subscription controversies

subscription controversies divided Irish Presbyterianism in the 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1698 and 1705 the Synod of Ulster followed the Church of Scotland in requiring ordinands to subscribe the confession of faith drawn up by the Westminster Assembly in the 17th century. Opposition soon came from those who disapproved of subscription to human formularies as a test of faith, some of whom also disapproved of the theology of the Confession. The Belfast Society, in which some avant‐garde ministers and elders met to discuss theology, became an important influence promoting non‐subscription and New Light doctrines (see old light and new light). To meet this challenge the synod introduced a pacific pact, allowing ministers and ordinands to substitute their own words for passages in the Confession which they could not subscribe. This failed when the Revd Samuel Haliday refused to subscribe in any form at his installation in the First Belfast congregation. Another expedient, the formation of a seperate non‐subscribing presbytery, the Presbytery of Antrim, did not halt the advance of non‐subscription in the synod, and by the end of the century more than two‐thirds of its presbyteries were non‐subscribing. This process was reversed in the 1820s as a result of what some have called the second subscription controversy. This was envenomed by the fact that some non‐subscribers had become Arians and also by political animosities, Montgomery, the non‐subscribing leader, being liberal in politics, and his opponent, Cooke, conservative. It is wrong, however, to describe the controversy as a political conflict in disguise. When seventeen non‐subscribers seceded in 1830 to form the Remonstrant Synod, obligatory subscription was restored in the Synod of Ulster and remains the practice of mainstream Irish Presbyterianism.

Bibliography

Barkley, J. M. , The Westminster Formularies in Irish Presbyterianism (1956)
Haire, J. L. M. (ed.), Challenge and Conflict: Essays in Irish Presbyterian History and Doctrine (1981)

R. F. G. Holmes