Historical Events in Early American Presbyterianism

Adopting Westminster Confession of Faith as Test for Synod Membership

Although the Synod do not claim or pretend to any authority of imposing our faith upon other men't consciences, but do profess our just dissatisfaction with, and abhorrence of, such impositions, and do utterly disclaim all legislative power and authority in the Church, being willing to receive one another as Christ has received us, to the glory of God, and admit to fellowship in sacred ordinances all such as we have grounds to believe Christ will at last admit to the Kingdom of Heaven; yet we are undoubtedly obliged to take care that the faith once delivered to the saints be kept pure and uncorrupt among us, and so handed down to our posterity. And do therefore agree that all the ministers of this Synod, or that shall hereafter be admitted into this Synod, shall declare their agreement in, and approbation of, the Confession of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms as the confession of our faith. And we do also agree that all the Presbyteries within our bounds shall always take care not to admit any candidate of the ministry into the exercise of the sacred functions but what declares his agreement in opinion with all the essential and necessary articles of said Confession, either by subscribing the said Confession of Faith and Catechisms or by a verbal declaration of their assent thereto, as such Minister or Candidate shall think best. And in case any minister of this Synod, or any candidate for the ministry, shall have any scruple with respect to any article or articles of said Confession or Catechisms, he shall, at the time of his making said declaration, declare his sentiments to the Presbytery or Synod, who shall, notwithstanding, admit him to the exercise of the ministry in their own bounds, and to ministerial communion, if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruple or mistake to be only about articles not essential to and necessary in doctrine, worship or government. But if the Synod shall declare them uncapable of communion with them. And the Synod do solemnly agree, that none of us will traduce or use any opprobrious terms of those that differ from us in these extra-essential and not necessary points of doctrine, but treat them with the same friendship, kindness, and brotherly love, as if they had not differed from us in such sentiments.

The ministers of the Synod then present, with the exception of Mr. Elmer, who declared himself not prepared (but gave in his assent at the next meeting of the Synod), after proposing all the scruples that any of them had against any articles and expressions in the Confession and Catechisms, unanimously agreed in the solution of those scruples, and in declaring the Confession and Catechisms to be their confession of faith. The only exception made was to those articles of the Form of Government which related to the duties of the civil magistrate. In view of the "unanimity, peace and unity" which appeared in these consultations and deliberations of the Synod, the "unanimously agreed in giving thanks to God in solemn prayer and praises." The ministers who were present at this meeting of Synod were Messrs. Andrews, Craighead, Thompson, Anderson, Pierson, Gelston, Houston, Tennent, Boyd, Dickinson, Bradner, T.Evans, Hutchinson, Elmer, Stevenson, Gilbert Tennent, Conn, Orme, Gillespie, and Wilson.

A motion being made to know the Synod's judgment about the Directory, they gave their sense of the matter in the following words:

The Synod do unanimously acknowledge and declare, that they judge the Directory for worship, discipline and government of the Church, commonly annexed to the Westminster Confession, to be agreeable in substance to the Work of God, and founded thereupon, and therefore do earnestly recommend the same to all their members, to be by them observed, as near as circumstances will allow and Christian prudence direct.

Overturned, That the Synod do now declare, that they understand these clauses that respect the admission of intrants or candidates, in such a sense as to oblige them to receive and adopt the Confession and Catechisms at their admission, in the same manner, and as fully, as the members of the Synod did that were then present

The Synod doth declare, that the Synod have adopted and still do adhere to the Westminster Confession, Catechisms and Directory, without the least variation or alteration, and without any regard to said distinctions.

Hopkinsianism

1. (1) Every moral agent choosing right has the natural power to choose wrong, and, choosing wrong, has the natural power to choose right.
2. (2) He is under no obligation to perform an act, unless he has the natural ability to perform it.
3. (3) Although in the act of choosing each man is as free as any moral agent can be, yet he is acted upon while he acts freeely, and the divine providence, as well as decree, extends to all his wrong as really as to his right volitions.
4. (4) All sin is so overruled by God as to become the occasion of good to the universe.
5. (5) The holiness and the sinfulness of every moral agent belong to him personally and exclusively, and cannot be imputed, in a literal sense, to any other agent.
6. (6) As the holiness and the sin of man are exercises of his will, there is neither holiness nor sin in his nature, viewed as distinct from these exercises.
7. (7) As all his moral acts before regeneration are certain to be entirely sinful, no promise of regenerating grace is made to any of them.
8. (8) The impenitent sinner is obligated, and should be exhorted, to cease from all impenitent acts, and to begin a holy life at once. His moral inability to obey this exhortation is not a literal inability, but is a mere certainty, that, while left to himself, he will sin, and this certainty is no reason for his not being required and urged to abstain immediately form all sin.
9. (9) Every impenitent sinner should be willing to suffer the punishment which God wills to inflict upon him. In whatever sense he should submit to the Divine justice punishing other sinners, in that sense he should submit to the Divine justice punishing himself. In whatever sense the punishment of the finally obdurate promotes the highest good of the universe, in that sense he should be submissive to the Divine will in punishing himself, if finally obdurate. This principle is founded mainly on the two following.
10. (10) All holiness consists in the elective preferences of the greater above the smaller, and all sin consists in the elective preference of the smaller above the greater, good of sentiment beings.
11. (11) All the moral attributes of God are comprehended in general benevolence which is essentially the same with general justice, and includes simple, complacential and coosite benevolence, legislative, retributive and public justice.
12. (12) The atonement of Christ consists not in his enduring the punishment threatened by the law, but in his manifesting and honoring by his pains, and especially by his death, all the divine attributes which would have been manifested in the same and no higher degree by the punishment of the redeemed.
13. (13) The atonement was made for all men, the non-elect as really as the elect. The epithet "Hopkinsian" was invented in 1769 or 1770 by Rev. William Hart, of Saybrook, Connecticut, and was applied, not to the whole system of Dr. Hopkins, but to the principles marked (7) and (8) above.

