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Rev James Fletcher, first minister of Newcastleton United Presbyterian Church
James Fletcher’s ministry
James Fletcher, the first minister of the congregation that was later to become Newcastleton United Presbyterian Church, was ordained at an open air service on May 12, 1762.
James Tait writes about him in Two Centuries of Border Church Life [1]: ‘He was skilled in optics, theoretical and practical, and was adept at astronomical science’ and notes that Fletcher’s friend James Veitch of Inchbonny, Jedburgh, reckoned that if the clergyman had had the means to prosecute his favourite studies, he might have attained to a European reputation as a man of science. According to Tait, James Fletcher’s crowning achievement was the invention of a wooden horse upon which he rode around the district. There were few roads in Liddesdale during this period and the sight of Mr Fletcher trundling around on his vehicle must have amazed many people. The earliest two-wheeled fore-runner of the modern bicycle is said to date from 1791 (De Sivrac’s ‘celerifere’ which was all the rage in Paris in the 1790s) but we shall probably never know whether Fletcher beat De Sivrac to it.[2]
Fletcher was believed to have the gift of prophesy, foretelling that the second and third ministers of the congregation would stay only a short time in Liddesdale. During the ministry of the fourth, he said, the congregation would be scattered. This came true around 1849 when members left the congregation to found the Evangelical Union and Free churches in the village. The end of James Fletcher’s ministry was abrupt and distressing. He was accused of ‘venting doctrines from the pulpit concerning the Sonship of Christ in opposition to the received standards’ of the Associate Synod. Selkirk Presbytery investigated the accusations, and found them to be true, They were unable to persuade Mr Fletcher to change his views, which he believed to be compatible with the Bible. Rather than face censure, and have his congregation cast out of fellowship with the Associate Synod, Fletcher resigned his ministry. His case passed through several church courts who listened to what he had to say. But he never gave way, and was never again given permission to preach.
The last few months of Fletcher’s life are difficult to piece together. The minutes of Edinburgh Burgher Presbytery refer to him as residing in Dalkeith. The existence of a Fletcher family gravestone in Castleton churchyard suggests that he may have returned to Liddesdale. This stone records that he died in March 1803 aged 77. His wife Christian Beattie lies there and the stone indicates that his daughter Christian lived on in Newcastleton until her death aged 64 in March 1835. Christian’s husband lived to 89 and died on April 26, 1851[3].
An advert for Fletcher’s book The Orthodox Scheme[4] appeared in the Scots Magazine of February 1803[5], and a copy survives in the National Library of Scotland. It is a short book consisting mostly of a commentary on a work by Isaac Watts The Glory of Christ as God-Man Unveiled[6]. But it also contains Fletcher’s own account of his struggle to understand one of the Christian faith’s greatest mysteries, and gives us an insight into how the church of two centuries ago dealt with one person who departed from what they considered to be orthodoxy.
James Fletcher in his own words
Shortly before his death in March 1803, James Fletcher published a short book which was advertised in the Scots Magazine of February 1803. The title is The Orthodox Scheme freed from the remains of Arianism partly taken from a Book, entitled A Clear View of the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity to which is subjoined, excerpts from the third discourse of the Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. on the Glories of Christ as God-man, displayed, or a compend thereof, interspersed with some additions and alterations’ .
In the preface Fletcher recounts how he came to review his opinions about the nature of God and of Jesus, why he felt he must preach what he believed God had made known to him, and what the reactions of his congregation and the church authorities were. His appeal to the writings of Isaac Watts (the famous hymn-writer) links Fletcher into major theological controversies which raged through the 17th and 18th centuries : first, a theological search for an understanding of the nature of God and of Jesus, and second, the question of church authority and whose opinion about the theological matters was to be accepted as correct. Watts was a major player in this dispute and at a conference of English non-conformist ministers held at the Salters’ Hall, London in 1719, he voted against those who would have imposed acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity as necessary to salvation[7]. According to Isabel Rivers, his reason appears to have been due more to his holding ‘the Lockian principle of freedom of religious worship’ than any views he held views about the Trinity [8] He struggled with the mystery of how God could be One and Three, and what exactly could be said about the nature of Christ. This exercised Watts all his life and was the subject of three of his major works - including The Glory of Christ as God-Man display’d (1746)[9] which Fletcher comments on in The Orthodox Scheme. Watts viewed the traditional Christian creeds as a human attempt to explain the mystery of God[10], and his writings show that his personal explanation differed from the standard view as expressed in the creeds.
