2. We learn here what the strict Scotch Presbyterians would call "new and strange doctrines and absurdities," and which were opposed to the Divine right of Presbytery established in Scotland; which doctrines and absurdities ought not to be tolerated, but suppressed.

3. We see also how, according to their system, it was to be done, viz: If mild and persuasive means were not sufficient, the civil magistrate had power to do it, ought to do it, and, if necessary, do it by force of arms.

4. Would not the American Presbytery have been glad to receive into their connexion such pious, good, and useful men, as these are acknowledged to have been, even by their persecutors? And might they not, with Andrews and his countrymen of Jersey, have got along well enough with the Presbytery, constituted, as it was, upon such liberal and tolerant principles respecting these non-essentials?

5. Would not such rigid Divine right Presbyterians, as Willison said the Scotch church was composed of at that day, have opposed such a tolerant system as was used by the American Presbytery, as opening the floodgates of error and corruption? Ought they not to have opposed the American system to have been consistent? Did they not stir up strife, contention, and division, as soon as they became connected with the American Presbytery?

6. From the peace and harmony they had at first, is it not reasonable to conclude there were none of these intolerant Scotchmen among them at their commencement?

I would have it expressly understood, that I am not now expressing my own opinions or preferences, but, as a faithful historian, telling matters of fact, as they occurred in the infancy of our church. If they had not adopted the best plan in all things, they evinced at least a truly Christian temper, and were free from a sectarian spirit of bigotry. They were tolerant and forbearing in spirit and in practice; and, whatever defects might be discovered in their form of government and discipline, they were sound and orthodox in doctrinal sentiments, and were particularly careful that those whom they admitted into 'the Ministry should be sound in the faith and free from every heretical taint as to doctrines. This is admitted on all sides; and, what is more, they were men of ardent and consistent piety, and zealous advocates for fervent and experimental religion. It is due to candor to state these facts respecting the kind of Presbyterianism first introduced into America; and if I should disapprove of some things in use among them, or even think them of dangerous tendency, I cannot think myself at liberty to suppress the truth on that account, much less to torture and wrest their minutes and proceedings, to make them appear to be what they were not, or to obtain an argument to support a favorite hypothesis, or to build up a party.

acter.

Makemie and Andrews's strong friendship and attachment to each other, and the influence these master-spirits had, the one over the Presbyterian brethren and the other over the Congregational brethren, preserved peace and harmony among those who might easily have been set to wrangling by a meddlesome, factious, sectarian bigot. After the death of Makemie and Wilson and Taylor, who all died within a short time of each other, and about four or five years after the Presbytery had been organized, their loss was seriously felt, and the Presbytery began gradually to change its charAbout fifteen years after its commencement, and thenceforward for twenty years, or a little more, clergymen and private members from Scotland, and others from Ireland, who had no connexion with the London Union, and who were of a very different character from those first sent out, began to emigrate to this region in great numbers, and soon gained the ascendency in their judicatories. Then the floodgates of strife and contention were thrown wide open, which in 1741 came to an open rupture, and rent the church asunder. But these transactions must furnish materials for succeeding numbers. This number brings us only to the formation of the first Presbytery, and gives us information respecting the original members who formed it, and the genius and character of that ecclesiastical connexion which they introduced into the American Colonies, which now form these United States of America. We shall hereafter have more ample and authentic documents to go upon, drawn from an unbroken series of minutes down to the present time. We shall therefore be able to give chapter and verse for what will be advanced, and shall not be compelled to use such extensive extracts from histories and authors of various kinds; nor shall we have to deal as much in conjecture for the want of satisfactory authority. Here then we close the present number.

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APPENDIX.

The following is a true copy from an old pamphlet that was published at the time when the transaction took place to which it refers, and reprinted in the city of New York, by H. Gaine, at the printing office between Fly and Meal markets, 1755; furnished by Doctor John McDowell, Philadelphia. The title page is as follows, viz:

A narrative of a new and unusual American Imprisonment of two Presbyterian Ministers, and prosecution of Mr. Francis Makemie, one of them, for preaching one sermon in the city of New York, on the 20th day of January, 1706-7.

