The Springfield Presbytery was an independent presbytery that became one of the earliest expressions of the Stone-Campbell Movement. It was composed of Presbyterian ministers who withdrew from the jurisdiction of the Kentucky Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America on September 10, 1803. It dissolved itself on June 28, 1804, with the publication of a document titled the Last Will and Testament of The Springfield Presbytery, marking the birth of the Christian Church of the West. History The immediate cause of withdrawal by the ministers was that the Synod of Kentucky had censured the Washington Presbytery for the following: appointing Richard McNemar, after having previously examined his doctrine and condemning it as "dangerous to the souls of men, and hostile to the interests of all religion;" refusing a petition to examine the doctrine of a second minister, John Thompson; and refusing to reexamine the doctrine of McNemar.Both ministers had expressed views at odds with the Westminster Confession. These two ministers and three others (Robert Marshall, John Dunlavy, and Barton W. Stone) protested the proceedings of the Synod and withdrew from its jurisdiction. Their signed protest was dated September 10, 1803. They gave the following reasons for withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the Synod: belief that the resolution condemning McNemar's teachings (which they all shared) gave "a distorted and false representation of Mr. McNemar's sentiments" and was "calculated to prevent the influence of truth of the most interesting nature"; assertion of the privilege of interpreting scripture independently of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, appealing to the section in that confession that says, "the Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other than the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures"; argued that some of the doctrines of grace were "in a measure darkened by some expressions in the Confession of Faith [regarding the doctrine of predestination], which are used as a means of strengthening sinners in their unbelief, and subjecting many of the pious to a spirit of bondage," and said that when they tried to address those difficulties, they were accused of departing from the faith. Based on those reasons, the ministers said that they chose to withdraw from the jurisdiction of