Likewise, Fletcher believed that his own personal analysis of the nature of Christ was not only scriptural, but also Trinitarian. The Orthodox Scheme is an attempt to refute those who accused him of error.
Here is an extract from The Orthodox Scheme:
I being sensible of my ignorance of God, and of Christ, and that I made no suitable progress in the knowledge of either; did set for myself by prayer to seek this Divine knowledge and the teaching necessary to it. After praying and waiting some considerable time, one day I happened to go down to a low room, there I saw, lying on the floor a small pamphlet, wanting title page and end, and some of it torn in the inner part, but it had the beginning, and the title ran thus, A View of the Trinity in the Glass of Divine Revelation.[11] Opening it at random, I saw he denied what are called the personal properties of the Son and Spirit. Thou art Arian, and must be burnt! And was going to do so, but in the mean time this thought occurred, I have often seen in lecturing and preaching, the clearest proofs of the supreme Divinity of these person, so his arguments must be very weak and unable to shake me; and having never read an Arian on the subject I would see what he had to say before I burnt it. At my leisure I began to read; he proved the unity of the Divine being, then a plurality, and then a Trinity of Divine persons, holding each of them every way equal with the other two in every thing Divine. I wondered how he would make all this and what I had seen in the following part consistent. But as I went on he made that appear; he allowed that the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding, but he would say the same of the other two, to make them equally self-existent as the Father. That the term Father is common to each of them, but Father, Son, begotten and proceeding, respect the work of redemption in its plan, purchase, and application. In short, he made all so clear, plain, and consistent in any view, that I found almost nothing wherein I differed from him, unless in his view of a Scripture text in two or three instances. I read it again and again, and desired to see it quite complete. Using some means this way instead of another, I got one far larger, done, I suppose, by the same author, as it contained the substance of the other. That I read also, and was firmly persuaded that his views of the subject were those of the Spirit of God in the Holy Scriptures. Then I thought to myself, the three or four last spring seasons have been very trying to my health and constitution, and that very probably the next following spring will be my last. Supposing this to be the case, I thought it would be a great reflection on a death-bed, if I did not show to my people what I thought the Lord had made known to me. So I brought it out in public, the text I was insisting on seeming to favour my making it public, viz, Psalm lxxxv.8 which according to the original may be read thus, I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people, even to his saints; and they shall not be turned again to folly. Where is, 1st, our duty which we should vow and pay; 2ndly, The privilege of the saints. The Lord will speak to them; 3rdly, A compend of that peace, the promise of their perseverance; they shall not fall from their new covenant state as Adam, and they in him fell from his covenant state. But to prevent mistakes and false reports, I read to them what I said on the subject, and I warned them not to alter their opinion for mine, unless they saw it founded on Scripture; as it is only a Scripture-founded faith that will profit us. It occasioned no disturbance, only two or three men stood out against it in their private conversations on the point, the generality fell in with it. Notwithstanding some of them informed the other members of the Presbytery, and a committee of ministers and elders were appointed to Liddisdale to converse with me. I was confirmed; nothing they said could shake me. Many of their proofs could be better applied in proof of my way than of theirs, as respecting only redemption, but not the Divine persons abstractly considered or merely as Divine persons. Then I was appointed to attend the Presbytery at Hawick, I did so; but nothing I heard from them could stagger me in the least at this meeting. The next meeting was appointed at Liddisdale, and that the Moderator, The Rev. George Lawson, should preach a sermon on the subject. They met, the sermon was preached, one of the best, I believe, that can be made on that side of the question; but it nothing altered my mind. At this meeting the Presbytery advised me to demit, and the people to agree to my demission, because if they adhered to me and my opinion in that point they would cast them off. The far greatest part of the people agreed to my demission and the Presbytery being unanimously for it, I thought with myself it was by concurrence of the people and the Presbytery I came there, and now I had as clear an external call to demit, so I gave in my demission.[12]
James Fletcher and the Church Courts [13]
On April 28, 1801 the Selkirk Burgher Presbytery received a report that the Revd James Fletcher of ‘Liddysdale’ was ‘venting doctrine from the pulpit concerning the sonship of Christ in opposition to the received standards of this church’. The presbytery clerk wrote to him requiring his attendance at the next meeting (May 13, 1801) but when Mr Fletcher failed to appear, it was decided that a committee of four ministers and three elders should meet with Mr Fletcher to ‘enquire into the grounds of the said report’ with the aim, if the report were true, of endeavouring to bring Mr Fletcher back to his former principles. This meeting took place on May 19, 1801.
