession in Scotland, and to give a full and distinct statement of the doctrines and views of the Associate Church on the points on which they deemed her doctrines had been unfairly exhibited by the New Castle Presbytery. They alleged that they could not be chargeable

*The adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith, required of the ministers belonging to the Synod of New-York and Philadelphia, contained an exception, of what not only the Synod itself, but what any Presbytery subordinate to it, might judge "not essential in doctrine, worship and government." But these non-essential particulars are not specified. Query? Can not the troubles which have, for some years past, and are still (1838) rending that numerous body, be legitimately traced to this exception, as their source?

with seceding from the Presbyterian Church in America, as they never had been in union with her. For, although the Presbyterian Church, which the Associate Brethren found in existence in this country when they came, possessed in general an adherence to the acknowledged standards of the Church of Scotland, yet no ecclesiastical connection existed between the churches in the two countries. And those standards had never been adopted as the bond of union, or terms of fellowship by the church in this country. The Associate Brethren found themselves under the necessity of meeting the false and injurious statements in this Warning, in a manner as public as they had been made.

They accordingly published their remarks on the statements in the Warning of the New Castle Pesbytery. These remarks, which were contained in a pamphlet of about two hundred and fifty pages, were from the pen of Mr. Gellatly, and give evidence, not only of very clear and sound views on these important points of scriptural doctrine, but also of a strong and vigorous mind, ardently and conscientiously attached to truth.

The controversy was carried on for some time by individuals, with a considerable degree of spirit, and, as is too frequently the case in such controversies, not without the use in some instances, of more sharpness in language than would be approved by either party, when the heat of controversy was

over.

But the Associate Brethren then complained, and the Associate Church ever since has complained, that the injurious and groundless statements were never retracted by the Presbytery of New Castle. Nor to this day have they been renounced by the Synod, or any judicatory of that church, to which the Presbytery was responsible. For it is a principle held by the Associate Church, that religious societies have a continued existence in the succession of their members.

But the result of this controversy was, on the whole, favorable to the spread of the principles of the Associate Presbytery, as it was a means of making them more extensively known. The applications for preaching and the dispensation of the sacraments, greatly increased. The brethren of the Associate Presbytery having surmounted the opposition made to them at the opening of their labors, and the favorable manner in which their principles and their labors were received by serious people in many parts of the country, scem

* Narrative, page 42.