Huguenots

Long before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the stream of Huguenot emigration set in toward New Netherland. The first band of settlers, sent over (1623) by the Dutch West India Company, consisted of thirty families, chiefly Walloons. These were the founders of the city of New Amsterdam (New York), where French was spoken, and the Huguenot faith was professed from the outset. Other Walloons and French settled at an early day on Long Island and Staten Island, and upon the banks of the Delaware, and, in 1660, founded New Paltz on the Hudson. As the severities visited upon the Protestants in France increased, large numbers of refugees came to this country, establishing themselves in New York, in Boston, in Maryland and Virginia, and in Charleston, South Carolina. In all these places churches were organized, and ministers of the French Reformed Church officiated. The French settlements in Oxford, Massachusetts and Kingston, Rhode Island, were soon broken up; the others continued for several generations to maintain a distinct character. The French Church in Boston lasted until the year 1748, having for its pastors Pierre Daille (1696-1715) and Andre Le Mercier (1716-48). The French congregation in New York, long flourishing and influential, had a succession of Reformed pastors, the last of whom submitted to Episcopal ordination in 1806, when the Church adopted the Episcopal rite, and took the name of "L'Eglise du Saint Esprit." In New Rochelle, New York, two churches were maintained almost until the outbreak of the American Revolution, the French Reformed Church, founded in 1688, and a French Episcopal Church, organized in 1709. In New Paltz the Dutch language superseded the French in public worship, about the year 1735. Three of the four Huguenot congregations of South Carolina went out of existence, or became merged with neighboring English-speaking churches; the French Church in Charleston alone survives to the present day.

The Kentucky Revival or the Second Great Awakening

At this meeting nothing remarkable occurred until Monday, when Mr. Hodge was preaching, when a woman at the extreme end of the house, gave vent to her feelings in loud cries and shouts. When dismissed, the congregation showed no disposition to leave, but say, many of them silently weeping in every part of the house. "Wm. McGee soon felt such a power come over him that he, not seeming to know what he did, left his seat and sat down on the floor, while John sat trembling under a consciousness of the power of God." (Bangs). John McGee felt an irresistible urge to preach an d the people were eager to hear him. He began, and again the woman shouted and would not be silent. Davidson (a famous church historian) thus describes the scene: "Too much agitated to preach, he expressed his belief that there was a greater than he preaching and exhorted the people to let the Lord God Omnipotent reign in their hearts, and to submit to him, and their soul should live. Upon this, many broke silence and the renewed vociferations of the female before mentioned, were tremendous. The Methodist preacher, whose feelings were now wrought up to the highest pitch after a brief debate in his own mind, came to the conclusion that it was his duty to disregard the usual orderly habits of the denomination, and passed along the aisle shouting and exhorting vehemently. The clamor and confusion were increased tenfold: the flame was blown to its height: screams for mercy were mingled with shouts of ecstasy, and a universal agitation pervaded the whole multitude, who were bowed before it as a field of grain waves before the wind."

Every settlement along the Green river and the Cumberland was full of religious fervor. Men filled their wagons with beds and provisions and traveled fifty miles to camp upon the ground and hear him preach. The idea was new, hundreds adopted it, and camp meetings began. The first regular general camp meeting was held at the Gasper River Church, in July, 1800; but the rage spread, and a dozen encampments followed in quick succession. The meetings were always held in the forest near some church which furnished a lodging place for the preachers. As the meetings progressed and the excitement grew more intense, and the crowd rushed from preacher to preacher, singing, shouting, laughing, calling upon men to repent, men and women fell upon the ground unable to help themselves, and in such numbers that it was impossible for the multitude to move about, especially at night, when the excitement was the greatest, without trampling them, and so those who fell were gathered up and carried to the meeting house, where the "spiritually slain: as they called them, were laid upon the floor. Some of them lay quiet, unable to move or speak; some could talk, but were unable to move; some would shriek as though in greatest agony, and bound about "like a live fish out of water."

