SYNOD OF RELIEF.
The members of the Relief Kirk are a species of Dissenters in Scotland, whose chief ground of dissent from the Establishment is,—the liberty and privilege which they maintain in choosing their own ministers.
In 1762, when Mr Thomas Gillespie, minister of Carnock, in the presbytery of Dunfermline, was deposed by the General Assembly, for refusing to assist at the admission of Mr Andrew Richardson, in the parish of Inverkeithing, the parishioners, in general, being unwilling to receive him as their pastor. Mr Gillespie's situation now rendered him more conspicuous and popular than before; and a chapel was soon built for him in Dunfermine, where he continued to preach to a congregation that was much attached to him, and to oppose the law of patronage in the Kirk. Nor was it long before he was joined by Mr Thomas Boston, minister of Oxnam, who, being refused the presentation, when the town-council, kirk-session, and ⟨a⟩ great body of the people in Jedburgh, declared in his favour, on a vacancy in their kirk, gave in his demission to the presbytery of Jedburgh, and undertook the pastoral care of that people, in connection with Mr G.
Mr Boston's cause was brought before the General Assembly, who declared him incapable of receiving a presentation, or even of preaching in a parish church; and all its members were prohibited from holding ministerial communion with him.
Being thus excluded from the communion of the Kirk, these two gentlemen, and a Mr Collier,
