The Presbyterians

Preface

There are many histories of the Presbyterian Church in this country. It has, however, been thought that there was still room for one which should put the story into a few brief chapters presenting only the main outline of events and giving them a popular rather than an ecclesiastical setting. Neither the limitations of space nor the purpose of the writer has allowed discussions of polity or doctrine.

This is therefore a record of the life and work of the Church given in its most essential features. As such it is commended to those of any communion who would know what share Presbyterians have had in the progress of Christianity in our country.

Publishers' Note

The aim of this series is to furnish a uniform set of church histories, brief but complete, and designed to instruct the average church member in the origin, development, and history of the various denominations. Many church histories have been issued for all denominations, but they have usually been volumes of such size as to discourage any but students of church history. Each volume of this series, all of which will be written by leading historians of the various denominations, will not only interest the members of the denomination about which it is written, but will prove interesting to members of other denominations as well who wish to learn something of their fellow workers. The volumes will be bound uniformly, and when the series is complete will make a most valuable history of the Christian church.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Presbyterian Origins 9

II. Laying Foundations 34

Chapter I

The story of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America requires that there should be some definition of Presbyterianism and some word of its history in the old world that prepared for its coming to the new. As a form of doctrine and worship Presbyterianism is to be traced to the personality and the teachings of John Calvin. As to its essential principles, however, it may be traced to Christ and his apostles. It aims to recover and apply the principles of Christian life announced by Christ and the doctrines formulated by his 9 lo The Presbyterians

apostles. An attempt has sometimes been made to trace a continuous line of Presbyterian history from the apostolic period to the organization of the Church in the time of the Swiss Reformation. Such an attempt, like that of tracing an unbroken apostolic succession, is accompanied with great difficulties. It is not necessary. Undoubtedly there were among the Waldensians and others those who before the Reformation were endeavoring to keep alive the fires of Christian life on obscure altars in the valleys of Italy and among the Alps. God has never left himself without the seed of a true Israel in the earthN But Presbyterianism as an organized form of church life is to date from the time of the Reformation.

What now are the historic lines by which it came to this country ? What principles characteristically Presbyterian can we trace in our national beginnings ? Every nation has its own personality. That personality

Presbyterian Origins ii

is the outcome of certain ruling ideas. Our country is peculiar in tracing its origin not to any one people of Europe. The line of its history is not, therefore, a single line, and is not to be traced as you might trace the strong current of a river. It is the resultant of the combined life of half a dozen European nations. The problem, therefore, of finding out what are the ruling principles that have entered into the formation of this republic is not a simple but a complex one. At the same time the facts stand out so clearly in our own history and are so distinctly marked as that history is traced back to the lands whence it came, that it is not difficult to mark the national characteristics across the ocean that have determined this last born of great nations.

In a general way, historians are in the habit of saying that the chief factors of national life have come to us from England, Scotland, France, Ireland and Holland. As the fingers come to the wrist, these nations have come to a certain solidarity in our own country. It is necessary, therefore, to inquire what are the essential truth elements of these respective nations. Of what ideas of truth, tolerance, education and liberty were they respectively the exponents when the great Reformation that quickened all Europe from the Orkneys to the Tiber had done its work, and the historian had had time to look about over the countries which it had influenced ? Certain leading truths so developed and new to the world are called Reformation Truths. Some of them had existed ages before, were an inheritance from Roman law and primitive Christianity, but had been swept away or covered up by the general flood of ignorance and oppression. Now with the lustre of new ideas, fresh born from heaven, they emerged to gladden the world. Following these ideas in their historic development one can follow the doctrines of personal liberty, rights of conscience, human brotherhood, and free government, springing up in Scotland and Holland and France almost simultaneously, toward one sourceful fountain; for it requires no profound or prolonged study of historic tendencies to discover that emigrants from Scotland, and the Netherlands, and England, and France, drank their first drafts of intellectual and spiritual liberty in the new-born republic of the city of Geneva.

