Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/213

Rh in a flame, every individual having committed himself on the one side or the other.

When the synod met on the 7th of April, 1747, the subject was resumed with a warmth that indicated not ardour, but absolute frenzy. The protesters against the former decision of the question, instead of bringing up their reasons of protest, as order and decency required, began by renewing the original question, Whether the act of synod was to be made a term of communion before it should be sent round in the form of an overture, to sessions and presbyteries for their judgment there-anent ; the members of synod in the meantime praying and conferring with one another for light upon the subject To this it was opposed as a previous question Call for the reasons of protest, and the answers thereunto, that they may be read and considered. The question being put, which of the two questions should be voted, it carried for the first; from this Mr W. Campbell entered his dissent, to which Mr Thomas Moir and Mr Moncrief adhered. Next morning the protesters resumed the question with renewed ardour, or rather rage, Mr Moir again entered his protest, followed by eleven ministers, and ten elders. The protesters still insisting for their question, the Whole day was wasted in shameful discussions; Mr Gibb protesting against the proposal of the protesters, in a new and somewhat startling form. Having adjourned one hour, the synod met again at eight, or between eight and nine o'clock, p. m., when the war of words was renewed for several hours, the protesters still insisting upon having the vote put; a protest against it was again entered by Mr Moncrief, which was adhered to by twelve ministers and ten elders. The moderator of course refused to put the vote, as did the clerk pro tempore; one of the party then called the roll, another marked the votes, the sum total of which, was nine ministers and eleven elders, and of these, six ministers and one elder were protesters, and of course, parties in the cause that had not the smallest right to vote on the subject. In this way, twenty voters, and of these twenty only thirteen legal voters, carried a deed against twenty-three, standing before them in solemn opposition under cover of all legal forms that, in the circumstances in which they stood, it was possible for them to employ. In this most extraordinary crisis, Mr Moir, the moderator of the former meeting of synod, considering the present moderator as having ceased to act, claimed that place for himself, and the powers of the associate synod for those who had stood firm under their protest against such disorderly procedure, whom he requested to meet in Mr Gibb's house to-morrow, to transact the business of the associate synod. They did so, and thus one part of the associate synod was reconstituted. The other part met next day in the usual place, having the moderator, though he had deserted them the night before, along with them, and the clerk pro tempore; on which they returned themselves as being the true associate synod. Whatever superiority in point of order was between them, entirely belonged to the party that met in Mr Gibb's house, and have since been known by the name of antiburghers; and they showed some sense of shame by making open confession of the sad display which they had made of their own corruptions, in managing what they then and still considered to be the cause of God. The other party were certainly even in this respect the more culpable; but having the unfettered possession of their beloved oath, they seem to have been more at ease with themselves, than their brethren. A more deplorable circumstance certainly never took place in any regularly constituted church, nor one that more completely demonstrated how little the wisest and the best of men are to be depended on when they are left to the influence of their own spirits. The very individual persons who, in a long and painful dispute with the established judicature, upon points of the highest im-