OS MI Tf3ITYHOIJY3£>I£)MOD 50 SNIBIHO EHI FOREWORD, The study that follows deals with the origins of Congregationalism in Scotland, and the period it covers is, therefore, from 1584, when Scottish people became first acquainted with Congregational principles, to 1812, when the present Congregational Union of Scotland was formed and modern Scottish Congregationalism may be re­ garded as having passed beyond the preliminary, experimental stage. A considerable part of the study is devoted to the Haldane movement in which the existing Congregational communion was born, but there were Congregational!sts in Scotland before the Haldanes, and there were Congregational Churches before the Tabernacles began to rise throughout the land. To these early experiments in Congregationalism a considerable part of the study is devoted. CONTENTS, PAGES, FOREWORD i ABBREVIATIONS USED, i:i CHAPTERS I. The First Traces of Congregationalism in Scotland 1 II. John Penry in Scotland 24 III. The First Half of the 17th Century 39 IT. The Cromwellian Period in Scotland 62 V. The Glasites 89 VI. The Old Scots Independents 105 VII. The Beginnings of Modern Scottish Congregational­ ism. (i) Scotland at the close of the 18th Century 119 (ii) The Haldanes: Their Early Life & Conversion 140 (iii) The Impulse To Service 148 (iv) The Beginnings of Service at Home 155 (v) First Fruits:- The Journal,of a Tour The Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home 164 (vi) The Circus and the Tabernacles 173 (vii) The Adoption of Congregationalism 179 (viii) Opposition and Persecution 187 (ix) Progress 200 (x) The Training of Preachers 205 (xi) Controversy and Separation 211 (xii) Rebuilding 218 APPENDICES I. Details of the Tour of 1797 225 II. Notes on the Origins of Churches 235 III. The Oldest Scottish Congregational Church 273 BIBLIOGRAPHT 276 ABBREVIATIONS USED* Baillie: The Letters & Journals of R. Baillie B.U.K. - Books of the Universall Kirk of Scotland Calderwood - D. Calderwood, A History of the Kirk of Scotland Campbell, A.J.: - A.J. Campbell, Two Centuries of the Church of Scotland Consults of Ministers in Edin. - Register of the Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh and Some Other Brethren in the Ministry Vol. I. Cunningham - J. Cunningham, The History of the Church of Scot­ land. Dexter - Sie Congregational/^ of the Last Three Hundred Years Eccl. Records of Aberdeen - Selections from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery Synod of Aberdeen Fletcher, J. Fletcher. - History of the Revival & Progress of Independency in England. Hanbury: B. Hanbury's. Historical Memorials of Independency Lament - Eohn Lamont - Diary Martin,-A.D. Martin, The Principle of the Congregational Churche Nicoll - J. Nicoll, Diary Owen - W. Orme, Memoirs of the life, Writings & Religious Connexion of John Owen, D.D. Ramsay - Scotland & Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century (ed. A. Allardyce) Ross: $. Ross nA S*«y ofA Independency in Scotland Scot. & Comm: Scotland and the Commonwealth ed. C^H. Firth Scot & Protectorate - Scotland and the Protectorate ed. C.H. Firth Selbie - W.B. Selbie, Congregationalism Somerville - T. fifomerville, OwnJLife & Times Bpalding: J. Spalding, Memorialis of the Trubles in Scotland. Waddington - J. Waddington, Congregational History, Vol. II 1567-1700 Whitelocke - Whitelocke, Memorials of the English Affairs. I. THE FIRST TRACES OF CONGREGATIONALISM IN SCOTLAND. The oldest of the Congregational Churches at present existing in Scotland proudly trace their history back to the wave of spiritual life that swept the country during the closing years of the Eighteenth Century and to the great Evangelical movement of that period with which the names of Robert and James Haldane are appropriate­ ly associated. Congregationalism in Scotland, however, die, not originate with the brothers Haldane. Any study of its origins must begin much earlier, for quite two hundred years before (in 1584) the Congregational Faith (1) was expounded to a Scottish audience, and although - as some contend - no appreciable footing may have been gained then or till long after, yet from time to time during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Congregationalism did make frequent appearances in Scotland. It has, of course, been claimed that the Refor­ mation Churches of Scotland during the first three years of their history were Independent and Congregational - at any rate so far as polity was concerned; that only with the appearance of the Second Book of Discipline in 1581 did they become definitely and pronouncedly (2) Presbyterian. wlt seemed at first as though the (Reformation) movement would proceed upon Congregational (3) lines*, another writer contends. But an impartial study of the Scots Confession and the First Book of Discipline/__________________________________ (1) Calderwood IV. p. 1. (2) Ross pp. 6, 9. (3) Martin p. 70 £. Discipline, in which the faith of Khox and his fellow reformers