Greene, in his history of the English people, recognizes truly the genesis of the new life of Europe, and of the Reformation when he says, ** As a vast and consecrated democracy it stood in contrast with the whole social and political framework of the European nations. Grave as we may count the faults of Calvinism, alien as its temper may be in many ways from the temper of the modern world, it is in Calvinism that the modern world strikes its roots, for it was Calvinism that first revealed the worth and dignity of man. Called of God and heir of heaven, the trader at his counter and the digger of the field suddenly rose into equality with the noble and the king."

Motley says: "To the Calvinists, more than to any other class of men, the political liberties of Holland, England and America are due." Hume says: *' It was to the Puritans that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution." Of the Scotch clergy, Buckle testifies: ''To these men England and Scotland owe a debt they can never pay." Our great historian, Bancroft, says: "He that will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American Independence."

Democratic government, free institutions, free schools, popular education, are the nerve ideas traceable to Geneva and John Calvin. The marks of their origin are distinctly upon them. They go down from that elevation to Holland, Spain and England, and so to the United States by way of

Southampton and Delfthaven and Londonderry and Havre.

That this tendency may be clear in our minds and our obligation to that centre may be distinctly recognized, let us notice how these nerve ideas reappear successively in the lands whence our fathers came. It will illustrate how through

" The ages one increasing purpose runs ; And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns."

Nv The most potent form of Presbyterianism that came to this country came from Scotjand. As early as the sixth century Columba, a native of Ireland, organized the Church of the Culdees in Scotland. For centuries they were witnesses of the truth, bearing often the persecutions of the Catholic domination. The Scotch Reformation was only a revival of the primitive Christianity which the Scotch had practiced for centuries. It had been buried by Romish y power but at the first touch of the Reformation it sprang to life. The first bond to bind together those who had received the new truths was "The First Covenant" signed in Edinburgh December 3d, 1557. After many struggles the party of reform conquered and in 1560 Parliament abolished Roman Catholic worship, adopted a Confession of Faith conformed to the Reformed churches on the continent, appointed ministers in eight principal cities and superintendents for other districts. In December of that year the first General Assembly was constituted. John Knox was the leader in these movements. He had sat at the feet of Calvin and became the most illustrious exponent of Calvinism in Scotland. At last, after long conflict between the nobles and the people, and the king and the people, in 1592 Knox and his great associate, Andrew Melville, secured the complete recognition of the Calvinistic faith and the Presbyterian form of Government as the established religion of Scotland. James I, however, soon tried to force the Episcopal polity, which was complaisant toward his ambitions, on his Scottish subjects. In this he was followed by his successors Charles I, Charles II, and James II. Bloody persecutions followed. Martyrdoms uncounted added new glory to Scottish history. The revolt against the Stuart tyranny spread through the two kingdoms. After enduring for a short time the cruel and imbecile reign of James II the people in 1688 rose in their might and hurling him from his throne gave the crown to William and Mary who restored civil and religious liberty.

But during the persecutions of the preceding years multitudes of the Scotch people fled from their homes and found a refuge in Ireland. For a while they found toleration. But when Wentworth was made the head of the Irish government, rules of strict conformity to the Established

Church were enforced. Presbyterian ministers who refused to conform were driven into exile. In 1642 Ireland had need of a Scottish army to help put down the rebellion. Again Presbyterianism obtained a footing and the first Presbytery was formed / in Ulster on the tenth of June, 1642.

The immigration from Scotland now increased. Thus the Scotch and Irish Churches, though not originally united were one in that both grew out of persecution, had similar struggles and triumphs.

