The Secession

The Act of 1732

On 15 May 1732 the General Assembly passed an Act “anent [concerning] the Method of Planting Vacant Churches”, for use “until it shall please God, in his Providence, to relieve this Church from the grievances arising from the act restoring patronages”. Where the right to fill a parish fell to the presbytery “tanquam jure devoluto” [as if by right fallen to it, when the patron had not presented], the minister was to be “elected and called by the heritors [the landowners of the parish] and elders in a conjunct meeting”, and then “proposed to the congregation, to be either approven or disapproven [approved or disapproved] of by them”. “All heritors, being Protestants” who signed the call might vote.¹

The overture had been sent down to the presbyteries under the Barrier Act [which requires a proposed standing law to be approved by the presbyteries]. M’Kerrow writes that of the reports, “Thirty-one presbyteries decidedly rejected the overture; six approved of its being passed into a law, without any alterations; and twelve gave their sanction to it, on condition that certain material amendments … should be adopted. From eighteen presbyteries no reports were received.” MacPherson gives the same thirty-one against. M’Crie adds that “protests and petitions for redress, signed by forty-two ministers and seventeen hundred people, were refused to be heard or recorded.”²

Ebenezer Erskine’s synod sermon

Ebenezer Erskine, formerly minister of Portmoak and, MacPherson writes, from 1731 minister of Stirling, was one of the Marrow Representers. M’Kerrow writes that he preached “at Perth, at the opening of the Synod of Perth and Stirling, on the 10th of October, 1732”, on Psalm 118:22, “The Stone which the builders refused is become the head of the corner.” The Assembly’s Act of 1733 speaks of “a sermon preached before the said Synod in October last”, and M’Crie gives October 1732. MacPherson calls it the “synod sermon of 1733”.³

M’Crie quotes the sermon: “I am firmly persuaded that, if a remedy is not provided, that act will very soon terminate in the overthrow of the Church of Scotland, and of a faithful ministry therein; in regard that the power of electing ministers is thereby principally lodged in the hands of a set of men that are generally disaffected to the power of godliness”. MacPherson quotes it too: “There is a twofold call necessary for a man who meddles as a builder in the church of God: there is the call of God and of the church. The call of the church lies in the free choice and election of the christian people”.⁴

M’Kerrow writes that the Synod found Erskine censurable “by a majority of six votes”, and that Alexander Moncrieff of Abernethy and William Wilson of Perth, “with ten other ministers, and two ruling elders, protested”; Erskine and his son-in-law James Fisher of Kinclaven protested and appealed to the General Assembly. When the Synod met at Stirling on 12 April 1733, he continues, it insisted on the rebuke.⁵

The Assembly of 1733

The Assembly’s Act records that it found Erskine’s expressions “to be offensive, and to tend to disturb the peace and good order of this Church”, approved the Synod’s proceedings, “and appointed him to be rebuked and admonished by the Moderator at their own bar … which was done accordingly.” Erskine, with Wilson, Moncrieff and Fisher, then “gave in a paper at the Assembly’s bar, subscribed by them, craving and protesting that the same might be read and recorded”.⁶

The Act prints the protest, dated at Edinburgh, 14 May 1733: “I find myself obliged to protest against the foresaid censure … and that I shall be at liberty to preach the same truths of God, and to testify against the same or like defections of this Church, upon all proper occasions.” Wilson and Moncrieff adhered to it, “asserting our privilege and duty to testify publicly against the same or like defections”, and Fisher likewise.⁷

M’Kerrow, relying on Gib’s note as an eye witness, writes that the paper lay on the table until James Nasmith, minister at Dalmeny, picked it up and roused the Assembly against it. The Assembly, “by a very great majority”, ordained that the four “appear before the Commission in August next, and then show their sorrow for their conduct and misbehaviour … and that they then retract the same”, or be suspended; and if they then acted against the suspension, the Commission was “to proceed to a higher censure” in November.⁸

The Commission, August and November 1733

In August the Commission suspended the four. M’Kerrow records petitions for delay from the presbyteries of Stirling, Dunblane and Ellon and from the councils and kirk-sessions (boards of elders) of Perth and Stirling, which it refused to hear; the vote “carried, Suspend.”⁹

The Commission met again on 14 November. M’Kerrow writes that seven synods sent communications in the four ministers’ favour, and that on the question whether to proceed at once to a higher censure the votes were equal, until “Mr John Gowdie, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, being moderator, turned the scale”. M’Crie, Cunningham and MacPherson also record the moderator’s casting vote.¹⁰

The Commission then voted to “loose” rather than depose them. Its sentence, as M’Kerrow prints it from the Commission’s minutes: “the Commission of the General Assembly did, and hereby do, loose the relation of Mr Ebenezer Erskine, minister at Stirling; Mr William Wilson, minister at Perth; Mr Alexander Moncrieff, minister at Abernethy; and Mr James Fisher, minister at Kinclaven, to their said respective charges; and do declare them no longer ministers of this church”. Donald Fraser’s life of Erskine (1831) dates the sentence “on the 16th of November”: “loosing their relation to their respective charges; declaring their churches vacant; and prohibiting all ministers of the Church of Scotland to employ them in any ministerial function.”¹¹

M’Kerrow names Gabriel Wilson of Maxton as protesting against the sentence, and Ralph Erskine of Dunfermline, Thomas Mair of Orwell, John M’Laren of Edinburgh, John Currie of Kinglassie, James Wardlaw of Dunfermline and Thomas Nairn of Abbotshall adhered to his protest.¹²

“Obliged to make a Secession”

The four answered with a protest dated at Edinburgh, 16 November 1733. They held “communion with all and every one who desire, with us, to adhere to the principles of the true presbyterian, covenanted Church of Scotland, in her doctrine, worship, government and discipline”.¹³