At the next presbytery meeting (June 6, 1801) the committee reported that although they had ‘prevailed with Mr Fletcher to acknowledge the irregularity of his conduct in publishing his views of the sonship of Christ, they could not convince him of his error as to the doctrine itself’. After long reasoning with Mr Fletcher on account of certain extenuating circumstances in his life, they gave him ‘solemn charge to be silent with regard to the particular point of doctrine which strikes against the received standards of this church’ and decided to hold the next meeting of presbytery at Liddesdale on July 15, 1801. Ten members of presbytery attended at the Liddesdale meeting house on July 15, including Dick Common, an elder at Liddesdale. On being asked whether he had obeyed the presbytery’s injunction, Mr Fletcher replied that ‘as far as he recollected, he had not said anything inconsistent with the doctrine of the Confession of Faith concerning the sonship of Christ; and the Liddesdale elder, Dick Common, backed this up. The presbytery then considered whether to give judgment themselves, or to refer the case to the Synod which was due to meet in early September in Edinburgh. This was not because they were in any ‘doubiety whether Mr Fletcher’s doctrine ought to be tolerated’ but on ‘other considerations’ which unfortunately the presbytery records do not reveal. When the presbytery meeting resumed at 3pm, Mr Fletcher came forward to give in his demission.
The presbytery allowed Mr Fletcher’s demission to ‘lie on the table’ till their next meeting and summoned the congregation to hear and see their minister’s demission accepted. Fletcher’s demission, as recorded in the presbytery minutes, include these words: ‘I am charged with doctrine contrary to our standards, but am not conscious of any doctrine contrary to the word of God rightly understood, according to the scope of the place; and also since the presbytery would bind me up from preaching what I think the true and scriptural scheme, I do for these reasons demit my ministry’.
His action prevented the Liddesdale congregation from being cast out of fellowship with the Associate Synod.
Mr Fletcher’s demission next went to the Associate Synod meeting in Edinburgh on September 10, 1801, where it was accepted and the presbytery of Selkirk was ‘enjoined… to supply the congregation with sermon’ – which they did. The presbytery was also required to ‘deal with him according to the rules of the Church’ and to ‘restrict Mr Fletcher from preaching till he has given satisfaction …as to the soundness of his faith’. By February 15, 1802 Selkirk Presbytery minutes note that Mr Fletcher has moved to the area governed by the Edinburgh Presbytery. The minutes of Edinburgh Burgher Presbytery of March 9, 1802 reveal that Mr Fletcher was now residing in Dalkeith, and that he was required to appear before their next meeting. On April 6, 1802, he read his paper before Edinburgh Presbytery. After reasoning with him, a committee was appointed to ‘deal with him, meet with him… and report to the next meeting’. But despite all this, on April 27, 1802, the committee found Mr Fletcher unaltered in his adherence to his opinions and agreed to report this to the Synod. Although Small states that Mrs Fletcher received the first payment of her widow’s annuity the following year[14], I could find no further reference to Mr Fletcher in the Synod minutes.
James Fletcher, the first minister of the congregation that was later to become Newcastleton United Presbyterian Church, was ordained at an open air service on May 12, 1762.
James Tait writes about him in Two Centuries of Border Church Life [1]: ‘He was skilled in optics, theoretical and practical, and was adept at astronomical science’ and notes that Fletcher’s friend James Veitch of Inchbonny, Jedburgh, reckoned that if the clergyman had had the means to prosecute his favourite studies, he might have attained to a European reputation as a man of science. According to Tait, James Fletcher’s crowning achievement was the invention of a wooden horse upon which he rode around the district. There were few roads in Liddesdale during this period and the sight of Mr Fletcher trundling around on his vehicle must have amazed many people. The earliest two-wheeled fore-runner of the modern bicycle is said to date from 1791 (De Sivrac’s ‘celerifere’ which was all the rage in Paris in the 1790s) but we shall probably never know whether Fletcher beat De Sivrac to it.[2]
Fletcher was believed to have the gift of prophesy, foretelling that the second and third ministers of the congregation would stay only a short time in Liddesdale. During the ministry of the fourth, he said, the congregation would be scattered. This came true around 1849 when members left the congregation to found the Evangelical Union and Free churches in the village. The end of James Fletcher’s ministry was abrupt and distressing. He was accused of ‘venting doctrines from the pulpit concerning the Sonship of Christ in opposition to the received standards’ of the Associate Synod. Selkirk Presbytery investigated the accusations, and found them to be true, They were unable to persuade Mr Fletcher to change his views, which he believed to be compatible with the Bible. Rather than face censure, and have his congregation cast out of fellowship with the Associate Synod, Fletcher resigned his ministry. His case passed through several church courts who listened to what he had to say. But he never gave way, and was never again given permission to preach.
