The Cumberland Presbyterian Church

THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH was organized in Tennessee on February 14, 1810, by three Presbyterian ministers, Finis Ewing, Sam uel King, and Samuel McAdow. They called the organization the Cumberland Presbytery. This act was the crisis of a movement begun a dozen years earlier, the great spiritual revival which had stirred that part of the Southwest, under the leadership of James McGready and others. This revival was widespread, and its converts were so many that the demand for ministers was far in excess of the number the Church could furnish. Under the advice of some of the most honored ministers of the time, men of approved intelligence and religious character were chosen as exhorters, even though they had not had the education usual to candidates for the ministry. The urgency of the need seemed to the Revival Party a sufficient reason for the custom. The men so ordained were permitted to adopt the Westminster Confession of Faith with the excep tion of the idea of fatality.' The controversy

along thee two lines increased till it resulted in the formation of the new Church. in 1813 the Cumberland Presbytery had so increased as to make necessary its division into three presbyte ries and the formation of a synod. One of its first acts was to appoint a committee to prepare a Confession of Faith. This committee simply modified the Westminster Confession, the chief changes being in chapters iii. and x. The Pres byterian polity was retained. Before the Civil War there were about 20.000 colored Cumberland Presbyterians worshiping with the white congre gations. In 1869, however, the colored people asked and received consent of the General As sembly to the organization of the African Cum berland Presbyterian Church. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church has a theological seminary at Lebanon, Tenn.