https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/09/presbyterian-rebellion/
A Hessian captain, fighting on behalf of the British, told a friend in Germany in 1778, “call this war, dearest friend, by whatsoever name you may, only call it not an American Revolution, it is nothing more nor less than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion.”
“No understanding of the eighteenth century is possible” warned Carl Bridenbaugh, “if we unconsciously omit, or consciously jam out, the religious theme just because our own milieu is secular.”
Ambrose Serle, secretary to British General Howe in New York City, wrote to the British Secretary of State in 1776 telling him that the American Revolution was ultimately a religious war.
King George III and his deputies on both sides of the Atlantic alleged that the colonial rebellion was a religious endeavor. “King George III and other highly placed Britons called the colonists’ rebellion a ‘Presbyterian War.’”
in the early days of the revolution, loyalists alleged that “political agitation against the Royal Government had been deliberately planned by Presbyterians… it was fostered and abetted by Presbyterians in every colony.”
“To the end, the Churchmen (Tory and Establishment) believed that the Revolution was a Presbyterian-Congregationalist (Whig and Dissenting, Non-Conformist, Anti-Establishment Separatist) plot."
In 1779 Benjamin Franklin, a rather reliable source of diplomatic intelligence, stated that George III hated the American Revolutionaries because the king perceived that they were “whigs and Presbyterians.”
A letter published in a London newspaper ...from a royalist in New York:
Believe me, the Presbyterians have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures, and they always do and ever will act against Government, from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchical spirit which has always distinguished them every where.
Donald Trump, like me, was raised by a Scots Presbyterian mother. I would define both of us as culturally Presbyterian. Which has absolutely nothing to do with our religion or beliefs relative to God, Christ or heaven and hell. But it has everything to do with politics.
I don't know what Donald believes. And that's fine with me. Most days I am not sure what I believe. I can't bring myself to subscribe to any organization or creed. And recently I discovered that I am not alone in that belief. In fact there is an Irish Presbyterian Church dedicated to that non-belief. A Church of non-establishment dissenters whose underlying theme is Toleration. It was founded by culturally Scottish Irishmen in an Ireland divided among the Tory Episcopalian English establishment, the dissenting Scots and English Presbyterians and the Irish Catholics who were themselves divided between the Rome affiliated Ultra-montane and the local nationalist Catholics. The English establishment in Ireland treated Catholics and Presbyterians exactly the same way. With a combination of fear and disdain. This caused some Presbyterians to reach out to find common cause with the Catholics. This prompted further aggression from Establishment supporters of the Anglican church against both Catholics and Presbyterians (as well as other dissenters like Quakers, Methodists and Baptists). In the midst of this mutual antagonism by 1725 some people had reached the point where they decided that all the aggro wasn't worth the effort.
In 1720 an Irish minister trained at Glasgow decided he couldn't subscribe to the Westminster Confession - the statement of beliefs that all good Presbyterians in Scotland, England and Ireland had agreed on since 1648.
But in 1690 a Dutchman with an English wife became King of England, Scotland and Ireland. He found himself confronted with a major problem. The Scots.
The Scots were different. They were Presbyterians.
The English were Episcopalians. They were Catholic in everything but their allegiance to the papacy in Rome. They, like the Catholics and the Lutherans accepted that manna came from heaven and that truth was spoken from God through priests.
The Presbyterians disagreed. They agreed with the Frenchman Jean Calvin that everyman was his own priest and that God spoke to everyman.
For the Episcopalians of the world this anathema opened the gates of hell and promised mob rule and anarchy. This resulted in Presbyterians, Calvinists, and their fellow travelers, being singled out in most of Europe as heretics, even by fellow protestants. Where the Pope didn't make the rules then Princes made the rules. These Presbyterians didn't accept this. They wanted to make their own rules. In Geneva they did. In Scotland they did. Often these rules meant spending more money on kindling for burning witches than on painting naked boys in churches but they made their own decisions.