The last few months of Fletcher’s life are difficult to piece together. The minutes of Edinburgh Burgher Presbytery refer to him as residing in Dalkeith. The existence of a Fletcher family gravestone in Castleton churchyard suggests that he may have returned to Liddesdale. This stone records that he died in March 1803 aged 77. His wife Christian Beattie lies there and the stone indicates that his daughter Christian lived on in Newcastleton until her death aged 64 in March 1835. Christian’s husband lived to 89 and died on April 26, 1851[3].
An advert for Fletcher’s book The Orthodox Scheme[4] appeared in the Scots Magazine of February 1803[5], and a copy survives in the National Library of Scotland. It is a short book consisting mostly of a commentary on a work by Isaac Watts The Glory of Christ as God-Man Unveiled[6]. But it also contains Fletcher’s own account of his struggle to understand one of the Christian faith’s greatest mysteries, and gives us an insight into how the church of two centuries ago dealt with one person who departed from what they considered to be orthodoxy.
James Fletcher in his own words
Shortly before his death in March 1803, James Fletcher published a short book which was advertised in the Scots Magazine of February 1803. The title is The Orthodox Scheme freed from the remains of Arianism partly taken from a Book, entitled A Clear View of the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity to which is subjoined, excerpts from the third discourse of the Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. on the Glories of Christ as God-man, displayed, or a compend thereof, interspersed with some additions and alterations’ .
In the preface Fletcher recounts how he came to review his opinions about the nature of God and of Jesus, why he felt he must preach what he believed God had made known to him, and what the reactions of his congregation and the church authorities were. His appeal to the writings of Isaac Watts (the famous hymn-writer) links Fletcher into major theological controversies which raged through the 17th and 18th centuries : first, a theological search for an understanding of the nature of God and of Jesus, and second, the question of church authority and whose opinion about the theological matters was to be accepted as correct. Watts was a major player in this dispute and at a conference of English non-conformist ministers held at the Salters’ Hall, London in 1719, he voted against those who would have imposed acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity as necessary to salvation[7]. According to Isabel Rivers, his reason appears to have been due more to his holding ‘the Lockian principle of freedom of religious worship’ than any views he held views about the Trinity [8] He struggled with the mystery of how God could be One and Three, and what exactly could be said about the nature of Christ. This exercised Watts all his life and was the subject of three of his major works - including The Glory of Christ as God-Man display’d (1746)[9] which Fletcher comments on in The Orthodox Scheme. Watts viewed the traditional Christian creeds as a human attempt to explain the mystery of God[10], and his writings show that his personal explanation differed from the standard view as expressed in the creeds.
Likewise, Fletcher believed that his own personal analysis of the nature of Christ was not only scriptural, but also Trinitarian. The Orthodox Scheme is an attempt to refute those who accused him of error.
