I'm quite surprised that my notes have reached the Gaelic League in Pittsburgh.;-) As so often with the Scots Irish you need to begin the story in Scotland (and to a lesser extent England). This is very much history lite, and many, many volumes could and have been written on each of the events which I describe (and many more which I have skipped) While the Irish Presbyterians like to push their close connection with the Church of Scotland, it must be remembered that the Plantations of Ulster which gave Irish Presbyterianism life also included an English element, and that some of these English settlers were English Puritans. Thus it was that the Irish Presbyterians contained some of the more extreme Puritan elements than the Church in Scotland (which at the time of the plantation was Episcopalian any way) However the Scottish system of Bishop in Presbytery didn't offend anyone and the two parties rubbed along until Charles I decided that he would get things to his (or Laud's) liking. Subsequent events led to the War of the Three Kingdoms, the writing of the Westminster Documents, http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html (We must remember that there was much more than the Confession) and the Commonwealth. The English occupation of Scotland, the Killing Times and the final "victory" of Presbyterianism In Ireland on the other hand, reflected the situation of England. Remember the Pilgrim Fathers left England in 1620. Puritans were not the favourite with the Church of Ireland (a whole owned subsidiary of the Church of England) and after 1625 life for Puritans and Presbyterians became difficult. When Wentworth / Strafford was Lord Deputy, life for the Presbyterians became difficult. This was the time of the Eagle Wing, and the withdrawal of many Scots to Scotland, especially after the problem about subscribing to the National Covenant. The Ulster Colony experienced the 1641 rising, and was rescued by a Scottish Army which saw the beginning of a Presbytery and hence official Presbyterianism in Ireland. They experienced the next 60 years of war, famine, and persecution, which is extremely important for the folk history of the community. We will ignore this. It is enough for us to know that by 1700 Irish Presbyterians, even though they had fought for the "winning" side, were still a persecuted minority, little better off than the Roman Catholics. They did have one advantage, Scotland was only 12 miles away, and in Scotland they were part of the Established Church of Scotland which by this time was Presbyterian. Sorry Linda the Covenanters are in Scottish terms a complete irrelevance at this stage and from then on. The Covenanters had as their main plank a political situation that they objected to the King not taking the Covenant, rather than any real theological difference from the Church of Scotland at that time. As Non Anglicans were barred from Trinity College Dublin, and in any case in contemporary travelling terms (you got a boat) Glasgow was closer than Dublin, Irish Presbyterian candidates for ministry went to Scotland (usually Glasgow) for their training. Here they got caught up in the contemporary debates in Scotland, which involved debates about the nature of Jesus. In a way this "Sampson affair" which was to do with a Professor being accused of Heresy was over taken by the "Marrow of Modern Divinity Case". This was a row about the nature of election. The eventual fall out of these disputes in the 1720s gave the theological impetus in part to the Original Succession in Scotland which took place in the 1730s (officially 1733.) Still with me? The Irish people who had followed the more liberal side in the Sampson case wondered to what extent the Church should be bound by a man made historical creed. In other words there was a question of Subscription to the Westminster Confession. (This wasn't an issue as such in Scotland as subscription to the confession was a legal requirement for those who wanted to hold office in Church or broadly the State.) The problem was that part of the issue about subscription for some, was the question of the relationship between Jesus Christ and God. Was in fact Jesus God, or man, or both? (This is a debate going back to the early days of the Church but it was officially solved at the Council of Nicaea in 325) The leader of the loosing side was a man called Arius. Those therefore who did not want to subscribe to the confession were denounced as being Arians. This wasn't completely true. The Non subscribers probably weren't quire sure what they believed, or what the implications of the name calling was. Thus it was, "orthodox" Presbyterianism was divided over subscription or Arianism and at the same time was in conflict with the supporters of the Secessionist movement which was imported from Scotland There was a complicated series of what were basically administrative groupings with Presbyteries and Synods taking up one side or another. Ultimately there arose a champion of orthodoxy, Henry Cook who eventually brought the Irish Presbyterians into the Unionist fold, and managed the development of the Presbyterian Church which encompassed the Orthodox and the Secessionists at the cost of losing the Non Subscribing. Sorry that this is so vague, but I have recently moved, and