But, they went on, because “the prevailing party in this established Church, who have now cast us out from ministerial communion with them, are carrying on a course of defection from our reformed and covenanted principles”, they declared: “we do, for these and many other weighty reasons to be laid open in due time, protest, that we are obliged to make a Secession from them, and that we can have no ministerial communion with them, till they see their sins and mistakes, and amend them.” They appealed “unto the first free, faithful and reforming General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.”¹⁴

Erskine answered the charge of schism in a letter to the Moderator of the Presbytery of Stirling, dated at Stirling, 8 January 1735, which Fraser prints. The four, he wrote, “never went out of the judicatories [church courts] till they were thrust out”; and “the sentences were arbitrary and inconsistent with the word of God, and the rules of the Church; and we could not submit to them without betraying a testimony, and prostituting our ministry to the pleasure of men, and so should not be the servants of Christ.”¹⁵

In their first Testimony, which M’Kerrow quotes, the four wrote: “Our Secession is not from the Church of Scotland; we own her doctrine contained in her Confession of Faith; we adhere to her covenanted presbyterian church government, discipline, and worship … but it is from a party who have got the management in their hands”.¹⁶

Gairney Bridge

Before leaving Edinburgh the four agreed to meet. M’Crie writes: “They met therefore at Gairney Bridge, a village near Kinross, December 5th, 1733, and there, after serious consultation and solemn prayer, constituted the first meeting of the Associate Presbytery.” MacPherson likewise: “On the fifth of December the four brethren met at Gairney Bridge, near Kinross, and constituted the first Associate Presbytery.” M’Kerrow also has them meet “on the 5th December 1733”, and adds: “Two other brethren, Messrs Ralph Erskine and Thomas Mair, met along with them.”¹⁷

M’Kerrow continues that they “continued in prayer and in serious deliberation for two days”, and then “resolved to form themselves into a presbytery, under the designation of The Associate Presbytery. Mr Ebenezer Erskine was requested to constitute them with prayer, when he was afterwards chosen Moderator. Mr James Fisher, minister at Kinclaven, was appointed clerk”.¹⁸

William Wilson, one of the four, gives the two days in his own account of 1741: “the 5th Day of December was spent in Prayer, Humiliation and Conference together … They agreed to meet again the following Day for Prayer and Conference, when the following Question was proposed; Whether or not it was their Duty … to constitute themselves into a Presbytery?” Then “the four Brethren did all with one Voice give it as their Judgment, that they should constitute presently into a Presbytery”. He adds that “Masters Ralph Erskine and Thomas Mair, were Witnesses to all that passed the two Days mentioned”.¹⁹

Adam Gib’s Display of the Secession-Testimony dates the constituting itself to the second day: “Upon the sixth day of December that year, the four brethren did constitute themselves into a Presbytery (afterwards known by the name of the Associate Presbytery), at Gairney-bridge near Kinross; after having spent the precedent [the day before], and the most part of that day, in prayer and conference: Mr Ralph Erskine and Mr Thomas Mair being then present with them.” M’Kerrow’s appendix also gives “the 6th of December, 1733”. So the presbytery was constituted on 6 December in Wilson, Gib and M’Kerrow’s appendix; M’Crie and MacPherson give 5 December, the day the four met.²⁰

Gib gives their reasons: “That they might be in a condition and capacity to exercise all the parts of their pastoral office; that they might have a more special claim to the promise of the divine presence among them; … that they might be in a better capacity for affording help and relief to the oppressed heritage of God through the land”. M’Kerrow writes that “for some time to come their meetings should be held chiefly for prayer and religious conference”, before any judicial acts; MacPherson says that they did not proceed to acts of judicature “for about two years”.²¹

The year 1733 is given by all the sources cited here except Naismith, who writes that the Seceders “seceded from the Established Church in 1732”.²²

Deposed in 1740

The Assembly of 1734 tried to undo the breach. It empowered the Synod of Perth and Stirling to take up the case of the four “for uniting the said four brethren to the communion of this Church, and restoring them to their respective ministerial charges”, without judging the former proceedings. MacPherson writes that the Seceders “declined to be reponed [restored] by the Synod”, because the Acts they objected to were unrepealed.²³

Ralph Erskine and Thomas Mair joined the Presbytery in February 1737, Thomas Nairn in October 1737 and James Thomson of Burntisland in June 1738, according to MacPherson. In May 1739 the eight answered the Assembly’s libel [formal charge] with a paper entitled “Act of the Associate Presbytery”, declaring that the judicatories of the Church “are not lawful nor right constituted courts of Christ”.²⁴

On 15 May 1740 the Assembly, “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sole King and Head of the Church”, deposed “Messrs Ebenezer Erskine at Stirling, William Wilson at Perth, Alexander Moncrieff at Abernethy, James Fisher at Kinclaven, Ralph Erskine at Dunfermline, Thomas Mair at Orwell, Thomas Nairn at Abbotshall, and James Thomson at Burntisland, ministers, from the office of the holy ministry”, and declared their parishes vacant.²⁵

Erskine noted in his own manuscripts the texts he preached on in those weeks, and Fraser prints the notes: “Stirling, Sabbath, May 11, 1740.—The Assembly sitting for deposing the Associate Ministers: Psalm cxviii. 8. ‘It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.’” Then: “May 18, 1740—being the Sabbath on which I was turned out of the church”.²⁶

MacPherson writes that the Associate Presbytery formed itself into the Associate Synod, which met for the first time on the first Tuesday of March 1745, with three presbyteries; M’Kerrow counts twenty-six ministers then.²⁷