Here is an extract from The Orthodox Scheme:
I being sensible of my ignorance of God, and of Christ, and that I made no suitable progress in the knowledge of either; did set for myself by prayer to seek this Divine knowledge and the teaching necessary to it. After praying and waiting some considerable time, one day I happened to go down to a low room, there I saw, lying on the floor a small pamphlet, wanting title page and end, and some of it torn in the inner part, but it had the beginning, and the title ran thus, A View of the Trinity in the Glass of Divine Revelation.[11] Opening it at random, I saw he denied what are called the personal properties of the Son and Spirit. Thou art Arian, and must be burnt! And was going to do so, but in the mean time this thought occurred, I have often seen in lecturing and preaching, the clearest proofs of the supreme Divinity of these person, so his arguments must be very weak and unable to shake me; and having never read an Arian on the subject I would see what he had to say before I burnt it. At my leisure I began to read; he proved the unity of the Divine being, then a plurality, and then a Trinity of Divine persons, holding each of them every way equal with the other two in every thing Divine. I wondered how he would make all this and what I had seen in the following part consistent. But as I went on he made that appear; he allowed that the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding, but he would say the same of the other two, to make them equally self-existent as the Father. That the term Father is common to each of them, but Father, Son, begotten and proceeding, respect the work of redemption in its plan, purchase, and application. In short, he made all so clear, plain, and consistent in any view, that I found almost nothing wherein I differed from him, unless in his view of a Scripture text in two or three instances. I read it again and again, and desired to see it quite complete. Using some means this way instead of another, I got one far larger, done, I suppose, by the same author, as it contained the substance of the other. That I read also, and was firmly persuaded that his views of the subject were those of the Spirit of God in the Holy Scriptures. Then I thought to myself, the three or four last spring seasons have been very trying to my health and constitution, and that very probably the next following spring will be my last. Supposing this to be the case, I thought it would be a great reflection on a death-bed, if I did not show to my people what I thought the Lord had made known to me. So I brought it out in public, the text I was insisting on seeming to favour my making it public, viz, Psalm lxxxv.8 which according to the original may be read thus, I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people, even to his saints; and they shall not be turned again to folly. Where is, 1st, our duty which we should vow and pay; 2ndly, The privilege of the saints. The Lord will speak to them; 3rdly, A compend of that peace, the promise of their perseverance; they shall not fall from their new covenant state as Adam, and they in him fell from his covenant state. But to prevent mistakes and false reports, I read to them what I said on the subject, and I warned them not to alter their opinion for mine, unless they saw it founded on Scripture; as it is only a Scripture-founded faith that will profit us. It occasioned no disturbance, only two or three men stood out against it in their private conversations on the point, the generality fell in with it. Notwithstanding some of them informed the other members of the Presbytery, and a committee of ministers and elders were appointed to Liddisdale to converse with me. I was confirmed; nothing they said could shake me. Many of their proofs could be better applied in proof of my way than of theirs, as respecting only redemption, but not the Divine persons abstractly considered or merely as Divine persons. Then I was appointed to attend the Presbytery at Hawick, I did so; but nothing I heard from them could stagger me in the least at this meeting. The next meeting was appointed at Liddisdale, and that the Moderator, The Rev. George Lawson, should preach a sermon on the subject. They met, the sermon was preached, one of the best, I believe, that can be made on that side of the question; but it nothing altered my mind. At this meeting the Presbytery advised me to demit, and the people to agree to my demission, because if they adhered to me and my opinion in that point they would cast them off. The far greatest part of the people agreed to my demission and the Presbytery being unanimously for it, I thought with myself it was by concurrence of the people and the Presbytery I came there, and now I had as clear an external call to demit, so I gave in my demission.[12]
James Fletcher and the Church Courts [13]
On April 28, 1801 the Selkirk Burgher Presbytery received a report that the Revd James Fletcher of ‘Liddysdale’ was ‘venting doctrine from the pulpit concerning the sonship of Christ in opposition to the received standards of this church’. The presbytery clerk wrote to him requiring his attendance at the next meeting (May 13, 1801) but when Mr Fletcher failed to appear, it was decided that a committee of four ministers and three elders should meet with Mr Fletcher to ‘enquire into the grounds of the said report’ with the aim, if the report were true, of endeavouring to bring Mr Fletcher back to his former principles. This meeting took place on May 19, 1801.
At the next presbytery meeting (June 6, 1801) the committee reported that although they had ‘prevailed with Mr Fletcher to acknowledge the irregularity of his conduct in publishing his views of the sonship of Christ, they could not convince him of his error as to the doctrine itself’. After long reasoning with Mr Fletcher on account of certain extenuating circumstances in his life, they gave him ‘solemn charge to be silent with regard to the particular point of doctrine which strikes against the received standards of this church’ and decided to hold the next meeting of presbytery at Liddesdale on July 15, 1801. Ten members of presbytery attended at the Liddesdale meeting house on July 15, including Dick Common, an elder at Liddesdale. On being asked whether he had obeyed the presbytery’s injunction, Mr Fletcher replied that ‘as far as he recollected, he had not said anything inconsistent with the doctrine of the Confession of Faith concerning the sonship of Christ; and the Liddesdale elder, Dick Common, backed this up. The presbytery then considered whether to give judgment themselves, or to refer the case to the Synod which was due to meet in early September in Edinburgh. This was not because they were in any ‘doubiety whether Mr Fletcher’s doctrine ought to be tolerated’ but on ‘other considerations’ which unfortunately the presbytery records do not reveal. When the presbytery meeting resumed at 3pm, Mr Fletcher came forward to give in his demission.
