Excerpt from Exposition and Defense of the Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith: Being the Draught of an "Overture" Prepared by a Committee of the Associate Reformed Synod, in 1783

All parties received accessions to their ministry from abroad; but, for some years, it is believed that few emi grants from Britain and Ireland joined the Associate Reformed Church. Emigrants, immediately on their land ing' in America, were poorly qualified to form a correct judgment as to the merits Of the union. The controversy, as well as its causes, still continued to exist between the parties, (the Mother Churches, as they were called, ) in the Old Country and each party was as unwilling to lose what strength it had in America, as Great Britain was to lose what interest She had in the colonies. Both the mother churches supposing, what they had no right to sup pose, that they were capable of judging as to the duty Of their brethren in the altered state of things In this coun try, condemned the union; and those who went out from them, would, of course, bring to America the prejudices in which they had been nurtured on the other side Of the Atlantic. It was a great deal easier, -even for a talented young minister, to declaim against the union, on his first setting foot in America, than to appreciate the reasons which rendered it a wise, necessary, and Christian measure. Had the same view been taken of the civil institutions of the United States, by the body of the Reformed Presby terian ministers and people at first, which, at present, prevails in one Of the parties into which they have since divided, it is difficult to believe that the Reformed Presby terian Church would ever have existed in this country as a distinct body.

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