This narrative has the following epistle to the reader:

Ingenuous Reader: You have here a specimen of the clogs and fetters with which the liberties of Dissenters are entangled in New York and Jerşey government beyond any places in her Majesty's [i. e. Queen Anne's] dominions; and where the conditions and impositions required are as heavy as the ground of their separation and dissent, it is next to no liberty at all.

And what the consequences of such practices, if persisted in, will prove to such a place, where Dissenters are above twenty to one for one Churchman, and where men and money are so wanting for the defence of New York, both by sea and land, which not many years (by demands of men and money from the neighboring colonies on the continent) was represented as their own barrier and frontier, I leave to thinking men and considering politicians to answer; besides the difficulties and discouragements laid in the way to promote deserters from the provinces.

I cannot omit a true and strange story I lately heard of; that during the imprisonment of these two gentlemen, either to find out a crime, none being specified in the mittimus, or to aggravate their imaginary faults, an order was given to Major Sandford, of East Jersey, to put sundry persons upon examination and their oaths, to discover what discourse they had with sundry of their friends at the house of Mr. Jasper Crane, in Newark town in East Jersey, where Mr. Samuel Melyen, Mr. Crane, and another gave their depositions before Major Sandford, but found nothing to their purpose; though the practice is not to be outdone, yea, scarce paralleled by the Spanish Inquisition, for no men are safe in their most private conver

sations, if most intimate friends can be compelled, upon oath, to betray one another's secrets. If this is agreeable to the English constitution and privileges, I confess we have been hitherto in the dark.

Preaching in a private house was a crime, and preaching since, after being declared not guilty by a legal trial, in a public church allowed by law to the French, is since resented as a greater, by that unchristian clamor made soon after by some high-flown sparks-pretended sons of the church —who, with a great deal of unbounded fury, declared that if such things were allowed their church was ruined. Which is a language of the same nature of these high-flyers in England, who were declared by a vote of the House of Lords enemies to the Queen and Government, for suggesting the church was in danger from the liberty or toleration of Dissenters.

Though preaching a sermon and printing it, as the cause of imprisonment, be reputed a libel, to justify opening of letters and seizing books without restoration or satisfaction, I hope it will be no crime for losers to speak in telling the world what we have suffered on sundry accounts; not, only by imprisonment and the exorbitant and expensive prosecution, and, besides great loss of time, many diminutive reproaches upon our reputations, by a set of men who could reach by their short horns to no higher degree of persecution; and all this for preaching one sermon without obtaining license, which they could not in terminis submit to, neither can, nor dare in conscience do, to this day. And even for such as have this new-moulded license, it is a crime to preach in another place than is expressed in said license, or for any to preach in their pulpits. If a people want a Minister, they must have a license to call one, whether from New England or Europe; a license to admit Ministers to attend any ordination, and limited for number, and tied up from exercising their ministry without license, though in a transient manner, which has drove some out of the government, and deterred others from coming thereunto; which informs all what liberty of conscience Dissenters do enjoy.

Mr. Makemie, since the trial, narrowly escaped a second prosecution for preaching another sermon, and, as some say, with a new charge of being the author of the Jersey paper called "Forget and Forgive;" which is so groundless a charge, in which his accusers cannot believe themselves, while the authors smile at the mistake, and other men are suffering imprisonment on account of the said paper, and which will appear to have been composed before Mr. Makemie came into these parts.

This narrative consists chiefly of these parts of matter: 1st. Their precepts for their apprehending and commitment. 2d. Sundry petitions. 3d. The interlocutory conference promoted and extorted from Makemie. 4th. Copies of records attested by Mr. Secretary. 5th. The pleadings of the