The presbytery allowed Mr Fletcher’s demission to ‘lie on the table’ till their next meeting and summoned the congregation to hear and see their minister’s demission accepted. Fletcher’s demission, as recorded in the presbytery minutes, include these words: ‘I am charged with doctrine contrary to our standards, but am not conscious of any doctrine contrary to the word of God rightly understood, according to the scope of the place; and also since the presbytery would bind me up from preaching what I think the true and scriptural scheme, I do for these reasons demit my ministry’.
His action prevented the Liddesdale congregation from being cast out of fellowship with the Associate Synod.
Mr Fletcher’s demission next went to the Associate Synod meeting in Edinburgh on September 10, 1801, where it was accepted and the presbytery of Selkirk was ‘enjoined… to supply the congregation with sermon’ – which they did. The presbytery was also required to ‘deal with him according to the rules of the Church’ and to ‘restrict Mr Fletcher from preaching till he has given satisfaction …as to the soundness of his faith’. By February 15, 1802 Selkirk Presbytery minutes note that Mr Fletcher has moved to the area governed by the Edinburgh Presbytery. The minutes of Edinburgh Burgher Presbytery of March 9, 1802 reveal that Mr Fletcher was now residing in Dalkeith, and that he was required to appear before their next meeting. On April 6, 1802, he read his paper before Edinburgh Presbytery. After reasoning with him, a committee was appointed to ‘deal with him, meet with him… and report to the next meeting’. But despite all this, on April 27, 1802, the committee found Mr Fletcher unaltered in his adherence to his opinions and agreed to report this to the Synod. Although Small states that Mrs Fletcher received the first payment of her widow’s annuity the following year[14], I could find no further reference to Mr Fletcher in the Synod minutes.
[1] Tait. James. Op cit. p 319-322.
[2] According to William Hudson, the story of De Sivrac and the Celerifere was invented in 1891 by the hi historian Baudry de Saunier and has erroneously been copied by numerous authors ever since. http://www.jimlangley.net/ride/bicyclehistorywh.html [accessed 26 February, 2008]
[3] Gravestone in Castleton Churchyard.
[4] Fletcher, James. The orthodox scheme freed from the remains of Arianism. Edinburgh: John Turnbull. 1803
[5] Scots Magazine. 1803. p 127.
[6] Watts, Isaac. The glory of Christ as God-man display’d, in three discourses. London, 1746
[7] Rivers, Isabel. Watts, Isaac (1674-1748), Independent minister and writer. Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28888?docPos=1 [accessed December 27, 2007]
[8] Isabel Rivers, ‘Watts, Isaac (1674–1748)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28888, accessed document.write(printCitationDate()); 8 Jan 2008]
[9] Watts, Isaac. The glory of Christ as God-man display’d, in three discourses… London, 1746
[10] Dictionary of National Biography as quoted by the Eclectic Classical Encyclopedia. Available at http://www.ccel.org/cceh/archives/eee/watts.htm [accessed 8 January 2008]
[11] Fletcher refers on page 1 of ‘The Orthodox Scheme’ to the book by a slightly different title : A Clear Display of the Trinity from Divine Revelation’. This title was written by Alexander Murray, a schoolmaster, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and published in 1773. A 2nd edition was published in 1815 by William Hardcastle, London. 1815 edition available online at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IuxJAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=murray+clear+display+trinity#PPA2,M1 [accessed 26 february 2008]
[12] Fletcher. Op cit. p viii-xi.
[13] Selkirk Burgher Presbytery Minutes. National Archives of Scotland. CH3/280/1. April 28, 1801; May 13, 1801; June 6, 1801; July 15, 1801; February 15, 1802. Burgher Synod Minutes. CH3/28/4. September 10, 1801. Edinburgh Burgher Presbytery.Minutes. CH3/111/7. March 9, 1802; April 6, 1802; April 27, 1802.
[14] Small. Op cit. Vol 2, p454
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