The Presbyterian Revolution in Ulster, 1660-1690

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 159-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Parallel Structure ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The North ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
Irish Rebellion ◽  
The Church

In early 1642 a Scottish army under the command of Robert Munroe arrived in Ulster as part of a scheme to defeat the native Irish rebellion which had begun late in the previous year. The conquest was not to be purely a military one. As a contemporary historian of Presbyterianism, Patrick Adair, observed ‘it is certain God made that army instrumental for bringing church governments, according to His own institutions, to Ireland … and for spreading the covenants’. The form of church government was that of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and in June 1642 the chaplains and officers established the first presbytery in Ireland at Carrickfergus. Sub-presbyteries, or meetings, were created for Antrim, Down and the Route, in north Antrim in 1654, for the Laggan in east Donegal in 1657, and for Tyrone in 1659. Within these units the Church was divided into geographical parishes each with its own minister. This establishment of a parallel structure rivalling that of the Anglican Church, but without the king at its head, is what has been termed the ‘presbyterian revolution’.It supported the Presbyterian claim to be ‘the Church of Ireland’, a claim which was to bring it into conflict with the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in the late seventeenth century. In order to further underpin this claim the reformed church began to move out of its Ulster base by the 1670s. The Laggan presbytery ordained William Cock and William Liston for work in Clonmel and Waterford in 1673 and was active in Tipperary, Longford, and Sligo by 1676. Its advice to some Dublin ministers was to form themselves into a group who were ‘subject to the meeting in the north’. The presbytery of Tyrone also supplied Dublin.

Church-State Relations in the United Kingdom: A Westminster View

2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (29) ◽  
pp. 111-121
Author(s):  
Frank Cranmer
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
Church State Relations ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
The Church

In any discussion of church-state relations in the United Kingdom, it should be remembered that there are four national Churches: the Church of England, the (Reformed) Church of Scotland, the Church in Wales (disestablished in 1920 as a result of the Welsh Church Act 1914) and the Church of Ireland (disestablished by the Irish Church Act 1869). The result is that two Churches are established by law (the Church of England and the Church of Scotland) and enjoy a particular constitutional relationship with the state, while the other Churches and faith-communities (the Roman Catholics, the Free Churches, the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and others) have particular rights and privileges in particular circumstances.

The arian schism in Ireland, 1830

1972 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 323-339
Author(s):  
J. M. Barkley
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
The Real ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
The North ◽  
Natural Tendency ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
Secular Power ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

In Irish Presbyterianism Henry Cooke is commonly regarded as the champion of orthodoxy. Was it not he who drove the Arians out of the Synod of Ulster in 1830? The purpose of this paper is not to examine the theological issues involved, but rather to try to discover the real cause of the schism.The Reverend J. Smethurst (Moreton Hampstead) visited the North of Ireland during the autumn of 1821. The traditional picture is that of Cooke routing the Unitarian Smethurst in Killyleagh (where Cooke was minister) and pursuing him from place to place in his zeal for orthodoxy. This, however, fails to take into account an important aspect of Smethurst’s campaign. He writes,I feel persuaded that there is considerable inquiry on religious subjects amongst the Dissenters in the North of Ireland, and that liberal opinions are fast gaining ground amongst them... One of the greatest obstacles in the way of their doing so, is the view they have been accustomed to take of the Christian religion, as being a system upheld solely by its union with the secular power. If they could see it free from this connexion, they would view it in a far more favourable light, and the most formidable of their prejudices would be removed. Even amongst the Dissenters the natural tendency of the most remote connexion of this kind is too obvious to escape notice. The Presbyterian Church of Ireland has long been considered as a sort of demi-establishment. And though its connexion with the civil power is not so close as that of the Church of England, yet the union, as far as it goes, is no less injurious.

