capital faults too, unless we give entirely in to your Secession and take all our measures from you. No blamelessness in our conduct, no commendableness of it shall be our protection in this case. Behave as we will, your practice proclaims defiance to our being protected by this against your blackening us utterly, if anything can be supposed bad in any member of our Synod; and thus that you will run us down against all reason and justice, and in an utter disregard to truth and to the honour of our common profession. In short, you must be acknowledged as the only ministers, the sole directors in Church affairs. Pray was this the meaning of your Secession? And that because you made it, it must take place everywhere? It seems it must take place here as well as in Scotland, though you are ever so far from showing that we have the same reasons for it here, and that this cannot be shown. Sure we have no patronage, &c., no ministers deposed, &c. ; yet no quarter for us, if we give not entirely in to your Secession.-Letter to Fisher, pp. 28, 29.

CHAPTER LXIV.

THOMAS CLARK, M.D. (1751-1764),

MINISTER OF CAHANS, COUNTY MONAGHAN.

1. A Brief Survey of some Principles maintained by the General Synod of Ulster, and Practices carried on by several members thereof. 12mo, pp. 104. Armagh, 1751. A. C. B. 2. Remarks upon the manner and form of Swearing by touching and kissing the Gospels. Being partly excerpts from an anonymous book entitled The New Mode of Swearing, "tactis et deosculatis evangeliis," published thirty-three years ago. 18mo, pp. 22. Glasgow, 1752.

A. C. B.

3. New Light set in a Clear Light. 12mo, pp. 119. [Dublin] 1755. W. D. K.

4. Pastoral Letter to his former Congregation. [Posthumous.] 8vo.

1792.

M. C. D.

THOMAS CLARK was the third Seceding minister who was ordained over a congregation in Ireland, but the first of those thus settled who committed any writing to the press. Whether he was originally intended for the ministry or not is uncertain, but it is known that he took out a diploma as doctor of medicine at the University of Glasgow, and afterwards, when acting as a laborious evangelist and minister in the County Monaghan, he met with frequent opportunities of using his medical knowledge with advantage.

He was a native of Scotland, as all the early Seceders were. Previous to the year 1745 he acted as a sort of chaplain-perhaps I should say tutor, for he was at the time neither ordained nor licensed, to a gentleman's family in Galloway; but in that year the landing of the Pretender called him from his retirement, and he

took up arms on behalf of the Government and the House of Hanover. That rebellion was got up by the Scottish Episcopalian gentry, who had everything to hope from a restoration of the Stuarts and from an overthrow of the ecclesiastical arrangements so favourable to Presbyterianism made by King William; and these gentry, taking advantage of the strong relationship of clanship then so prevalent in the North, drew their simple-minded Highland followers after them. But the intelligent Lowland Presbyterians, knowing what their grandfathers had suffered from one Restoration, naturally dreaded another, and, as they had every right to be, were to a man on the side of the Government. The followers of Prince Charlie were, with few exceptions, Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. Clark mentions that after the battle of Culloden the Duke of Cumberland burned several Episcopal meeting-houses, and that he himself saw one of them burned.*

After the rebellion was put down, Clark in April 1748 was licensed to preach the Gospel; and on the 27th of June in the following year he was sent to Ireland, with a commission from the Associate Presbytery in Glasgow to preach at Bally bay, Clennaneese, and elsewhere in Ulster. In pursuance of this commission he came to the North of Ireland, and in various parts of the country exercised his gifts as a probationer. His first text at Cahans was Acts xvii. 16-18. In due time invitations were sent him from three different congregations-Scone near Perth, Clennaneese near Dungannon, and Cahans near Ballybay-each asking him to accept the office of pastor. With the faith and courage of the true soldier, he selected what at the time was probably the most unpromising of the three, and in due course was ordained at Cahans on the 23d of July, 1751, by three ministers, who acted as a delegation of the Burgher Presbytery of Glasgow.

Dr. Clark proved to be a most faithful and indefatigable minister. From Ballybay as a centre he travelled over Monaghan and the adjacent counties, everywhere *New Light set in a Clear Light, p. 84.

arraigning the Synod of Ulster for its shortcomings and sins, but, as he went, never failing to preach a pure Gospel where an opportunity offered, and gathering together those who received his testimony into separate congregations. It could not be supposed that the ministers of the Synod, some of whom were, no doubt, deserving of censure, and others of whom were no less evangelical than Dr. Clark himself, would remain quiescent under charges hurled sometimes indiscriminately at them all. Oral discussions were held in various parts of the country, a war of pamphlets was waged, and as the strife thickened and feeling predominated alike over judgment and charity, very unworthy means were adopted to silence the strong clear voice which gave utterance to the old truths, in opposition to the colourless New Light theology then so common.

Even before his ordination, Dr. Clark had issued his Brief Survey, dated from Ballybay, November 12, 1750. It was sent out in answer to the pamphlet of Mr. Peebles (see ch. xc.). Its design is to justify the Seceding ministers in their coming to Ireland, by showing that many ministers of the General Synod held erroneous doctrine, and did not supply the people with the pure Gospel. He appeals to Carlisle's Synodical Sermon (see ch. lix.) in evidence of the charge of heresy, and to Delap's Fast Day Sermon (see ch. lvii., No. 3) as showing that various members of the Synod were lax in their theology and in their personal religion. It is manifest that the writer has obtained a very firm grasp of pure Gospel truth, but the literary merits of the Survey are not high. The author is narrow in his views; and while, no doubt, some ministers of Synod left themselves too open to censure in regard both to doctrine and to life, yet, as was natural to a man in his position, giving proof of a necessity for his own existence, he makes the most of any blemish he can find. Apart entirely from its contents, the Survey is noteworthy as being the first work published by any Seceding minister in Ireland.

The following year he issued another pamphlet, but

only in part original, as he states upon the title-page. The Presbyterians, when summoned to appear in courts of justice, had long been accustomed to comply with the usual practice of kissing the book in confirmation of the testimony which they gave; but the Seceding ministers from the first impugned this custom as unwarranted and absurd, and taught the people to give their deposition in the more rational and Scriptural form, with hand uplifted to God. In the Remarks, which appeared in 1752, Dr. Clark deals with this subject. He presents evidence from Scripture for the practice which he approves, states objections to the prevailing custom, and meets what he heard alleged against the form that he desired to introduce. His tract is clear, short, and conclusive. For many years afterwards it was the practice of the Seceders to charge the ministers and people of the Synod with setting at nought the Scriptural form in a matter which they admitted to be an act of religious worship; and when a minister, accused of "kissing the calves" (Hosea xiii. 2), indignantly denied that he was ever guilty of such an act of idolatry, he was sure to encounter the retort that, if he had not "kissed the calves," he could not deny that he had kissed the calf's skin.* The main difficulty in the way of the charge was, of course, the refusal of the civil courts to receive evidence which was not confirmed by kissing the book, but eventually even this barrier was removed. First the Seceders obtained legal exemption from the use of the common form on their own behalf, and in the end an Act passed the Legislature enabling any man to give testimony in the public courts in any form which he declared to be binding upon his conscience. Since that Act came into force, the Presbyterian people have largely availed themselves of the liberty which it gives, and few of them now kiss the book in a court of justice, except such as are still

*See James's Homesius Enervatus, p. 61.

+ The Presbyterian community are indebted for this Act to James Gibson, Esq., at present (1879) the Chairman of Donegal, but who in 1838 was M.P. for Belfast.