The Presbyterians demonstrated their separateness by signing documents - agreements - Covenants. Hence their other name - Covenanters. Their desire to be different, their unwillingness to conform to the wishes of the Episcopalians of the world, resulted in them being slaughtered in France, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Switzerland and in Scotland. They found common cause across borders. They found a home in Scotland where by the rules of the game, as established at Westphalia in 1648 they could claim sovereign powers and make their own laws backed by the state's monopoly on violence.
Scotland became the Presbyterian's Champion sending troops hither and yon to support the cause. From the Episcopalian stand point they were state sponsors of terror.
But the Presbyterians also feared anarchy. Their solution though was the opposite to the top down model of the Episcopalians. They still believed that God spoke to mankind but he spoke to mankind directly and not filtered through priests. Priests had not been doing a great job of passing on God's word - as evidenced by the presence of Hindus, Zoroastrians, Jews, Muslims, Nestorians, Copts, Orthodoxies, Catholics of various types, protestants of multiple types. Apparently agreement on truth was hard to come by. In a Presbyterian world where every person was a priest talking directly to God finding that truth was going to be harder. Violence more likely. Civil war more common.
Calvin's solution was the Presbytery.
People formed congregations organically. Societies. They found leaders from their midst organically. In Presbyterian parlance these were Elders. In modern terms these Elders were elected by the congregations. Some of the Elders were financially supported by the congregations as teachers and administrators - Ministers and Deacons.
But congregations could disagree on much. Congregationalists, Separatists, accepted this but Presbyterians felt this was still too close to anarchy. They needed a means to find common ground. And thus the Presbytery. Elders from different congregations meeting to prevent conflict by finding moderate middles. The Presbyteries occasionally sent representative Elders to a General Assembly presided over by a Moderator, again with the purpose of finding moderate middles. When Presbyterianism spread and there were too many Presbyteries then the Presbyteries were grouped into Synods and the Synods sent the representatives to the General Assembly.
So, in the Catholic world the Natural Order was God/Pope/Priests/Princes/People. In the Episcopalian world the order was God/Princes/Priests/ People. Popes, Priests and Princes fought amongst themselves but all agreed that God spoke to them and that the people listened to them.
The Presbyterian order was frightening. God/People/Congregation/Presbytery/Synod/General Assembly. No jobs for Popes, priests or princes. Even the Moderator was not a decider. He was simply the Speaker. The First amongst Equals. He gave voice to decisions of the people's representatives.
That was the hierarchy adopted in Scotland in 1560. And it terrified the English Establishment. And the Roman Establishment. And prompted 400 years of wars that really weren't resolved, in my opinion, until Vatican 2 when, following the victory of the protestant states in 1945 and guided by Pope John XXIII's 1956 Pacem in Terris, the papacy came to terms with Protestantism - but not Presbyterianism. The Roman church and the Episcopalians came to terms in both the United States and the United Kingdom - Priests and Princes declared a truce. That truce suited the Priests and Princes of Europe as well.
But Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, was still anathema.
Given that the American government was built on the Presbyterian system that represents an ongoing problem. A problem that keeps rearing its face in America in the form of Jacksonians, Populists and Trumpians - One third to one half of the US is culturally Presbyterian. And a like number is found in Canada.
And now I circle back to the "Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland"
Presbyterians demonstrated their direct democracy by subscribing - publishing Covenants that declared their common positions and physically signing them under the text, underwriting them, subscribing. These "mutinous tracts", as defined by Establishment Episcopalians were also known as "round robins" because when space for signatures ran short then people started signing on any blank space. This had the advantage of camouflaging the first subscribers who were likely to be leading anti-establishment types.
The minister I referenced earlier couldn't bring himself to subscribe to the Westminster confession. He discovered that much of his congregation agreed with him.
Following Presbyterian practice it went to the Presbytery for a decision. Much of the Presbytery agreed with him. It went to the Synod. The Synod disagreed but did something different. It allowed the non-subscribers to remain Presbyterians, represented in the Presbyteries, Synods and Assemblies despite them not believing - essentially being heretics. They were tolerated.
