A History of American ChristianityBacon, Leonard Woolsey
Religion
A History of American Christianity
Bacon, Leonard Woolsey
United States -- Church history; United States -- Religion
Another great beginning that comes within the field of vision in the
first four decades of the eighteenth century is the planting of the
great national churches of Germany. We have observed the migration of
the minor sects of Germany--so complete, in some cases, that the entire
sect was transplanted, leaving no representative in the fatherland. In
the mixed multitude of refugees from the Palatinate and other ravaged
provinces were many belonging both to the Lutheran and to the Reformed
churches, as well as some Catholics. But they were scattered as sheep
having no shepherd. The German Lutheran and Reformed immigration was
destined to attain by and by to enormous proportions; but so late was
the considerable expansion of it, and so tardy and inefficient the
attention given to this diaspora by the mother churches, that the
classical organization of the Reformed Church dates only from 1747, and
that of the Lutheran Church from 1760.[121:1] The beautiful career of
the Moravians began in Pennsylvania so late as 1734. In general it may
be said that the German-American church was affected only indirectly by
the Great Awakening.
But the greatest in its consequences, both religious and political, of
the great beginnings in the early part of the eighteenth century, was
the first flow of the swelling tide of the Scotch-Irish immigration.
Already, in 1669, an English Presbyterian, Matthew Hill, persuaded to
the work by Richard Baxter, was ministering to "many of the Reformed
religion" in Maryland; and in 1683 an appeal from them to the Irish
presbytery of Laggan had brought over to their aid that sturdy and
fearless man of God, Francis Makemie, whose successful defense in 1707,
when unlawfully imprisoned in New York by that unsavory defender of the
Anglican faith, Lord Cornbury, gave assurance of religious liberty to
his communion throughout the colonies. In 1705 he was moderator of the
first presbytery in America, numbering six ministers. At the end of
twelve years the number of ministers, including accessions from New
England, had grown to seventeen. But it was not until 1718 that this
migration began in earnest. As early as 1725 James Logan, the
Scotch-Irish-Quaker governor of Pennsylvania, speaking in the spirit of
prophecy, declares that "it looks as if Ireland were to send all her
inhabitants hither; if they continue to come they will make themselves
proprietors of the province." It was a broad-spread, rich alluvium
superimposed upon earlier strata of immigration, out of which was to
spring the sturdy growth of American Presbyterianism, as well as of
other Christian organizations. But by 1730 it was only the turbid and
feculent flood that was visible to most observers; the healthful and
fruitful growth was yet to come.[122:1]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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