I. Lots of info on Sinclair Religion

["Spirit One Email" <laurel@spiritone.com>]

Dear Cousins,

 Forgive me for being behind in joining the Sinclair quest on religious
affiliations but had to find the time and books to give you some more
insight.  I think the first message on this concerned Baptists in southern
US but I’ll put in some other info also.
This came from : “The Scotch-Irish-a social History” By James Leyburn.  I
believe that this book is just excellent for showing the settlement of the
Scotch from Ireland around 1700-  There may be better ones, but it’s the one
I have and can recommend that researchers obtain.  A very good reference
book!!
Maybe not many Sinclairs came through Ulster but it is very likely that in
the US they married someone that did or somewhere in your ancestry this will
be useful. In particular, there is one whole chapter on the Presbyterian
church in Ireland and then US.  I can only put a part of it here.  And even
if they came straight from Scotland, they would have been living in Scottish
communities and had the following experiences as colonists around 1700-30 (I
think that is the date, I know it's in this book but haven't dug it out
again.)
=================
 “Just as the Scots had shown themselves eager for spiritual guidance after
the Reformation, so did the transplanted Scots in Ulster.  Here is an
observation:

    ‘I have known them to come several miles from their own houses to
communion, to the Saturday sermon, and spending the whole Saturday’s night
in several companies, sometimes a minister being with them, and sometimes
themselves alone in conference and prayer.  They have then waited on the
public ordinance the whole Sabbath, and spend the Sabbath night in the same
way, and yet at the Monday’s sermon were not troubled with sleepiness; and
so they have not slept till they went hom.  In those days it was no great
difficulty for a minister to preach or pray in public or private, such was
the hunger of hearers.’

 Ulster thus early received a puritanical and Presbyterian character.  Not
only was the Church of Scotland Presbyterian, with the strictest control of
morals, but also the colonists in many of the English settlements in Ulster
were Puritans.  Ulster proved a haven for ministers from both kingdoms who
desired to escape the episcopacy being promoted in England and Scotland
byKings James and Charles.  The Church of England, which became the
Established Church in the whole of Ireland, was under the direction chiefly
of puritan bishops, who brought in diligent pastors trained under the
Puritan influence.
 An effective compromise was devised whereby Presbyterian ministers in
Ulster might accept ordination from a Church of England bishop with no
offense to their scruples.  Until 1642 Scottish ministers redily accepted
this ordination, for it did not require them to use the liturgy, while it
allowed them to remain Presbyterian and to receive tithes.  Some of the
bishops even consulted them about matters of church concer; in the
convocation of the Established Church in 1634, several Presbyterian
ministers were full members.  (then a lot more on how this was carried out
on lower levels) Similarly in 1626 Josiah Welch, a grandson of John Knox
(father of Presb. in Scotland), likewise resigned his professorship at
Glasgow, settled at Templepatrick in Antrim, and was ordained by a bishop.
Footnote:  They were drawn chiefly from Cambridge U. which even in Elizabeth
’s day had been a center of Calvinistic theology and Puritan doctrine.

 Everything conspired to give the Scottish Presbyterians a strong foothold
in the colony.  The first P. minister to come was Edward Brice, in 1613.  He
was followed by many others.  In 1626 the ministers of Antrim and Down were
numerous enough to establish monthly meetings, which resembled meetings of
Presbytery, since they “consulted about such things as concerned the
carrying on of the work of God.”  ....Revivals were held with much success,
and sometimes, apparently, with the emotional effects that were to be
observed as epidemics of abnormal behavior on the Ohio Valley frontier...”I
have seen them myself stricken and swoon with the Word--yea, a dozen in one
day carried out of doors as dead, so marvellous was the power of God,
smiting their hearts for sin, condemning and killing.  Pastor Blair was
critical of this particular minister, because, ‘having a great voice and
vehement delivery, he roused up the people and wakened them with terrors;
but not understanding well the Gospel, could not settle them.’”