Meantime, the dynasty of the Stuarts was making life intolerable for all lovers of liberty. Presbyterians, while allowed the exercise of their worship and of their church government, were excluded from office; were required to have marriages solemnized by English ministers and otherwise were ill-treated. This, together with the troubles between the people and their Irish landlords, brought many of them to America, depleted the Ulster colony and strengthened that Scotch-Irish element of the Presbyterian Church in this country on which its strength has so largely depended. The Scotch and Irish set their faces toward the new world as offering an asylum for the oppressed. So all through the second century of our country a large and very important part of our immigration consisted of Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. They settled largely in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. \ Another stream came from France. Thev were the Huguenots, the party which in France represented the principles of the Reformation. Calvin began to preach the new doctrines in the University of Paris as early as 1533. They rapidly took hold of the people. Protestantism grew apace. Attempts to check it by persecution only fanned its flames. Not only the common people but men of rank and influence joined its standards. Catherine tried to crush it by force. And in vain. Then she tried treachery; and the massacre of St. Bartholomew — the most awful butchery on record — followed on August 24th, 1572, when Admiral Coligny and 5,000 Huguenots were mercilessly slain in the streets of Paris. In sixty days throughout France it is estimated that 70,000 persons lost their lives. It is said that when Philip II of Spain heard it, he laughed for the first and only time in his hfe and that Rome, when the tidings came, was delirious with joy. War after war succeeded until Henry IV, originally a Protestant but later a Catholic for political reasons, on April 15th, 1599, issued the Edict of Nantes guaranteeing religious protection to the Protestants. With the exception of a few towns, they were allowed to worship in their own way throughout the kingdom. They were allowed to hold office. Their poor and sick were to be admitted to hospitals and their ministers were to be supported by the state. With the accession, however, of

Louis XIII the Edict of Toleration was prac- ^ tically disregarded. Richelieu, who had been called into the councils of Louis, determined to crush the Huguenots whose destruction he regarded as essential to the power of France. On the accession of Louis XIV the Protestants were for a time "^ protected, but on the death of Louis XIV and of Cardinal Mazarin, the successor of Richelieu, the free exercise of religion was once more in jeopardy. Things went from bad to worse.

On October 23d, 1685, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes. The Protestant religion was prohibited. Even private worship was forbidden. Protestant pastors were to remove from the kingdom within fifteen days; all Protestant schools were closed.

There was nothing left now for the devoted friends of the Reformation but to leave the country they loved. Sismondi computed that the total number of those who emigrated was between three and four hundred thousand. A like number had perished in prison, on the scaffold, at the galleys and in their attempts to escape. It is impossible to say how large were the colonies that came to the United States, but they were settled at an early day in New York, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas. The French language was used in preaching in Boston till the close of the eighteenth century and Huguenot services were celebrated in French and English as late as 1772. The Huguenot church in Charleston, South Carolina, has retained in its primitive purity the old Calvinistic liturgy of its forefathers. "These pious fugitives have become public blessings throughout the world and have increased in Germany, Holland, and England the elements of power, prosperity, and Christian development. In our land, too, they helped to lay the firm corner-stones of the great republic whose glory they most justly share." A not unimportant contribution to the

Presbyterian history of our country came from England. The Pilgrims went to Holland in 1608, — the year after the first Protestant colony came to Virginia. After twelve years at Leyden they came to Plymouth and formed the first Christian settlement in New England. A few years later another Puritan element came directly from England and constituted the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In August, 1629, a church was organized with the Rev. Samuel Skelton as pastor, Francis Higginson as teacher, and Mr. Houghton as elder.

The difference between the Puritans who came to this country directly from England and the Pilgrims who came by way of Holland is expressed in the words said to have been uttered by Mr. Higginson on leaving England: "We will not say, as the Separatists were wont to say at their leaving England, Farewell, Babylon! Farewell, Rome! But we will say, Farewell, dear England! Farewell, the church of God in England, and all the Christian friends there! We do not go to New England as Separatists from the Church of England; though we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it; but we go to practice the positive part of church reformation and propagate the gospel in America" (Cotton Mather, Magnalia, I, p. ^62] H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism, p. 414).

