Marrow Controversy - Associate Presbytery

Associate Presbytery

Subsequently every effort was made by the men who had opposed The Marrow to prevent ministers holding Marrow doctrines from obtaining more influential pastoral charges, but no effective disciplinary action was taken against them. The ecclesiastical controversy thus gradually drew to an end, but theological disagreement continued. In the 1730s, though over a different issue, that of patronage, some of the proponents of Marrow theology left the Church of Scotland to form the Associate Presbytery, with the distinctive doctrines of The Marrow forming the theological basis for the new church.

In 1726 a new edition of The Marrow was published, with a preface and extensive annotations by Thomas Boston, defending and expounding the Marrow’s teaching as Scriptural. In this form The Marrow has been frequently reprinted over the last nearly 300 years and has been widely influential.