A HISTORY OF PRESBYTERIANISM IN NEW ENGLAND. ITS INTRODUCTION, GROWTH, DECAY, REVIVAL BY ALEXANDER BLAIKIE, D.D., FOR THIRTY-THREE YEARS Pastor of the (U.) FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BOSTON. "Thy saints take pleasure in her stones, Her very dust to them is dear." TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. BOSTON: PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR BY ALEXANDER MOORE, 1881. Price $2.00. Sold by subscription. Sent by mail. BX 8939 Copyright November 14th, 1881, by ALEXANDER BLAIKIE, 2121 North 16th St., Philadelphia. FERGUSON BROS. & Co., PHILADELPHIA. 5-2561 X Dedication. TO PRESBYTERIANS IN NEW ENGLAND. RESPECTED FRIENDS :-Our “Form of sound words," embracing doctrine, worship, government and discipline, is not ephemeral. As a more exact embodiment of revealed truth, than is found elsewhere among human productions, it will be perpetuated. Both Prelacy and Congregationalism borrow our axle to keep their wheels in motion. They could not usefully exist without at least some consultative, if not judicial representation. As we see, in the case of the seven churches in Lesser Asia, the influence of revealed truth is not always equable and enduring. It performs its mission successfully, in proportion to the faithfulness of its professors. Let us therefore be "valiant for the truth in the earth," and be "judged faithful to the Lord"-" followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." This work is written, that, you may know something of the doctrine, faithfulness, endurance and success or otherwise, of Presbyterians in former generations here—under the overshadowing influence of a different church polity-sustained by the civil power. It is "written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord." (3) PREFACE. 66 THROWN by Divine Providence among Presbyterians, who were "strangers in a strange land," and subsequently called to reclaim (if practicable) the church estate entailed for their denominational use in the New England metropolis, the equity of title to which was once enjoyed by our pastor, church and congregation, by our Presbytery and Synod of the bounds;" but, perverted first, by schism, and then by furtive and hasty local legislation, impairing the obligations of a contract, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, it became necessary for the writer to examine existing records of church courts. This duty and privilege opened to him a new field of study and observation, of which, in common with others, he had known but a little. As the records were extensively lost, a knowledge of the principles, privations, sectarian oppression, and toils, of his denominational predecessors were floating into oblivion, and while the name survived, those who then wore it were extensively succumbing before a different species of ecclesiastical polity. From these and similar facts, on consideration, he thought, that a contribution, not yet written, might be made to the history of a portion of the church militant, that in an historic form, it might "strengthen the things that remain and are ready to die," while the workings of Divine Providence towards and with our people, may afford a melancholy interest to those whose hearts still "tremble for the ark of God." In attempting to do this, his difficulty was much increased, by the changes, which have been (and are being) rung, on and under the specific name, Presbyterian, in two hundred years. In the Council at Edinburgh in A.D. 1877, no less than forty-nine divisions were found to take shelter under the general name. Hence some type of it must be selected, as an approximation to a standard, and finding, that, that one which British Presbyterians have ever brought to America, is more extensively authorized by divine revelation than any other, the writer assumes it, (excepting, the chapters, circa sacra), as the criterion |