[ASSOCIATE SYNOD], ‘AN ACT OF THE ASSOCIATE SYNOD CONCERNING THE MASON-OATH AND A, R, ‘AN IMPARTIAL

The two preceding texts, by William Imbrie and James Steven, have traced the emergence into print of accounts of disputes between the Antiburgher Kirk Session of Glasgow and a number of members of the congregation who had sworn (or were suspected of having sworn) an oath or oaths on being initiated as Freemasons. The upper courts of the antiburgher hierarchy seemed at first reluctant to get involved in new controversies involving oaths of any sort, but in August 1754 they began to turn their attention to such matters. Their Glasgow presbytery expressed worries about the ‘superstitious form of swearing’ of the constable oath – at Newcastle in England!2 In the same month the synod decided that the chapman oath found in Stirlingshire was sinful. 3 Finally, in March 1755, the synod reconsidered the mason oath – under pressure from below. Three deacons and two elders from the Glasgow session had given in a ‘protest and appeal’ to the presbytery asking that the session be ordered to give them access to documents relating to the case of William Templeton , a deacon on the Kirk Session who had been suspended from ‘sealing ordinances’ (holy communion) for refusing to tell it 'whether he was concerned in certain Oaths, particularly the Mason

Oath’. The presbytery refused to give access to these records, whereupon the deacons and elders appealed to the synod, and gave in a document supporting their case signed by three elders, one deacon and thirty-seven other members of the Glasgow Congregation – evidence of how deeply divided the congregation was. The synod ‘heard at great length’ evidence from representatives of the two sides, and then passed an act ordering the Glasgow session to insist on a clear answer from Templeton as to whether or not he has ever been ‘engaged in the Masonoath’. If he refused, he was to be suspended from office as deacon and banned from communion. If he still remained ‘obstinate’, he was to be referred to the presbytery for deposition from office and placed under ‘lesser excommunication’ (banned from all worship). Further, all other Kirk Sessions were to deal with similar cases in this way.4