is set forth, and which last was the Standard of the Reformed Church for the first twenty years of its existence, gives little support to such a claim. In "The Confession of Faith professed and "believed "by the Protestants within the realm of Scotland", ratified "by ^ Parliament in Edinburgh, 17th August 1560, three notes of the true Kirk are clearly stated. These notes are "first, the true preaching of the word of God .... second­ ly, the right administration of the Sacraments .... lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly administered, as God's word prescribed whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished". It is added,- "Wheresoever then these former notes are seen, and if any time continue, be the number never so few above two or three, there, without all doubt, is the true Kirk of Christ, who, according to His promise, (4) is in the midst of them" "That", according to one (5) writer "so far ast it goes, is Congregationalism"; but it does not go far enough to claim it as such, for while what may be called the functions of the Church are enumer­ ated, nothing is said about the Christian standing and calling of those who compose the Church, upon which Congregationalism lays suchstress. H. Barrowe, whose contribution to the foundation literature of Snglish Separatism ranks in importance next after that of Browne, deals with this issue. In his "A Briefe Discoverie of the False Church" Barrowe is very outspoken in his antagon­ ism to Calvin's doctrines, to which Knox and his contempor­ aries/________________,_______________ (4) Scots Confession Cap. XVIII. (5) Martin p. 70. 3. -arias so closely adhered. Neither ministry nor sacraments according to Barrowe, are of the essence of the Church, though they are of its excellence. The teaching of the word soundly does not, of necessity, constitute a Ghurch. It may lead to the foundation of a Ghurch, which is a fellowship of those who, "being instructed, live in the ^ obedience of God. Moreover, in their interpretation of at least one of the notes of the true &irk, that ef discipline, the Scottish Reformers were far from the Congregational position. To Knox and his colleagues discipline did not exactly imply What it did to the Separatists,- that the Ghurch as a "body inside the nation should toe able to cast out from her membership and privileges those whose (7) conduct was scandalous. Rather did it imply to the Scottish Reformers,- that the Ghurch as co-extensive with the nation should deal with offences that the magistrate could or would not punish, and that ultimately "by ex­ communication, a terrible penalty making its victim an (8) outcast from social life. Such difference of interpretation was possible only because the Scottish Reformers held one view of the Church and their Congregational contemporaries, the Separatists, quite another. The latter held that the rightly constituted Church must "be composed of believers alone, was a company of people called and separated from the world by the word of tfod, and joined together in a voluntary profession of faith. Browne e.g. declares that/_______________________________________ (6) WA Briefe Discoverie" p. 34 (7) R. Browne: "A Booke which Sheweth" Def. 48 (8) lirst Book of Discipline cap. IX. E, 3. that a preaching minister is not necessary to a Jhurch, "but that two or three agreeing together in the truth and keeping separate from the wicked in their meetings con- (9) stitute a Church. Knox and his fellow reformers recog­ nised, like the Separatists, only genuine "believers as true members of the Church; "but then this Church, of which only the faithful are members, was not with them the visible but the invisible Church, the members of which (10) are known only to God. In the visible Church they had no hope of that purity of membership after which the Separatists strove. "We acknowledge and confess that darnel, cockle and chaff may be sown, grow(11)' and in great abundance lie In the midst of the wheat? Barrowe's simile of the Church as the sheepfold, sedulously guarded, a planted vineyard walled round would have been from their ' Ur*3 point of view false; to them truer fars that of the Church as the "Barneflore" in which the grains of wheat are hidden among the chaff, until it be purified by the fan 112) and the sieve. The Scottish Reformers idea of the local and visible Kirk was not the Separatists - of a gathered Church of the worthiest, of which none can be members but such as be regenerate so far as the Church can discern. Their thought was of a Church of which preaching, sacraments, discipline rightly maintained, were the pledges of its existence, and which consisted of all baptised persons who were not excommunicate and of whose Christianity was required only such negative evidence as might be afforded in religious knowledge and in the absence/_____.__________________________________ (9) R. Jfrowne: "An Answere to Master Gartwrightn pp. 11, 13. (10) Scots Confession Cap.