Rankin's account of his withdrawal from the Presbyterian Church

Context

After describing his failed efforts to prevent the adoption of Watts’s psalms, Rankin explains how he came to leave the Presbyterian Church. This passage describes the moment of separation—a decision that would eventually lead him to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Rankin frames his departure as a reluctant necessity rather than a voluntary schism.

Extract

Being thus hardly dealt with, and meeting with fuch oppofition from my brethren, in the defence of truth, and the practice of what I believed to be duty: I was at laft, when all hopes of comfortable or fafe communication failed me, fhut up to the neceffity of declining any further connexion with them, and having protefted againft their proceedings withdrew. And as I had no hope of redrefs, from a fuperior Judicature in that church; I found myfelf obliged to make my appeal to the world, for the juftnefs of my caufe, and the rectitude of my conduct: hoping the reader will give me an impartial hearing, while I lay before him the following ftatement of facts, and prefent plan of our procedure.

Significance

This passage documents the mechanism of denominational realignment driven by the psalmody controversy. Rankin describes being “fhut up to the neceffity” of leaving—passive language that absolves him of schismatic intent while placing blame on his opponents. He found “no hope of redrefs” within Presbyterian structures, so he withdrew and published his case to “the world.” This pattern—loss in church courts followed by public appeal and denominational transfer—would recur throughout the psalmody debates. The passage illustrates how worship controversies fractured Presbyterian unity and drove individuals toward denominations that matched their convictions.