Some Notes on Dissenters and the Church of Scotland

Religion was important to Scots in all walks of life. The Church was the vehicle for expressing inner spirituality and changes to its forms of worship could endanger your chances of salvation, so differences of view within a religious group, that to us may look minimal, were in the 18th and 19th century of great existential importance. Your eternal soul could end up in heaven or hell if you made the wrong choice.

Apart from the wellbeing of one's eternal soul, the Church was crucial in all aspects of everyday life. It was responsible for education, health, welfare and discipline. The state functions that most of us now regard as matters of politics and the judicial system were then largely subject to the authority of the Church.

After a long history of conflict, at the "Glorious Revolution” of 1688, the Church of Scotland was finally recognized as a Presbyterian institution by the monarch.

Churches which are not part of the Church of Scotland are often referred to as nonconformist. By the 19th century a majority of the population was non-Conformist. There were two categories of so-called nonconformist churches in Scotland:

• Dissenters or sometimes called seceders or secessionists - those who seceded from the main church but were still Presbyterian in form. Such dissenting churches included Associate, Covenanters, Burghers, Anti-burgher, Free church, Reformed Presbyterian, and later in the 1800's the United Presbyterian and others.

• Nonconformists - Those who were not Presbyterian in form, such as Episcopal, Methodist, Quaker, Baptist, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), or Catholic.

Regarding, dissenters, the “First Secession”, in 1733, was an exodus of ministers and members from the Church of Scotland. An important demand of the seceders was the right of a congregation to choose its own minister. These issues had their roots in seventeenth century controversies between presbyterian and episcopal factions in the Church of Scotland. This demand was complicated by the fact that most ministers, by tradition, were the younger sons from the aristocratic families, and those same families were usually the local landowners. The local landowner therefore would often act as a "patron" to the church, not only through gifting of money, but through supply of their own relatives to fill the role of minister.

In December 1733 they constituted themselves into a new presbytery. In 1734 they published their first testimony, with a statement of the grounds of their secession, which made prominent reference to the doctrinal laxity of previous General Assemblies. In 1736 they proceeded to exercise judicial powers as a church court, published a judicial testimony, and began to organize churches in various parts of the country. The membership of the 'Associate Presbytery' steadily increased, until in 1745 there were forty-five congregations, and it was reconstituted into an 'Associate Synod'.

Opponents of the Burgher Oath on theological grounds became known as the Anti-Burghers - showing a distinctive independence of conviction and an unwillingness to compromise over sincerely held beliefs. The Burgher and Anti-Burgher factions thus formed rival, independent synods – the General Associate Synod (Antiburghers) and the Associate Synod (Burghers). Both of these factions also split within themselves, and the non-conformist churches became very complicated indeed. In 1847 several of these factions united as the United Presbyterian Church.

Secessions in Church of Scotland

A Chronology of Useaful Dates in Dissenting Church History