Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:39:49.687Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Community and Discipline in Ulster Presbyterianism, c.1770–1840*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Andrew Holmes
Andrew Holmes*
Affiliation:
The Queen’s University, Belfast
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Ulster Presbyterians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries formally dealt out retribution, repentance and reconciliation through church discipline administered by Kirk sessions and presbyteries. These institutional structures had given Presbyterians an organizational framework that enhanced their geographical concentration in the north-east of Ireland. Hitherto, historians of Presbyterianism in Ireland have taken the view, often based on evidence from the period before 1740, that discipline was effective, broad in its coverage, and hard yet fair in its judgements, claims made all the more remarkable as the north-east had the highest illegitimacy rates in Ireland during the period under consideration. It has been argued that though the system largely survived the eighteenth century, it collapsed at the turn of the nineteenth because of a loss of morale among Presbyterians after the failure of the 1798 rebellion in which many thousands of them had taken part.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 40: Retribution, Repentance, and Reconciliation , 2004 , pp. 266 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the AHRB for the award of a postgraduate studentship under which the research for this paper was carried out. I would like to thank Dr David Hayton for comments upon an earlier draft of this paper and Dr Paul Gray for permission to use his as yet unavailable thesis.

References

1 Gillespie, Raymond, ‘The Presbyterian Revolution in Ulster, 1660–1690’, in Shells, W. J. and Wood, Diana, eds. The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, SCH 25 (Oxford, 1989), 159–70 Google Scholar.

2 Barkley, J. M., ‘A History of the Ruling Eldership in Irish Presbyterianism’, unpublished MA thesis, 2 vols, The Queen’s University, Belfast [hereafter, QUB], 1952 Google Scholar; idem, The Eldership in Irish Presbyterianism (n.p., 1963); Gray, W. P., ‘A Social History of Illegitimacy in Ireland from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, QUB, 2000, ch. 4Google Scholar.

3 Brooke, Peter, Ulster Presbyterianism: the Historical Perspective, 1610–1970 (2nd edn, Belfast, 1994), 157–8, n. 151 Google Scholar.

4 Leneman, Leah and Mitchison, Rosalind, Sexuality and Social Control: Scotland 1660–1780 (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar.

5 Brown, C. G., Religion and Society in Scotland since 1707 (Edinburgh, 1997), 73 Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 69.

7 For an elucidation of this distinction see Heinz Schilling, ‘“History of Crime” or “History of Sin”? – Some Reflections on the Social History of Early Modern Church Discipline’, in E. I. Kouri and Tom Scott, eds, Politics and Society in Reformation Europe: Essays for Geoffrey Elton on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Basingstoke, 1987), 289–310.

8 A Pastoral Address from the Ministers of the Synod of Ulster, Assembled at their Annual Meeting, to the People under their Care (n.p., 1809), 1.

9 Crawford, W. H., ‘Economy and Society in Eighteenth-Century Ulster’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, QUB, 1982, ch. 6Google Scholar.

10 The Confession of Faith; the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, with the Scripture Proofs at Large (London, 1646; repr. Inverness, 1976), 121.

11 Latimer, W. T., A History of the Irish Presbyterians (2nd edn, Belfast, 1902), 340 Google Scholar.

12 Belfast, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland [hereafter PRONI] Ballycarry session book, 1740–80, CR/3/31/2.

13 Millin, S. Shannon, History of the Second Congregation of Protestant Dissenters in Belfast 1708–1896 (Belfast, 1900)Google Scholar; Gordon, A. G., Historical Memorials of the First Presbyterian Church of Belfast (Belfast, 1887)Google Scholar; Belfast, Presbyterian Historical Society [hereafter PHS], Minutes of Bangor Presbytery, 1774–90.

14 Crawford, R. G., ‘A Critical Examination of Nineteenth-Century Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Theology in Ireland’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, 2 vols, QUB, 1964, 2: 309–10 Google Scholar.

15 Matthew, George, An Account of the Regium Donum, Issued to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (Dublin, 1836), 27 Google Scholar. For the same problem in a different context, cf. Paert, Irina, ‘Penance and the Priestless Old Believers in Modern Russia, 1771–18505’, 278–90 belowGoogle Scholar.

16 Oliver, William, Pastoral Provision: or, the Income of the Irish Presbyterian Clergy Shown to be Insufficient (Belfast, 1856), 70 Google Scholar.

17 Clark, Thomas, New Light Set in a Clear Light ([Dublin], 1755), 50–67 Google Scholar; Christian Freeman [hereafter CF] 2 (1834), 198–202.

