page_title: Scottish religion in the eighteenth century
section_title: Minor sects
hierarchical_section_title: Scottish religion in the eighteenth century / Minor sects
caption_attribution_description: English: David Dale, Glasgow Merchant and founder of New Lanark Cotton Mills.
context_page_description: Scottish religion in the eighteenth century includes all forms of religious organisation and belief in Scotland in the eighteenth century. This period saw the beginnings of a fragmentation of the Church of Scotland that had been created in the Reformation and established on a fully Presbyterian basis after the Glorious Revolution. These fractures were prompted by issues of government and patronage, but reflected a wider division between the Evangelicals and the Moderate Party. The legal right of lay patrons to present clergymen of their choice to local ecclesiastical livings led to minor schisms from the church. The first in 1733, known as the First Secession and headed by figures including Ebenezer Erskine, led to the creation of a series of secessionist churches. The second in 1761 led to the foundation of the independent Relief Church.
  In 1743, the Cameronians established themselves as the Reformed Presbyterian Church, remaining largely separate from religious and political debate. Of independent churches from England that were established in the seventeenth century only the Quakers managed to endure in to the eighteenth century.
context_section_description: As well as the series of secessionist movements, the eighteenth century saw the formation of a number of minor sects. These included the Glasites, formed by Church of Scotland minister John Glas, who was expelled from his parish of Tealing in 1730 for his objections to the state's intervention in the affairs of the kirk. He advocated a strong form of biblical literalism. With his son-in-law Robert Sandeman, from whose name they are known as the Sandemanians, he founded a number of churches in Scotland and the sect expanded to England and the United States. Closely involved with the Glasites were the followers of industrialist David Dale who broke with the kirk in the 1760s and formed the Old Scotch Independents, sometimes known as the Daleists. He preached a combination of industry and faith that led him to co-found the cotton-mill at New Lanark and to contribute to the Utopian Socialism associated with his son-in-law Robert Owen.
  The Bereans were formed by John Barclay in Edinburgh in 1773. Barclay was one of the most prominent followers of moral philosopher Archibald Campbell and espoused a rigorous form of pre-destination and insisted on Biblical-based preaching. Having been rejected from various pastorships and by the General Assembly, he founded independent churches in Scotland and then in England, taking the name Bereans from the people mentioned in Acts 17:11. After Barclay's death in 1798 his followers joined the congregationalists. The Buchanites were a Millenarian cult that broke away from the Relief Church when Hugh White, minister at Irvine, declared Elspeth Buchan to be a special saint identified with the woman described in Revelation 12. They attracted less than fifty followers and having been expelled by local magistrates they formed a community at a farm known as New Cample in Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire. The sect collapsed after the death of Buchan in 1791. Other minor sects include the McMillanites, reported as a group of Covernanters who had separated from kirk discipline in Dumfrisshire in 1721. Another group in the same area, called the Hebronites, were alleged to have sworn at a minister. The Hebronites were later absorbed into the Secession Church with other Covenanters after 1736.
caption: David Dale, founder of the Old Scottish Independents
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