intercourse between the Assembly and the New England churches. "I am responsible," says Dr. Green, in his autobiography, " for the correspondence between 'em and us."

CHAPTER XI.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESBYTERIES, 1779-1818.

JUST ten years before the meeting of the first General Assembly, a secession took place from the Presbytery of New York, which deserves at least a passing notice in the history of the Church. It was based mainly on the principle of the independency of the local church; although conjoined with this was the assumption that the power of ordination was vested not in the church, but in the Presbytery.1

The originator of the movement was Jacob Green,2 from 1746 to 1790 the pastor of the Presbyterian church of Hanover, New Jersey. He was a native of Malden, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard College in 1744. Although he had cherished a Christian hope, he was led to abandon it on listening to the sermons of Whitefield (September, 1740), and especially to a powerful one by Gilbert Tennent in January, 1741. His mental exercises were of a most humbling nature. He was bowed to the dust under the deep sense of

1 This account is largely derived from a manuscript "History of the Secession from the Synod of New York and Philadelphia in 1780, which assumed the name of 'The Associated Presbytery of Morris County.' By Rev. Dr. N. S. Prime.

2 Father of Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green.

his unworthiness, and extracts from his diary show how thorough must have been the work of his conviction.

After teaching for about a year, subsequent to his leaving college, he met again with Whitefield, who engaged him to go to Georgia to take charge of the Orphan-House. On reaching New Jersey, he learned from him that he had just received information which rendered it impracticable to assure Mr. Green of permanent employment. He offered, however, to employ him for six months, or refund to him the expense that he had already incurred. By the advice of Dickinson and Burr, he chose the latter alternative, with a view to labor as a minister within the bounds of the Presbytery. In September, 1745, he was licensed by the Presbytery of New York, and almost immediately was invited to preach at Hanover, where, in November of the following year, he was regularly ordained and installed pastor.

After more than thirty years' experience of the Presbyterian system, he deliberately resolved to withdraw from his connection with it. He did not object to its doctrines. He made no complaint of his brethren in the Presbytery, for whom generally he expressed his high esteem as "worthy and excellent ministers of the gospel." His exceptions were directed against the

1 Although this was the case, yet his views of the Abrahamic covenant, baptism, and kindred subjects were such as, through his published discourses, to bring him into controversy with some of the New England ministers. Shortly after the re-union (1758), he avowed himself, in his published work on Baptism, an Edwardian,— representing Stoddard and Edwards as the leading exponents of conflicting views. It is altogether probable that his strong Newside sympathies led him to regard the union with the Old side as quite objectionable, and strengthened his purpose to withdraw from Synod. He is the first minister in this country-so far as I am aware-who publicly declared himself an "Edwardian."

exercise of power by the Synod, according to "the Directory of Church Government authorized by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland." "They assumed," he said, "the authoritative enacting style in their Minutes, appointing and requiring, instead of recommending and desiring." They moreover assumed a "legislative power," "appointed ministers and candidates to travel to distant parts, supply vacancies, &c.,"-had" ordered-not desired-contributions,"-had claimed a power to liberate ministers from their people, against the will of the latter,-as, for instance, "several presidents for the college." They had required candidates to study a year after taking their degree, had ordered licentiates to write their notes at large and show them to some minister,-had enjoined the keeping of registers of births, baptisms, marriages, and burials, had also enjoined ministers not to use notes in preaching; and, in the union of the two Synods, the Westminster Confession, "without any liberty for explanation in any article, was enjoined upon all their ministers, who were to teach and preach accordingly."

Some of these orders and injunctions were undoubtedly regarded by Mr. Green in the light of personal grievances. He was licensed without the year of study required after graduation. After the New England manner, he doubtless preferred the use of "notes." Collections in his congregation he would rather have "desired" than "ordered;" and his liberal sympathies. revolted at the rigidity of the "Scotch system." But he greatly mistook, either through prejudice or inadvertence, when he assumed that the "Scotch system" was in force; and quite a large amount of his repugnance might have been overcome if he had known or remembered that provision had been made for the scruples" of the candidate, and that he was to be

admitted by the Synod or Presbytery, unless his scruple or mistake concerned some "essential and necessary" doctrine. In justice to himself, moreover, he should have stated that the injunction not to use notes was materially qualified by the clause which left it to the "convenience" of the minister.

But he had taken his position, and, in spite of the kind remonstrances of the Presbytery, he was not disposed to recede from it. He insisted upon his right quietly and peaceably to withdraw, cherishing the kindest feelings toward his ministerial associates, and uniting with them still in ministerial communion, or sitting, if desired, as a corresponding member of the Presbytery. Of his two congregations, one (Hanover Neck) chose still to remain under the care of the Presbytery, retaining him as their pastor; and to this the Presbytery made no objection.

At the same time (October, 1779) that Mr. Green thus requested the privilege of quietly withdrawing from Presbyterial connection, Joseph Grover,' reported in 1774 as a licensed candidate from New England, and who since that time had been settled at Parsippany, sent in to the Presbytery a paper declaratory of his "quiet withdrawal." He had been surprised to find, after his settlement, that he was viewed as a member of Synod, and when "lately admonished by the Synod for not attending Synodical meetings," he appears to have felt that his ecclesiastical freedom was infringed upon, and, consequently, chose to seek release from a body with which he did not suppose himself to have entered into connection.

At the May meeting of the Presbytery, Amzi Lewis, pastor (from 1772) of the churches of Florida and Warwick, N.Y., "entered a declinature" which, at his

1 Erroneously said to have been a graduate of Yale College.

request, was returned to him, when he declared "that he peaceably withdrew from the Presbytery, and chose no longer to be considered as a member of the same." At the same time, Ebenezer Bradford, a graduate of Princeton in 1773, and from July 14, 1775, pastor of the church of South Hanover, "gave in a declinature, whereby he withdrew from the Synod and this (New York) Presbytery." Efforts were made to induce the seceding brethren to retrace their steps, but they proved futile. The churches were regarded still as under the care of the Presbytery, and measures were taken to bring before them the question of their future ecclesiastical connection. Hanover Neck and South Hanover seem alone to have been disposed to remain in their former ecclesiastical relations.

This was the entire extent of the original secession.2 Of the four ministers who withdrew, all but Mr. Green were young men, with brief experience in the ministry, and all of them, with the single exception of Mr. Bradford, were from New England, while Mr. Bradford was the son-in-law of Mr. Green. They withdrew, to the regret of the Presbytery, by whom they were esteemed and respected, and that esteem and respect were largely reciprocated. To the last appeal of the Presbytery, the seceding brethren returned a kind reply, in which they stated that they had formed themselves into a Presbytery, and had "no inclination to dissolve the voluntary connection into which they had

1 Subsequently known as Bottle Hill, now Madison.

2 So it would appear from Dr. N. S. Prime's manuscript "History of the Associated Presbyteries." But several years previous to the organization of the Morris County Presbytery, at least in 1769 or 1770, Abner Reeve, of Blooming Grove, N.Y., Moses Tuttle, of New York Presbytery, and Mr. Dorbe, of Parsippany, declared in favor of Independency, and withdrew from Synod and Presbytery.- Webster,