I can't get access to my Irish History books, and this is from memory. While I haven't got the PhD with which Linda credits me, strangely enough the first Academic Lecture which I attended as an undergraduate was partly on this very topic. I went to Magee University College /Derry in 1965, the year that the college was celebrating its Centenary. The initial lecture in the Faculty of Divinity was by Dr Findlay Holmes on the history of the College. This covered the whole non- subscribing story (the lecture actually was part of a series if I remember right) The whole question of the setting up of a College for training Presbyterian ministers in Ireland was bedevilled by the whole Non Subscribing controversy, for of course there were those who didn't want Irish students to go to Scotland to get dangerous radical ideas. At the same time it was important to keep Irish students from being contaminated at home. The first two attempts to found colleges partly failed. The first attempt in the 1780s produced Belfast Royal Academy probably Ulster's premier co-ed Grammar School (but then I'm biased I'm a former pupil. The second, now Royal Belfast Academical Institution which was founded in 1810. In 1853 a College was built in Belfast and in 1865 one on /Derry. The result was that any history of the college required an understanding of the question we are now debating. What has this got to do with Genealogy? First of all in helps us to understand terms which at times are confusing. Secondly it helps with understanding where records might be. Thirdly, for those who are old S-I your ancestors may well have moved to America at the time when this dispute was still very much alive. You may have taken part of it with you to America. What happened in the S-I communities in America (about which I know little) may have had their roots in the various factions within Irish Presbyterianism. Remember however that the two systems (or three if you want to include Scotland) all went in radically different directions. To take an example of Linda's beloved Covenanters. In Scotland, they are down to (and these figures are from memory) 2 or three Congregations with well under 100 members. They are shrinking. In Ireland the Reformed Presbyterian Church is quite strong, with almost 40 congregations, and 4,000 are connected to it. It claims to be growing. In America the Reformed Presbyterian Church seems to be in good heart. What about the Non subscribing Presbyterian Church then? Well, you're probably as well to look at their Website http://www.nspresbyterian.org/ this will give you some idea where they are and where they are coming from. You will also find pictures of all their churches. Edward Andrews -----Original Message----- From: Linda Merle [mailto:merle@mail.fea.net] Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 4:22 AM To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Sc-Ir] Religious question sort of Hi Sandra, Where's the Rev. Andrews?? Help! I think but stand to be corrected by our resident guru (Rev Andrews) that this might well be the same thing. The subscription was to the Westminster Confession of faith of 1646. http://www.pcanet.org/general/cof_contents.htm Arianism http://web.ukonline.co.uk/pbrooke/p&t/Northern%20Ireland/controversies/ch5 Actually I found an explanation by the Rev. Andrews on another list here: http://hometown.aol.com/cngaeilge/presbyterian.htm We have now a notion of religion in Northern Ireland as being very conservative but actually it was long a hotbed of innovation and controversy, I suspect (but stand to be corrected by the Rev Andrews <grin>) because the established church was so weak. In Scotland the established church was Presbyterian and while there was plenty of controversy there, the established church was strong enough to suppress enough controversy that the Covenantors almost died out there (but did well in Ireland and the USA). In NI you have non subscribing synods (Antrim) -- hotbeds of wild ideas like Unitarianism. You also had healthy groups of Quakers and Methodists and settlings of Moravians -- more diversity than in Scotland, though I might be wrong. The Rev. Andrews is sure to tell us if I am ! (He's got a Phd in these things). So some of the nonsubscribers may have become Unitarians... we'll have to see what he says to be sure. >One set of records say they are buried in the Unitarian graveyard in >Downpatrick, the other says they're in the Non-subscribing Presbyterian >Graveyard. The other possibility is that the building changed. There's a case in Antrim where the burials are calls "Methodist", but before that the congregation (and so the dead people) were Seceders. If you know surnames in north/central Antrim, you can tell that in a moment. But they are published as Methodist burial records as the church building became Methodist. I think there's a short version of the Westminister Confession but I can't find it on the Internet. I did find it for sale! Westminster Confession of Faith SUPER SALE Here's a short history of confessions: http://www.bible-researcher.com/confessions.html Here's a historical presentation of the history of the confession (not by the Rev. Andrews): http://www.cresourcei.org/creedwestminster.html Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net