That toleration was first demonstrated in Antrim, in Ireland in 1720. And it carried to America with the Scots-Irish and led to the creation of the US by way of the Presbyterian Rebellion of 1776.
The cultural presbyterians of the US, now including descendants of Swiss and French Huguenots (Rousseau was a French speaking Swiss Huguenot), German Palatines, Dutch Reformers as well as Garibaldi Italians, Koreans and Chinese and including atheists and libertarians are still fighting against the episcopalian, top-down tendencies of The Establishment.
I can't help but wonder when constitutionalist presbyterians will notice that their liberal Supreme Court is now a culturally episcopalian court with 7 of the 9 justices being Roman Catholics.
This will no doubt be interpreted by some as an anti-Catholic rant. It isn't.
The purpose is to turn the kaleidoscope and offer a perspective that contrasts top-down governance with bottom up governance, that contrasts cultural episcopalianism with cultural presbyterianism, that contrasts governance by the elites with grass-roots governance, that contrasts the Family Compact, the Chateau Clique, the Laurentian Elite, the Society of Cincinnati, Tammany Hall and the Coastal Elite with George Brown, William Lyon Mackenzie, Stephen Harper's Conservatives, Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump's Republicans (and I might add a good proportion of Bernie Sander's Democrats).
It is also a call for toleration. For acceptance of heretics. To agree to disagree.
https://nonsubscribingpresbyterian.wordpress.com/the-first-subscription-controversy/
You might also want to look into the origins of New Light Presbyterianism at the University of Glasgow in 1692 and the rise of the Masons under the influence of William and Mary and Anne, John Locke, John Tillotson, William Carstares, William Dunlop and Shaftesbury.
Anderson's Constitutions of 1723
I. Concerning GOD and RELIGION.
A Mason is oblig'd by his Tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist nor an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charg'd in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet 'tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to be good Men and true, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish'd; whereby Masonry becomes the Center of Union, and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remain'd at a perpetual Distance.
https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/history/anderson/index.html
The Earl of Shaftesbury states that civility and politeness is a consequence of liberty by which “we polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides” (1709)
Shaftesbury200
From: Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, vol. 1 (Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury)
By: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury
Theme: Odds & Ends
See this quote in context.
Central to Shaftesbury’s idea of liberty is the notion of the free interchange of ideas, even if some of those ideas grate against those of others (p. 42, last paragraph of Section I):
And thus in other respects Wit will mend upon our hands, and Humour will refine it-self; if we take care not to tamper with it, and bring it under Constraint, by severe Usage and rigorous Prescriptions. All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Mens Understandings. ’Tis a destroying of Civility, Good Breeding, and even Charity it-self, under pretence of maintaining it.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/79
Or, in the words of Rodney King: "Why can't we all just get along?"
PS - The Family Compact was supported, if not lead, by the Scots Episcopalian Bishop Strachan who joined the Church of England He leading opponents were the Presbyterian George Brown of the Globe and William Lyon MacKenzie, also a printer, of the Upper Canada Rebellion.
PPS - Gladstone also came from a Scots Episcopalian family although raised in England. The difference between a Scots Episcopalian and an English Episcopalian is that in Scotland Episcopalians were in te ranks of the Anti-Establishment Dissenters. The Presbyterians in Scotland were the Establishment. That split between the Scottish Presbyterian Establishment and the English Episcopalian Establishment was the basis of the debate in Ireland with the English winning the debate in 1707 when Scotland and England were absorbed into an episcopalian English dominated United Kingdom.
PPPS - The last man of that ilk in Canada was the Baptist minister Tommy Douglas of Falkirk, Canada - known for healthcare but less appreciated for his 1947 Bill of Rights introduced to Saskatchewan and later, in 1960 emulated by that other Baptist prairie populist, the son of William Thomas Diefenbaker (of German immigrants from Adersbach (near Sinsheim) in Baden, the Rheinland Palatinate
and the former Mary Florence Bannerman (of Scottish descent), John Diefenbaker with his Canadian Bill of Rights.
DS edit to remove excessive blank space.