Hymnody and Liturgy

2019 ◽  
pp. 491-506
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hehn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
North American ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Metrical Psalmody ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

This chapter outlines the history of Presbyterian worship practice from the sixteenth century to the present, with a focus on North American Presbyterians. Tracing both their hymnody and their liturgy ultimately to John Calvin, Presbyterian communions have a distinct heritage of worship inherited from the Church of Scotland via seventeenth-century Puritans. Long marked by metrical psalmody and guided by the Westminster Directory, Presbyterian worship underwent substantial changes in the nineteenth century. Evangelical and liturgical movements led Presbyterians away from a Puritan visual aesthetic, into the use of nonscriptural hymnody, and toward a recovery of liturgical books. Mainline North American and Scottish Presbyterians solidified these trends in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; however, conservative North American denominations and some other denominations globally continue to rely heavily on the use of a worship directory and metrical psalmody.

A Disputed Letter: Relations Between the Church of Scotland and the Reformed Church in the Province of Zeeland in the Year of the Solemn League and Covenant

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 237-251
Author(s):  
Willbm Nijenhuis
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Dutch Revolt ◽  
The Church ◽  
United Provinces

In the year 1643 the Dutch revolt against Spain was dragging gradually to an end. Repeated attempts by Stadtholder Frederick Henry to take Antwerp had failed. Since 1640 only minor military operations had been undertaken. The demand for peace was growing, but this, at the same time, led to divisions of opinion. During this period of domestic tension the United Provinces became involved in events in England leading to the Civil War.

Liberal and Secular or Protestant and Orange?

2019 ◽  
pp. 168-193
Author(s):  
Thomas Hennessey ◽  
Máire Braniff ◽  
James W. McAuley ◽  
Jonathan Tonge ◽  
Sophie A. Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
Orange Order ◽  
The Church

This chapter examines the importance of the Protestant Faith and Church and of the Orange Order to UUP members. Whilst overwhelmingly Protestant, the UUP has always rejected the overtly fundamentalist, Free Presbyterian brand with which the DUP was associated for many years. The chapter analyses whether the Church of Ireland or Presbyterian Church provide most UUP members. The chapter then discusses the religiously conservative attitudes of members, assessing the extent of support for, or opposition to, the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortion, currently still prohibited (other than in exceptional cases for abortion) in Northern Ireland. The extent to which members offer support for ‘mixed’ (Protestant–Catholic) marriages and for unfettered marching rights for the Orange Order, will also be examined. Are older members, politically socialized in an era of fraternal Orange–UUP relations, still more sympathetic to the Orange Order? The survey data allow direct comparisons with the DUP.

scholarly journals David Meredith Seares Watson, 1886-1973

1974 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 482-504 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
Gold Medal ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Electrolytic Refining ◽  
John Watson ◽  
Second Year ◽  
The Church

David Meredith Seares Watson was born on 18 June 1886 at Higher Broughton, near Salford in Lancashire. He was the son of David Watson and Mary Louisa Watson ( née Seares). David Watson was a chemist and metallurgist who was a pioneer of the electrolytic refining of copper and had been educated at Clewer House School and at the Royal School of Mines where he was a student of T. H. Huxley, A. C. Ramsay and the metallurgist Perry, and took one of the earliest D.Sc.s in London, receiving a gold medal on graduation. He joined the Broughton Copper Company and eventually became the Managing Director. David Watson was a descendant of a Scottish family which included such eminent men as his father John Watson, an Advocate of Edinburgh and once Lord Provost of that city; great-uncle David Watson who was Minister of Cupar, Fife, once Moderator of the Church of Scotland; his great-grandfather James Watson who was Writer to the Signet, Edinburgh; and a Professor of Civil and Natural History in the United Colleges, St Andrews. Ultimately the line came from Turriff, Banffshire. Mary Louisa Watson was the daughter of Samuel Seares, a stockbroker of London, who was reputed to have among his ancestors a former Governor of Rhode Island at the end of the seventeenth century who married a ‘Red Indian’ wife. D. M. S. obtained a pedigree of this Sears or Seares, as variably written. From this stock apparently descended the Sears of Sears, Roebuck. D. M. S. Watson had one sister, C. M. Watson, who read classics at Manchester University and achieved first class honours on graduation at the age of nineteen, obtaining 97% marks from the famous Gilbert Murray of Oxford. She died tragically young in her second year at Somerville College, Oxford, having won the Chancellor’s prize for Greek Prose. It is not surprising that the children of such forebears should both have been brilliant.

