# The Standards of the Associate Reformed 1799-2006



## NaphtaliPress (May 28, 2008)

Since I noted an 1832 copy of the ARP Stds offered on Ebay I thought I'd post my research on ARP standards in a new thread. This is from the Endnotes ("Texts Consulted for the Collation") in Chris Coldwell, "A Critical Text of the Westminster Larger Catechism: Q. 1–50," _The Confessional Presbyterian_ 3 (2007) 78-79. 

* American Editions
ARP. Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.*
72.ARPa. The Constitution and Standards of the Associate-Reformed Church in North-America (New York: T. & J. Swords, 1799). See Antiquary for a fuller description.

73.ARPLC. The Larger Catechism; Agreed Upon By The Assembly Of Divines At Westminster, With The Assistance Of Commissioners From The Church Of Scotland, As Received By The Associate Reformed Church In North-America (Salem, N.J.: Dodd & Rumsey, 1812). This is a fairly rare American printing of the Larger Catechism and was not included in the collation. Early American Imprints, Shaw & Shoemaker 27529. 

74.ARPb. The Constitution, etc. (Pittsburgh: Johnston and Stockton, 1827 and 1832). The Johnston and Stockton edition of 1832 when it differs from the 1827 will be noted as ARPb2; otherwise, ARPb refers to both editions.

75.ARPc. The Constitution, etc. (Salem: NY: Dodd and Stevenson, 1827).

76.ARPd. The Constitution, etc. (Pittsburgh: Elliot & English, 1850). 

77.ARPe. The Constitution, etc. (Philadelphia: W. S. Young, 1874). See comments on Young below. [see item 120, _The Confessional Presbyterian_ 2 (2007) 3.82-83]

78.ARPf. The Constitution, etc. (Atlanta: Publication Committee of the Associate Reformed Church [n.d., 1896?]). While noting no date of publication, Warfield, writing in 1901, assigns a date of 1896, apparently due to his correspondence with a Rev. S. A. Agnew, D.D. The successor denomination to the original Associate Reformed Synod was the Associate Reformed Synod of the South (1822), which in 1891 became the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Synod of the South. It is possible the new standards date to that time. This edition or subsequent reprints or copies may have been relied upon well into the 20th century. A new edition of the Confession and Catechisms did not appear for eighty years. For this collation, the reproduction was consulted that is posted on the ARP website. In March 2007, shortly before completing the text for inclusion in this issue of The Confessional Presbyterian, the author obtained an example staple bound in thick grey paper covers. This may date to the time Warfield was writing, or may be a later issue if there were reprints. However, while the book is internally quite well preserved for an older printing, it may be reasonable to assume it was published prior to 1908, as by the time the constitution (containing only the Books of Government, Discipline and Worship) was completed and published in that year, the publishing committee is noted as residing at Due West, SC (Constitution of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Synod of the South [Columbia, S.C.: The R. L. Bryan Company, 1908]). The “1896” apparently was crafted from the plates of one of the editions of UPCb. The dimensions are similar and there were editions published in 1891 and 1895. The catechisms in the 1896 and the UPCb match exactly, with the ARP inadvertently dropping their official 1799 change in LC 109 where “authorizing” replaced “tolerating.”4 The portions were modified in the Confession where the two standards differ at CF 20.4, 23.3, and 31.2. At 20.4, the portion of page 132 below §3 is reset, and page 133 was reset completely. A page was dropped, and other than the numbering being off by one, the pages look identical in the two versions. At page 147 where chapter 21 ends, ARPf splits the beginning of CF 22 to a new page to get the numbering back on track. At 23.3, pages 158–161 were modified to conform to the ARP Standards, with the changes necessitating modifying the numbering of page 159 to read 159–61, with the text picking up and following the UPCb plates with page 162. At chapter 30, the ARP removes the unique UPC text from the bottom of page 194, resets page 195 to contain the ARP’s unique §2, and removes two lines of the UPC Scripture proofs from the top of page 196. The text continues identical from 197 until the end of the Confession.

79.ARPff. The Confession of Faith of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Published by Order of the General Synod by the Standing Committee of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1958). An example of this publication was obtained in March 2007. The book only contains the Confession of Faith, and it appears from the crispness of the type, that the text was reset using the 1896 edition as a pattern, which it follows fairly closely line by line. Sadly, some rather obvious or not so obvious errors were introduced, some of which have been corrected in the current text, and some of which have not. On the first page of the 1958 text at CF 1.1, in the third line from the bottom, the text reads: “the Holy Scripture to be most necessarily;e those”. The line in the 1896 text correctly reads: “the holy scripture to be most necessary;e those”. The word “necessarily” remains through ARPh. 

80.*g. The Standards … (1976). This apparently is the edition noted in The Second Century: A History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterians 1882–1982 by Lowry Ware and James W. Gettys (Associate Reformed Presbyterian Center, n.d., 388). It is 255 pages in length, and except for where changes were reset, appears to be pasted up from the 1958 text of the ARP Confession, and from an edition of J&Hb for the catechisms, but with scripture references only, reset anew below the text. The latter perpetuated the omission of the official change in LC 109. Subsequently, sometime after 1989, the text of all the documents was completely reset, as copies of the 255 page edition are located in libraries with formally adopted changes for that year. Confusion is caused as the new paperback edition, which ran to 273 pages, has examples stating a publication date of 1976. However, all the examples examined to date contain official changes dated to the 1990s, when it was likely produced. This later text is collated as ARPh.5

81.ARPh. The Standards of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Printed under the auspices of the General Synod of the ARP, 1990?, 1998, 2003, 2006). The text of the Larger Catechism is essentially unchanged in these printings. The 1998 is paperbound; the later editions are in ring binders.
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4. In his 1882 history Robert Lathan writes regarding the changes in the ARP Confession of Faith: “The only other change which was made was the substituting of the word authorizing for ‘tolerating’ in the catalogue of sins contained in the answer to the 139th [sic] question of the Larger Catechism” (Robert Lathan, D.D., History of the Associate Reformed Synod of the South [Harrisburg, Pa.: Published for the Author, 1882] 198). That author has conflated the use of tolerating in LC 139, with the use in LC 109, which was the answer in the LC which was formally changed by the ARP in 1799, and which was correctly printed at the time he wrote, and always correctly printed until the 1896 edition.

5. The author thank the Rev. Dr. C. Ronald Beard for confirming [when] the approximate dates of these later ARP editions appeared.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (May 28, 2008)

Thanks again!!!


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