18 Stewart, David, The Seceders in Ireland: with Annals of their Congregations (Belfast, 1980), 406–9 Google Scholar.

19 PRONI, Cahans session book, 1752–8, 1767–1836, CR/3/25B/1 & 2.

20 Stewart, Seceders, 65.

21 For example, PHS, Minutes of the Down Presbytery (Seceder), title page.

22 Gray, ‘Illegitimacy’, 115. Other examples may be found in Barkley, ‘Ruling Eldership’, vol. 2.

23 Dill, Samuel, A Sermon on the Duty of Ministers and their Connexion with Christ; Preached at the Meeting of the Particular Synod in Londonderry, May 18th, 1802 (Londonderry, [1802]), 21–2 Google Scholar.

24 Annual Address of the General Synod of Ulster to the Churches under their Care (Belfast, 1833), 10; Orthodox Presbyterian [hereafter OP] 6 (1835), 240–3.

25 The Constitution and Discipline of the Presbyterian Church Published by Authority of the General Synod of Ulster (Belfast, 1825) [hereafter Code].

26 Records of the General Synod of Ulster (Belfast, 1831), 32–4 and (Belfast, 1837), 28.

27 OP6(1834), 60.

28 PRONI, Ballymoney session book (Synod of Ulster), 1827–66, CR/3/i/B/4;Barkley, ‘Ruling Eldership’, 2: 297; PRONI, Portstewart session book (Synod of Ulster), 1826–77, MIC/1P/83/1.

29 For a list of the surviving pre-1800 recotds see Barkley, Eldership in Irish Presbyterianism, 22.

30 Annual Address of the General Synod of Ulster to the Churches, 10–11.

31 For example, Dill, J. R., The Dill Worthies (Centenary edn, Draperstown and Ballymena, 1992), 48–73 Google Scholar.

32 Code, 19, 78–83.

33 Records of the General Synod of Ulster, 3 vols (Belfast, 1897–8), 3: 212.

34 Gray, ‘Illegitimacy’, 105–6; Leneman and Mitchison, Sexuality and Social Control, 50–2.

35 Code, 64.

36 Parker, Charles, ‘The Moral Agency and Moral Autonomy of Church Folk in the Dutch Reformed Church of Delft, 1580–1620’, JEH 48 (1997), 44–70: 47, 51 Google Scholar.

37 Barkley, , ‘Ruling Eldership’, 2: 231–2, 236, 256, 271 Google Scholar.

38 Code, 69.

39 Barkley, ‘Ruling Eldership’, vol. 2. For the importance of good neighbourliness in another context see D. B. Rutman, ‘Assessing the Little Communities of Early America’, William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser., 43 (1986), 163–78.

40 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, vol. 2: Parishes of County Antrim 1, 1838–9, ed. Angélique Day and Patrick McWilliams (Belfast, 1990), 86.

41 PHS, Ballybay session book, 23 May 1820.

42 R. M. Browne, ‘Kirk and Community: Ulster Presbyterian Society, 1640–1740’, unpublished MPhil. thesis, QUB, 1998, 94–8.

43 PHS, Down Presbytery (Seceder) 1785–1800, 1818–39; Minutes of Ballymena Presbytery (Synod of Ulster), 1808–19; Minutes of Route Presbytery (Synod of Ulster, typescript), 1811–34.

44 Cashdollar, Charles D., A Spiritual Home: Life in British and American Reformed Congregations, 1830–1915 (University Park, PA, 2000), 146–8 Google Scholar.

45 Denham, James, Public Baptism Vindicated by an Appeal to Scriptural Authority, and the Nature and Uses of the Ordinance; with an Answer to Prevailing Objections (Derry, 1844), 24–30 Google Scholar.

46 Code, 65–6, 78–83.

47 PHS, Down Presbytery (Seceder), 28 August 1827, 11 August 1829, 17 August 1830: 8, 98 and 142 respectively.

48 PHS, Route Presbytery (Synod of Ulster), 10 May 1831, 295; Goudy, A. P., Zion’s Good; or, the Position and Duty of the Irish Presbyterian Church, at the Present Time (Derry, 1848), 14 Google Scholar.

49 Gray, ‘Illegitimacy’, 105–6.

50 Cashdollar, Spiritual Home, 148–50; Brown, Religion and Society, 72–3.

51 CF 1 (1833), 116; Stewart, Seceders, 216–20; Malcolm, Elizabeth, Ireland Sober, Ireland Free: Drink and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin, 1986)Google Scholar.

52 For general comments see David Hempton and Myrtle Hill, Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster Society 1740–1S90 (London, 1992), 113–21.

53 Cashdollar argues that this was the case amongst Reformed communities in Britain and America during the nineteenth century: Spiritual Home, 139, 148.

54 This is not to suggest that religious differences were unimportant in determining levels of illegitimacy. See the comments of Gray, ‘Illegitimacy’, 159–63,314–15.

55 Hempton and Hill, Evangelical Protestantism, 105–28.

56 OP 8 (1837), 167.

57 Cashdollar, Spiritual Home, 138–50.

58 Ibid.