It probably is historically true that the chief obligation of New England is not to the few Pilgrims who settled the Plymouth colony (though those 100 souls undoubtedly gave a stamp which never was effaced from colonial history) but to the Puritans who at the English Revolution in large numbers came to our shores and formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They comprised the very best elements of English society. The 20,000 who, with Hooker, Winthrop and Mather between 1630 and 1640 settled New England, gave us the distinctive type of Puritan life which, with all its faults, has been one of the grandest ever impressed on a young nation, and the source of much of the intellectual and moral power which made New England eminent in colonizing energy, all the way to the western prairies. But this superb ideal of a universal Christian kingdom on earth was dreamed long before by the great Genevese reformer in his ** Institutes of Religion."

It is evident that there was among the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony a strong tendency to Presbyterian polity. While the churches were organized on an independent basis they usually had one or more elders associated with the minister in the government of the congregation. Dr. Briggs in his " American Presbyterianism " mentions the following prominent ministers as holding to the Presbyterian form of government: "Thomas Parker and James Noyes of Newbury, Mass., John Eliot the Apostle to the Indians, Peter Hobart of

Hingham, and John Young and Richard Denton of Long Island." Indeed throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony the local congregations were as a rule formed on the Genevan model, — they were independent of ecclesiastical control outside of themselves but their own governing body was a bench of elders. A compromise as to government was made necessary by circumstances. A congregationalized Presbyterianism spread throughout New England. As the years went on, however, Independency gained ground by immigration from England and the Presbyterian element largely emigrated to New York and New Jersey.

This statement of origins would not be complete without a recognition of the Dutch element in our population. They were essentially Presbyterian. They imbibed their ideas of civil and religious liberty from Geneva— fought for it behind the sheltering dikes of Holland and then when a new theatre for its development appeared on this side of the water took their share in transplanting those ideas to a more congenial climate. It is true the Dutch were not driven hither by storms of persecution as was the case with the English, Scotch, Irish and French. Coming freely by perception of the advantages the new world offered, they maintained on these shores, as did the other colonies, the principles endeared to them by battles and martyrdom.

It is thus apparent that Presbyterianism in this country is the resultant of national forces, diverse in their character and yet one in their great moulding principles. These principles are the Reformation doctrines expounded by Calvin and filtrated through English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch and French history and coming to unity in the Presbyterian life of America.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has said, " It may, I think, be reasonably held that both because of its size and the heterogeneity of its components, the American nation will be a long time in evolving its ultimate form, but that its ultimate form will be high. One result is, I think, tolerably clear. From biological truths it is to be inferred that the eventual mixture of the allied varieties of the Aryan race, forming the population, will produce a more powerful type of man than has hitherto existed, and a type of man more plastic, more adaptable, more capable of undergoing modification needful for complete social life."

We may expect therefore that the Presbyterianism of the United States will be both plastic and powerful representing the best type of the great Reformation doctrines.

As one of the results of this evolution the polity of the Presbyterian Church has been developed more fully in this country than in any other. Of course the essential principles of that polity are everywhere the same, viz., the representative church government and the parity of the ministry.

It is distinguished from Independency by the former characteristic and from every form of Episcopacy by the latter. Its government by representatives allies it to our republican form of government.

The constitution of the Presbyterian Church rests upon essentially the same principles as that of the State, and it remains to-day, without essential change, the basis of all our legislation. Rising from it are our representative church courts in direct connection with the people and at the summit is our Supreme Court guarding the rights of individuals and the stability of church government.

It is not necessary to insist, as is sometimes done, that the nation copied the Presbyterian Church in deciding its constitution and government. It is enough to say that the two conventions, meeting at the same time in the same city and with some identity in membership, doubtless mutually influenced each other and that the

\r two forms of government then announced are identical in depending upon popular representation as the essential basis of legislation. The Presbyterian Church, holding the ecclesiastical equality of all ministers, unites them and ruling elders, the direct representatives of the people, in all her church courts.

