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1761 Scottish Presbyterian denomination
The
Relief Church
(or
Presbytery of Relief
) was a Scottish Presbyterian denomination founded in 1761.
[1]
In 1847 it united with the
United Secession Church
to form the
United Presbyterian Church of Scotland
.
In relation to the history of the
Church of Scotland
it is known as the
Second Secession
: relating to the
First Secession
of 1733.
History
[
edit
]
The church was founded by
Thomas Gillespie
, a former minister of the
Church of Scotland
. He had been deposed by the General Assembly in 1752 after he refused to participate in inducting a minister to the
Inverkeithing
parish since the parishioners opposed the appointment. Gillespie was joined by
Thomas Boston
of
Oxnam
and Thomas Colier of
Westmoreland
. They held the first meeting of the Presbytery of Relief at
Colinsburgh
in
Fife
in 1761. The name was chosen to mean relief from the patronage that was common in the Church of Scotland at the time.
The Relief body was liberal, welcoming independents, Episcopalians and other devout men to join them.
In 1766 the distinguished minister
James Baine
resigned from his presbytery of
Paisley
and joined the Relief Church. In his letter of resignation Baine asserted that his faith and belief in his former creed was unchanged, but he was resigning due to abuses of church power.
The number of congregations grew rapidly, and a Relief Synod was formed in 1773, which in 1847 had under its jurisdiction 136 congregations. The Relief Church issued no distinctive testimonies, and a certain breadth of view was shown in the formal declaration of their terms of communion, first made in 1773, which allowed occasional communion with those of the Episcopal and Independent persuasion.
In 1794 the Relief Church adopted as its hymn-book
Patrick Hutchison
's
Sacred Songs and Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture
, and it was Hutchison who established the first systematic definition of the Relief Church's beliefs.
A Relief theological hall was instituted in 1824. In 1847 a union was formed between all the congregations of the United Secession Church and 118 out of 136 of the Relief Churches, in what became the United Presbyterian Church.
[4]
References
[
edit
]
Sources
[
edit
]
- McCrie, C. G. (1893).
The Free Church of Scotland : her ancestry, her claims, and her conflicts
. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. pp.
60
-62
. Retrieved
29 June
2020
.
- Morren, Nathaniel
(1840).
Annals of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ... from the origin of the Relief in 1752 to the rejection of the overture on schism in 1766
. John Johnstone.
- Rankin, James (1879).
A handbook of the Church of Scotland
. W. Blackwood. p.
57
.
- Small, Robert (1904a).
History of the congregations of the United Presbyterian Church, from 1733 to 1900
. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: David M. Small
. Retrieved
12 July
2020
.
- Small, Robert (1904b).
History of the congregations of the United Presbyterian Church, from 1733 to 1900
. Vol. 2. Edinburgh: David M. Small
. Retrieved
12 July
2020
.
- Thomson, Andrew; Struthers, Gavin (1858).
Historical sketch of the origin of the Secession Church and the History of the rise of the Relief Church
. Edinburgh and London: A. Fullerton and Co
. Retrieved
12 July
2020
.
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