 DID YOU KNOW:  “In 1685 France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which for many
years had assured religious liberty to the Huguenots.  Historians estimate
that some half-million of these Protestants left France as a result.  Many
of them came to Ulster and since they, too, were Calvinists, for the most
part they joined the Presbyterian Church and soon became a part of the
Scottish communities.

 From 1685-88,  Catholic, James II of England, sent Lord-Lt. Tyronnel with
an army  with the purpose openly stated to drive all English and Scottish
colonists out of Ireland, to destroy Protestanism in the country, and to
restore the old faith.  At the same time a reign of terror was going on in
Scotland.  His severe measures in the Scottish lowlands no doubt played
their part in stimulating a renewed migration to Ulster later when William
of Orange became King.  (much historical info that people wanting to
understand the 1600’s should be reading)

 William of Orange m. to Queen Mary (William and Mary) granted freedom of
worship to the defeated Irish...  William was truly a Protestant prince..The
era of religious wars was now nearing its end.  During the last decade of
1600 the final wave of immigration from Scotland, of men attracted by the
offer of farms that had been laid waste during the trouble under James II
arrived.   (much good info)

 ”The course of Presbyterianism in America between 1717 and 1789 neatly
reflects the transformations of the mind and the social life of the
Scotch-Irish as they became Americans.  The church became Americanized; it
enlarged its conception of service to the common man; and it made tentatives
 toward democracy.  Yet during the very century that saw its increase in
vision and effectiveness, the Presbyterian Church lost its hold upon
thousands of Scotch-Irish for whom it had been a birthright.  The causes of
this defection likewise reflect the realities of life in the American
back-country at the time.

 To transplant Ulster Presbyterians into the New World should, accordingly,
have meant to transplant their church with them.  The will to do so was
present. It was the usual practice for several members of the same
congregation to leave the old country together.  On the long voyage across
the ocean, fellow-passengers normally came to have a sense of community,
even though they had been strangers before.  Upon arrival in America,
shipmates normally went together to the same frontier neighborhood to make
their farms.  Here, then, were the elements of a congregation, and here also
was the desire for a church, the instition that above all represented
stability and tradition.

---This was true of my Finnish grandmother in early 1900.  She met a woman
on the boat and became friends and was invited to go with her to
Wisconsin.--

 One thing was lacking: a minister.  In a very few happy instances the
minister from Ulster came over with his flock.  But only a handful of
ministers came with the thousands of immigrants.  Without the influence of a
church, and in the daily exigencies of conquering a wilderness, moral
sensibilities might easily become dulled; life was hard and sometimes cruel;
determination to succeed could result in bickering and ill will; hard
drinking and coarse manners found little check.  Without a minister,
however, no congretation could flourish.

    There were 3 central problems which beset P. among the Scotch-Irish
throughout the colonial era--the numbers, training, and attitudes of its
ministers.  At no time in their lives could people have stood in greater
need of true pastors.  It requires little imagination to perceive the
effects upon men and women of loneliness in the vast silence of forests, of
the absence of familiar social and moral landmarks, of the inevitable pain
and sorrow, of the daily need of encouragement and assurance.  Yet pastors
were few.  The root of the problem was that they must come from abroad; but
the P. required a highly educated clergy.
 Also even if they would have had enough ministers, the mind set of the
clergy at that time could have not have answered the spiritual needs of
pioneers.  It seemed as if clergymen had lost sight of the meaning of such
words as “pastor” and “minister” and had come to feel that formal discourse
in the pulpit, together with proper conduction of church services and
sacraments, comprised their whole duty.  Since they came from the
universities, they often reflected an intellectual detachment.  The mood
that had produced the Protestant Reformation only two centuries ago had
almost vanished.

 Suddenly in 1738,--
===================
I’ll stop here and continue in the next message.  Stay tuned.
Laurel of Portland, OR
Specializing in Research on 4 children of John Sinclear  b. 1763 NH, (ME,
NY, PA, OH,)who went to WI. by 1850.


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