Beginning with the individual church the first court is the church session, made up of the elders of the church and the minister of the congregation. To them is committed all spiritual rule and authority. Above the session of the individual church is the Presbytery, composed of the ministers and one ruling elder from all the churches within a given district. Appeal can be taken from any action of the session to the Presbytery. Above the Presbytery is the Synod, which in this country usually embraces a state and which is composed either of the ministers and representatives of each church session or now in the larger synods by delegates chosen by the Presbytery in some given ratio. Appeal may be taken from any action of Presbytery to the Synod. The final court of the Presbyterian Church in this country is the General Assembly, which consists of representatives in equal proportion of ministers and elders chosen by the Presbyteries.

j^is to dgctxine : The Presbyterian Church lays its supreme stress upon the Augustinian doctrine of divine sovereignty and free grace. Consequently Calvin in his " Institutes of Religion " — the work which may be regarded as the fountain head of Calvinism — magnifies the doctrines of effectual calling, divine adoption and divine grace. It was opposed on the one hand to the Lutheran doctrines of consubstantiation by which divine grace was closely tied to the sacraments, the Presbyterian Church maintaining that salvation is not dependent upon any external rites or ceremonies but wholly and only on the unmerited grace of

God. It was opposed on the other hand to Arminianism which made salvation to depend upon the free will and choice of men, the Presbyterian Church holding that the choice unto salvation is of God while yet man is left entirely free in the acceptance of the offers of salvation. ^Sv The standards of doctrine in the Presbyterian Church are the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Longer and Shorter Catechisms. They are to be received by ministers and elders as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures. They are not imposed upon private members of the church. Of them only faith in Christ and a purpose to live a Christian life is required.

The part played by Presbyterians in the subsequent development of the Presbyterian polity will appear in the following chapters. It was to be expected from their origin that they would be fighters for freedom. Their first fight was for the independence of the colonies. Their second fight was against the wilderness, to subjugate it by the force of Christian civihzation. This has been the battle of a century, during which the standards first planted in New England snows or the solitudes of southern palmettos have been pressed onward at the front of the pioneer advance until crossing mountains and plains and mountains again they were erected among the palm groves of California, and in the snows of Alaska, to claim our country for Christ. The story of this advancing cause will be the burden of these brief pages.

Chapter II

The Presbyterian Church was fortunate in the men who first impressed themselves on the unformed communities of the new world. The early settlements in New England were largely Calvinistic in theology and divided as to polity between Independents and Presbyterians.

In 1620 the Mayflower brought the Pilgrims who constituted the Plymouth Colony. The Massachusetts Bay Colony coming five years later was Presbyterian. It was supported by the Presbyterians of England. N^ The first church in this colony was organized in 1629.

The Puritan spirit was a spirit of reformation and missions. Unhappy theological distinctions at an early period vexed and 34 ultimately divided the Church; but the beginnings were those of a missionary purpose— single — devoted — self-sacrificing.

In no one personality of those early leaders is this missionary spirit so manifest as in the life and work of John Eliot— ''the Apostle to the Indians." After a residence of several years at Roxbury, during which time he devoted himself to acquiring the Indian language, in October, 1646, he began his ministry among the Indians living along the banks of the Charles River.

England and Scotland took a lively interest in his mission. Nearly twenty years before the beginning of his labors the charter granted the Presbyterian Colony of Massachusetts Bay declared that to "win and incite the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith was in the royal intention and the adventurers' free profession the principal end of this plantation."

