Glasite

Glasite Meeting House, Perth, Scotland

The Glasites /ˈɡlæsts/ or Glassites were a small Christian church founded in about 1730 in Scotland by John Glas.[note 1][1] Glas's faith, as part of the First Great Awakening, was spread by his son-in-law Robert Sandeman into England and America, where the members were called Sandemanians.[2]

Glas dissented from the Westminster Confession only in his views as to the spiritual nature of the church and the functions of the civil magistrate. But Sandeman added a distinctive doctrine as to the nature of faith which is thus stated on his tombstone:[3]

That the bare death of Jesus Christ without a thought or deed on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners spotless before God.[4]

In a series of letters to James Hervey, the author of Theron and Aspasio, Sandeman maintained that justifying faith is a simple assent to the divine testimony concerning Jesus, differing in no way in its character from belief in any ordinary testimony.[3][note 2]


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  1. ^ Van Kirk (1907) page 75
  2. ^ Smith (2008), p. 37.
  3. ^ a b Macfadyen 1911.
  4. ^ For the entire quote, see page 112 of The Society's (1904) Transactions, Volume 6.