In 1724, the Synod had so increased, and it had become so difficult to secure a full and regular attendance, that the question was raised in regard to some measure of relief. It was finally decided in favor of delegation. The Presbyteries of New Castle and Philadelphia were to delegate half their members yearly to the Synod, and the Presbytery of Long Island was to send two of their number. Every third year, however, there was to be a full meeting of Synod. At this meeting all the members were to be present. The commission was also authorized to call such a full meeting whenever the emergency might require. Members, whether delegated or not, were left at liberty to attend as formerly "if they see cause."

In 1726, the attention of the Synod was called to dif ficulties which had occurred in the church at Newark, of which Webb was pastor. At his own request, a commission was appointed with a view to compose them; but the result did not answer his expectation. With Hubbell, Jones, and Evans, he joined in a protest against the measures which had been taken; and it was several years before a full reconciliation took place between the protestants and the Synod.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ADOPTING ACT, A.D, 1729.

THE year 1729 has been rendered memorable by the celebrated Adopting Act of the Synod. It is difficult at this day to say with whom the measure originated, although the practice which prevailed in the New Castle Presbytery-composed largely of Irish members of requiring subscription to the Confession of

Faith from the ministers admitted to their body, renders it not improbable that it was first urged by them. It was a new measure. No sufficient evidence has yet been adduced in proof of subscription, or the adoption of a specific constitution, by the members of the original Presbytery. Indeed, such a thing was altogether unknown to them. In 1698, Andrews went to Philadelphia; Makemie had already been in the country for several years; and yet it was not till 1698 that the Irish Synod enacted, in conformity with the law of the Established Church of Scotland, that no young man should be licensed to preach the gospel unless "he subscribe the Confession of Faith in all the articles thereof as the confession of his faith."

Up to this period it had been regarded as important, far less as a security against heretical members than as a testimony to the truthful and scriptural position of a body asking toleration of the civil magistrate. But shortly after this, developments took place which gave it a new importance in the eyes of the Synod.1 Thomas Emlyn, of Dublin, avowed himself an Arian, and published a defence of his doctrinal positions. Lax views had begun soon after this to gain ground among the Dissenting ministers of London. To vindicate their own character from the suspicions of government, rather than from any suspicion of the orthodoxy of their own members, the Irish Synod in 1705 re-enacted the law requiring subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith of all persons licensed or ordained. Anxious to secure the repeal of the obnoxious sacramental test, legal protection for their worship and government, and a restoration and increase of the royal bounty, the Irish Church felt it incumbent upon them to vindicate their doctrinal soundness from all possible

1 Reid's History of the Irish Presbyterian Church.

question. But, acknowledging as they did the right of the state to ascertain the belief of religious bodies applying for protection, they felt it necessary to declare their views. Their choice lay between the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England as subscribed by their Dissenting brethren across the Channel, and the Westminster Confession of Faith as adopted by the Church of Scotland. The latter was preferred in 1709, and again in 1714, upon the accession of George I.

But by 1714 a change had taken place in the views of some of the ministers in and near Dublin. They had been educated among the English Dissenters, and preferred a summary of doctrine more concise than either the Thirty-Nine Articles or the Westminster Confession. But even yet they professed to adhere to the doctrines of the Confession; and in the Synod of 1716 it was decided, with only a single dissenting voice, to adhere to it as declaring the faith of the Church. Only in case of objection on the part of government was the formula which had been drawn up to be presented as a substitute.

It was while these discussions were going forward that the seeds of future danger to the Church were sown. In 1703, John Abernethy was settled at Antrim. By his exertions an association of ministers was formed for mutual improvement in theological knowledge. It drew into it some of the most promising and able men of the Church, and was known as the Belfast Society. Discussions arose on the subjects of religious liberty, subscription to confessions, the nature and extent of church power, and opinions were advanced and maintained which tended to an extreme liberalism, not to say radicalism.1

It was not long before other ministers of the Church

1 Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. VOL. I.-5

took the alarm. The danger was aggravated in their estimate by reports from abroad. The Presbyterian churches of Switzerland had extensively fallen away from the vital doctrines of the gospel. The writings of Whiston, Clarke, and Hoadly, in England, followed by the debates and publications of the Dissenters at Salter's Hall, showed that in London all was not sound even among those who bore the honored names of a Puritan ancestry. In Scotland, moreover, the seeds of unsound doctrine had been widely sown. In 1714-16, Professor Simpson, who occupied the divinity-chair in the University of Glasgow, and under whom not a few of the Irish as well as Scottish ministers had been trained, had been tried by the General Assembly for teaching Arminian and Pelagian errors; and the leniency of the sentence declared the extent to which he was shielded by the sympathy of the Assembly's members. Abernethy himself, and another prominent member of the Belfast Society, had been Simpson's fellow-students, while others had been his theological pupils. With the Belfast Society, moreover, the Dublin ministers, who were in all essential points Independents, were in strong sympathy.

In these circumstances, while there was real danger to the Church, it is not strange that it should have been vastly magnified by the fears and apprehensions of those who had taken the alarm. "There is a perfect Hoadly mania among our young ministers in the North," wrote Francis-afterward Professor--Hutchison from Armagh, in 1718, to a friend in Scotland. He ascribed this antipathy to confessions to "other grounds than a new spirit of charity." It was his conviction that Dr. Clarke's book had shaken, if not changed, the views of several.

It was in 1720 that Abernethy ventured to publish a sermon on "Religious obedience founded on personal

persuasion." It was objectionable on several grounds; but its most fatal error was that all doctrines were nonessential on which "human reason and Christian sincerity permitted men to differ." This was opening a wide door for error. It set aside at once not only the subscription that had been required, but all checks upon the admission of unconverted men to the Church and ministry. The practice of some of the Presbyteries was correspondingly lax. It was justly feared that the fruits of the seed already sown would be a harvest of errors more objectionable than any thing which had yet appeared. A war of pamphlets followed. It was impossible to guard the purity or peace of the Church if the principles of the Belfast Society were to be generally adopted. The Dissenters of London were many of them already fast verging toward Arianism. The Dublin ministers did not come far behind them, and the principles of Abernethy and his friends were such that they might claim to be left unmolested even if they chose to take the same position.

In these circumstances, the Synod felt called upon to act. They compromised with the Belfast brethren to preserve unity, but only divided their own councils. It. was a great mistake, and they found it so at last. Instead of a simple enforcement through legitimate authority of the discipline of the Church, they sacrificed that discipline to prevent the threatened danger. Peace was not secured. The breach between the subscribers and non-subscribers was only widened. Yet the moderate portion of the party who favored subscription did their best to prevent any division. The sermon before the Synod of 1720 by Robert Craighead, the last moderator, was entitled "A Plea for Peace, or the nature, causes, mischiefs, and remedy of church divisions." But it failed to secure the object designed. At length the reproach of departing from her own standards was