However far the American people have strayed from this sublime purpose in their subsequent relations with the natives, it is refreshing to recall that the first aim of that colony which so impressed itself on the subsequent history of New England was to establish the gospel not only among the colonists but as well and chiefly among the natives. That this aim was strongly supported in the mother country is evident in the organization, by authority of Parliament in 1649 of the "Society for the propagation of the gospel in New England." The charter of all subsequent missionary operations in our country may be read in the words in which this society was authorized "to receive and dispose of monies in such manner as shall best and principally conduce to the preaching and propagating of the gospel among the natives and for the maintenance of schools and nurseries of learning for the education of the children of the natives." A collection taken in England and Wales for this great undertaking resulted in about ;£i2,ooo. This sum, so large for those times, is proof of a foreign missionary spirit centuries before the modern organization of the cause. The Presbyterian Church in England was so steady a contributor to the missions of Eliot on the mainland and Mayhew and others on Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Isles, that by 1689 the work among the Indians showed six churches and twenty-four preachers. Many of these were natives who had been trained and ordained by Eliot. The churches organized by Eliot had a bench of ruling elders, and Presbyteries were constituted "for advice and consultation only," a compromise with the Congregational polity made necessary by the circumstances.

V Presbyterianism came to New York first by way of New England. Disputes concerning baptism and other non-essentials, growing so violent as to result in persecution, drove out of New England some of her best men to find homes and service elsewhere. Among these was the Rev. Francis Doughty — the first Presbyterian minister of New York City. Silenced for non-conformity in England he emigrated to the new world and settled at Taunton, Mass., in 1637. After establishing a church there his views on infant baptism brought such persecution upon him that he was obliged to flee the country. He found a refuge on Long Island, with the purpose of establishing there a Presbyterian colony. Indian wars broke up the colony and \Doughty escaped to Manhattan Island where he ministered for five years as the pastor of a congregation which later became the First Presbyterian church. A conflict with the Dutch Governor made it necessary for him to leave the city. He found a home in Maryland where he labored until his death, a faithful and honored preacher of the gospel. Dr. Charles A

Briggs calls him ''the Apostle of Presbyterianism in America." '* He preached here and there to little flocks which were subsequently gathered into the Presbyterian Church when it was organized into Presbyteries and Synods. Driven from one place by intolerance and persecution he fled to another. He carried on his Master's work in spite of difficulties of every kind." Uncompromising men were needed for those days. Doughty was one of them.

Richard Denton was the second Presbyterian minister to preach in New York City. He too was a New Englander. Coming from England in 1630 he setled first at Wethersfield, Conn., and later at Stamford. In 1644, with a portion of his flock he crossed the sound to Hempstead, L. I. He preached there and in New York until 1658 when he returned to England. He seems to have occupied the building in which the Dutch congregation worshipped and to have continued the labors of his predecesje sor, Francis Doughty. He was recognized • as a Presbyterian by the Dutch pastors of the city who said of him that he was, **an honest, pious and learned man."

But the man who has the honor of laying the foundations of organized Presbyterianism in this country is J^rancis Makemie — an Irishman from Donegal County, Ireland, who after a brief missionary tour in the Barbadoes came to the eastern shore of Maryland and organized the Presbyterian church of Snow Hill in 1684. It is worth mentioning that in those days of the intolerance of the English Church, the Presbyterian Church began its existence in a colony founded by Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic nobleman! Makemie was the man for the time. Resolute, grave, self-sacrificing, and utterly devoted to giving the gospel to as many communities as he could reach — he journeyed in restless and perilous adventure from the Carolinas to New York, gathering together "the poor desolate people "" wherever opportunity offered and preaching to them with the zeal of an apostle the gospel which came to many in their isolation like a strain of halfforgotten music. Everywhere he found welcome. His hardships were continuous, but nothing daunted him. " In labors more abundant" might be written of him as of Paul. He not only itinerated from one of the colonies to the other, but he crossed the ocean and pleaded with ministers and people in London for men and money with which to respond to the calls of the wilderness-swallowed people of the new world. He not only labored and journeyed, he also suffered for the cause he loved. In New York he was thrown into prison for preaching without license and, though the imprisonment was shown to be illegal, he and his associate Hampton, after six weeks in jail, were obliged to pay a bill of costs amounting to more than eighty-three pounds.