Scottish Presbyterianism and the National Education Debates, 1850–62

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 363-380
Author(s):  
Ryan Mallon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
National Education ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Parish Schools ◽  
Religious Establishment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

This article examines the mid-nineteenth-century Scottish education debates in the context of intra-Presbyterian relations in the aftermath of the 1843 ‘Disruption’ of the Church of Scotland. The debates of this period have been characterized as an attempt to wrest control of Scottish education from the Church of Scotland, with most opponents of the existing scheme critical of the established kirk's monopoly over the supervision of parish schools. However, the debate was not simply between those within and outside the religious establishment. Those advocating change, particularly within non-established Presbyterian denominations, were not unified in their proposals for a solution to Scotland's education problem. Disputes between Scotland's largest non-established churches, the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church, and within the Free Church itself over the type of national education scheme that should replace the parish schools severely hampered their ability to express common opposition to the existing system. These divisions also placed increasing strain on the developing cooperation in Scottish Dissent on ecclesiastical, political and social matters after the Disruption. This article places the issue of education in this period within this distinctly Dissenting context of cooperation, and examines the extent of the impact these debates had on Dissenting Presbyterian relations.

A tradition in crisis: understanding and repairing division over homosexuality in the Church of Scotland

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Liam J. Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Diagnostic Analysis ◽  
Committed Relationships ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
The Status ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
Protestant Denominations ◽  
The Church

AbstractLike many Western churches, the Church of Scotland has been divided in recent years over the ordination of gay clergy in committed relationships, and, more generally, over the status of homosexuality for Christian ethics. Yet there has been no academic research undertaken which situates the debate within the wider context of Scottish theology. This failure has resulted in theological and ecclesial impasse, which this paper seeks to remedy through a diagnostic analysis of division over homosexuality, drawing upon the analytic tools developed by R. G. Collingwood. While this article has as its focus the Church of Scotland, its method and conclusions will be relevant to other Protestant denominations, especially Reformed churches such as the Presbyterian Church (USA).

scholarly journals The Language of the Church: Westminster in Review

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-87
Author(s):  
W. John Carswell
Keyword(s):  
General Assembly ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This paper reflects on the debate at the 2018 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on reviewing the status of the Westminster Confession of Faith as its principal subordinate standard of faith. It considers the role of doctrine in the church; whether it is appropriate to devote time and resources to consideration of doctrinal statements at this juncture when the church may be seen to be seen to be facing more pressing issues; and whether a framework such as the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Book of Confessions might serve as a useful model for the way ahead – or whether such an approach would in fact only hamper lasting renewal in the church.

The Polemics of John Heigham and Richard Montagu and the Rise of English Arminianism

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-27
Author(s):  
Thomas Scheck
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Religious Controversy ◽  
The Church

The English Catholic apologist John Heigham (1568–1632) deserves to be better known in light of the significant historical consequences of his efforts in the field of Catholic apologetics. Heigham’s tract, The Gagge of the Reformed Gospel (1623) accused the Reformed Church in England of heresy and innovation and summoned the readers back to the Roman Catholic Church. This work was answered by Richard Montagu (1577–1641), the future bishop of Chichester and Norwich in his book, A New Gagg for an Old Goose (1624). Montagu’s book provoked a storm of controversy within the Church of England because the author simultaneously replied to Heigham’s Catholic arguments and attacked Calvinism within the Church of England, which he labelled ‘Puritanism’. A series of books attacking Montagu were then published by English Calvinists who accused Montagu of popery and of betrayal of the Reformed cause. These disputes contributed to the Calvinist/Arminian division within the Anglican Church, a religious controversy that was one of the contributing causes of the English Civil War. Thus the seed planted by Heigham’s tract grew into a forest of religious controversies and ended in a war. This article summarizes the content of Heigham’s tract and the principal ideas of his Catholic apologetics, after recounting the main events of Heigham’s little known life. Then Montagu’s response will be surveyed and the reactions it spawned.

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