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Excerpt from The History of the Rise, Progress, and Principles of the Relief Church: Embracing Notices of the Other Religious Denominations in Scotland Circumstances which are well known to the Synod have led the Author to write the History of the Relief Church. He had neither vanity nor leisure to have devoted himself to a thorough study of its records, had not the nearness of his residence to the legal agents who conducted the Campbelton case - detailed at the close of the volume - brought him under the necessity of examining facts and documents, so as to be able, when asked, to give an answer on the spot to the false allegations which were made, and also to state the truth to those who were employed by the congregation, in conducting the process. It would have been a tedious matter to have gone to Kintyre for information upon every litigated point. As the action before the civil courts was an attempt to strip the Campbelton Church of its property, on the ground of a departure from Old Relief Principles, it was necessary that the rise of the denomination and the opinions of its early fathers should be studied, and investigated with considerable care. The first Minute Book of the Body, being either lost, or at least not known to be in existence, it was only in pamphlets, fugitive pieces, or in the works of hostile authors, that the principles of the Relief Church could be found, and from thence they were laboriously dug. At the successful termination of the process in 1839, several members of Synod urged the propriety of throwing into the form of a History, the facts which had been so thoroughly sifted by counsel at the bar of the Court of Session. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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'The Search for a Common Identity' explores the process by which Scottish Baptists came to recognize the need for a union of Baptist churches in Scotland prior to 1869. This book identifies the major leaders in each of the three main Baptist streams in the early nineteenth century and shows how they came to the conviction that it was important for them to establish a common identity. At the heart of their unity was an enthusiasm for evangelism. The Baptist Home Missionary Society was formed in 1827. Its early successes demonstrated the wisdom of cooperation between the different Baptist agencies in Scotland. There had been three attempts to form a union of churches that failed because differences of perspective could not be reconciled. The principal achievement of the 1869 Baptist Union was in enabling Baptists with different theological opinions to come together to promote common practical objectives. In short, a shared sense of purpose led to the growth and establishment of the Baptist Union of Scotland.