Life
1788-1865; b. 16 Jan., Killean [var. Killead], Co. Antrim; ed. locally; grad. Glasgow U., MA 1807; beaten by Henry Cooke to Dungore ongregation; regarded as founder of the liberal tradition of modern Presbyterianism, instigated by the secession to form the non-subscribing Presbyterian Church; ed. privately and Glasgow, 1904; MA, 1807; ord. 1809; became Presbyterian pastor, Dunmurry, Co. Down; m. Elizabeth Swan, dg. of an Antrim linen merchant, 1812; supporting Catholic Emancipation, supported Catholic Emancipation and Disestablishment, condemning the Presbyterian Synod"s weak resolution in favour of Emancipation, 1813; taught school at renovated glebe house and appt. head of English at Belfast Academical Institution [BAI], 1817;
rebutted Henry Cooke’s attack on Arianism at BAI and also his larger attempt to tighten Presbyterian discipline; speech in favour of religious liberty, Strabane, 1827; adopted Remonstrance after Synod reaffirmed Trinitarianism, 1829; fnd. Remonstrant Synod of Ulster with 17 others, leading Unitarianism in secession from Presbyterian Synod, 1830; defeated Cooke in attempt to exclude Unitarians from faculty in BAI, elected Prof. of Ecclesiastical History by Antrim and Munster Synods combined; original editor of Bible Christian; author of many pamphlets; contributed ‘Outlines of the History of Presbyterianism in Ireland’ to the Irish Unitarian Magazine, 1846-47; d. 18 Dec.; there is a portrait by J. P. Knight. ODNB DIH FDA WJM
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Criticism
John M. Barkley, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church [q.d; infra]; Andrew Boyd, Montgomery and the Black Man (Dublin: Columba Press 2006), 88pp.
Commentary
John M. Barkley, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church [q.d], remarks that ‘Montgomery was loved by his friends and respected by his enemies ... Cooke on the other hand was extremely self-possessed and appeared to have been admired rather than loved’ (117pp.).
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Quotations
Bon mot: Montgomery is said to have remarked of the Westminster Confession that it either contradicts what is said in the Bible, in which case it is heretical, or reiterates what is stated in the Bible, in which case it is redundant. (Information supplied by Jim Brown; UUC/Philosophy.)
References
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, notes that Henry Montgomery anonymously published 3 long articles in the Belfast daily Northern Whig, Dec. 1829-Jan. 1830, attacking the landlordism of Marquis of Hertford in Co. Antrim; when Hertford threatened libel, O’Connell volunteered to act in his defence; Montgomery’s friendship with O’Connell ended when the former published an attack on the latter, 1 Feb. 1831. (Letters selected in FDA3, 341ff.)
Dictionary of Irish Biography (entry by Finlay Holmes): "Two of Henry's older brothers fought at the battle of Antrim (1798). They were imprisoned and the yeomanry burned the family home. Henry always honoured the ideals of the United Irishmen while deploring the rebellion as a mistake. [...] graduated [Glasgow U.] MA in 1807 and, after a year of theological studies, was licensed as a ministerial probationer by the Templepatrick presbytery on 5 February 1809. Rejected in favour of Henry Cooke [q.v.] by the nearby Donegore congregation, he was ordained and installed in Dunmurry, Co. Antrim, on 24 September 1809 by the presbytery of Bangor, without subscribing the Westminster confession.
Further: When in 1822 Henry Cooke began to attack the Belfast Institution as a ‘seminary of Arianism’, Montgomery was one of its chief defenders. However, in the course of a government inquiry into the affairs of the Institution, he and other ministers acknowledged that they were anti-trinitarians or Arians, giving Cooke an opportunity to attack them in the synod as heretics. [...] His theological apologia, “The creed of an Arian”, appeared originally in 1830 in the non-subscribing presbyterian journal The Bible Christian, to which he contributed regularly, and is printed with some of his important speeches in The life of the Rev. Henry Montgomery LL.D by his son-in-law, J. A. Crozier. Only the first volume of the biography was published. (DIB/RIA - online; accessed 25.10.2023.)
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Notes
Thomas Witherow: Autobiography of Thomas Witherow (1990 edn.) makes allusion to Montgomery: ‘He was in every way an amiable and estimable man, whom I could have loved as well as admired, had it not been that his Arian opinions made me afraid of him’ (quoted by J. W. Nelson, reviewing the autobiography in Linen Hall Review (Sept. 1991).
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