In 1807, Richard McNemar published a book on "The Kentucky Revival." He states that the spread of the revival began in Christian and Logan Co., Kentucky and in the Spring of 1801, had reached Mason Co., Kentucky. Beginning at Flemingsburgh in April, moving to Cabin Creek, where a camp meeting was held, then Concord, in Bourbon County, by the last of May and Eagle Creek in Adams Co., Ohio in the beginning of June. There were meetings in quick succession at Pleasant Point, Kentucky; Indian Creek, in Harrison county (July); Caneridge, near Paris, Bourbon county (August). "Here were collected all the elements calculated to affect the imagination. The spectacle presented at night was one of the wildest grandeur. The glare of the blazing camp-fires falling on a dense assemblage of heads simultaneously bowed in adoration and reflected back from long ranges of tents upon every side; hundreds of candles and lamps suspended among the trees, together with numerous torches flashing to and fro, throwing an uncertain light upon the tremulous foliage, and giving an appearance of dim and indefinite extent to the depth of the forest; the solemn chanting of hymns swelling and falling on the night wind; the impassioned exhortations; the earnest prayers; the sobs, shrieks, or shouts, bursting from persons under intense agitation of mid; the sudden spasms which seized upon scores, and unexpectedly dashed them to the ground -- all conspired to invest the scene with terrific interest, and to work up the feelings to the highest pitch of excitement. When we add to this, the lateness of the hour to which the exercises were protracted, sometimes till two in the morning, or longer; the eagerness of curiosity stimulated for so long a time previous; the reverent enthusiasm which ascribed the strange contortions witnessed, to the mysterious agency of God; the fervent and sanguine temperament of some of the preachers; and lastly, the boiling zeal of the Methodists, who could not refrain from shouting aloud during the sermon, and shaking hands all round afterwards. . ; take all this into consideration, and it will abate our surprise very much, when informed that the number of persons who fell, was computed by the Rev. James Crawford, who endeavored to keep an accurate account, at the astounding number of about three thousand."

The subjects and promoters of this revival were those who went into and formed that which was afterward called the New Lights. The Presbyterians among them at first formed themselves into a Presbytery in 1803, calling it the Independent Presbytery of Springfield, for John Thompson, pastor of the Church of Springfield (now Springdale, near Cincinnati, Ohio), was one of those who went off, and that church had the honor of giving a name to the seceders. This arrangement was, however, of short duration, for June 28, 1804, they adopted what they called "The Last Will and Testament of the Presbytery of Springfield" in which those that signed agreed to "sink into union with the body of Christ at large. The signers included Robert Marshall, John Dunlevy, Richard McNemar, Barton W. Stone, John Thompson and David Purviance. This is the founding of the Christian Church denomination.

On April 20th, 1804, the Turtle Creek Church, which was near Lebanon, Ohio, and a part of the Washington Presbytery, supplied by Richard McNemar, reorganized as a New Light Church, adopting four propositions that were presented in writing, signed by William Bedel, Malcham Worley, Matthias Spring, Aaron Tullis, Samuel Sering, Francis Bedel and Richard McNemar; some of these, and probably all of them had been elders in the church.

At the close of public worship the congregation was asked "Do we adopt the Holy Scriptures as the only rule of faith and practice; the only standard of doctrine and discipline? Do we agree to constitute a church in that capacity to transact business?" These were answered in the affirmative. The one thing which varied in this church from the New Lights was that the New Lights did not allow dancing, although involuntary movement brought on by conversion experiences was allowed. The Turtle Creek Church encouraged voluntary dancing. At first the dancing was very formal -- going round the stand chanting in a low tone of voice, "This is the Holy Ghost: Glory!" But the ensuing Fall and Winter, the dancing became less formal. About the latter end of the year 1804, there were regular societies of these people, in the state of Ohio, at Turtle Creek, Eagle Creek, Springfield (Springdale), Orangedale, Salem, Beaver Creek, Clear Creek, etc. and in Kentucky at Cabin Creek, Fleminsburgh, Concord, Caneridge, Indian Creek, Bethel, Paint Lick, Shawny Run, and besides, an innumerable multitude dispersed among the people in Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and in the Western parts of Pennsylvania.

In 1805 while the people were in this confused, excited state, expecting they knew not what, three men, John Meacham, Benjamin S. Youngs, and Issachar Bates, on the first day of the year, started from the church at New Lebanon, town of Canaan, in the state of New York, on foot, and arriving in Kentucky, about the first of March, stopped a few days at Paint Lick, where they were kindly entertained; thence they journeyed to Caneridge, and spent a few days among the subjects of the revival in that place, courteously entertained by the Rev. Barton W. Stone; thence they came to Ohio, going first to Springdale, but not doing much there, they went to Turtle creek where they arrived the 22d of March. These were Shaker missionaries and quickly converted Rev. McNemar, and soon the main part of the Turtle Creek Church, believed in the doctrines and became members of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming. This church became the nucleus of the Union Shaker Village, a people who live as celibates, and have all their property in one common fund, managed by those of their own number who are appointed to that work, who honest in all their business transactions, have ever maintained a high charagcter for sobriety and industry, and whose trade mark upon any article is accepted as proof of its being the best of its kind. By 1807 there were between thirty and forty families at Turtle Creek and twenty or thirty families at Eagle Creek who had come into the new belief. The most of the members of Orangedale church which was in Lemon township, Butler county, not far from Lebanon, also came.

Please see also, this history of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. and the site for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church's Archives.