Rev John Paul (1777–1848), was born in 1777 at Tobernaveen, near Antrim, he became minister at Loughmourne Reformed Presbyterian Church, near Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, in 1805.

In the Arian controversy, Paul in 1819 published ‘Creeds and Confessions Defended in a Series of Letters addressed to the anonymous Author of “The Battle of the Two Dialogues”. A speech delivered by Henry Montgomery in 1827, at the annual meeting of the synod of Ulster in Strabane, brought a response from Paul in 1828,  ‘A Review of a Speech by the Rev. Dr. Montgomery of Belfast, and the Doctrines of Unitarians proved to be unfavourable to the Right of Private Judgment, to Liberality, and Charity, to the Investigation of Truth and the practise of Virtue’. These three publications attained a very large circulation.

Paul became involved in another controversy with a brother minister of the Reformed Presbyterian body, the Rev. Thomas Houston, D.D., of Knockbracken, near Belfast, the point in dispute being the province of ‘the civil magistrate.’ He published several pamphlets on the question, the chief being ‘A Review of the Rev. Thomas Houston’s “Christian Magistrate,” and a Defence of the Principles of Civil and Religious Liberty’. Eventually the controversy reached the synod of the reformed presbyterian church, and divided it into two bodies—one, the ‘Reformed Presbyterian Synod of Ireland,’ adhering to the views of Houston; and the other, the ‘Eastern Reformed Presbyterian Synod of Ireland,’ holding by those of Paul. But, though a keen polemic, he was kind and amiable, and was universally respected. He died at Carrickfergus on 16 March 1848.

His three works on the Arian controversy were republished in one volume in 1855.

adapted from the Dictionary of National Biography.

A Refutation of Arianism

The Works of The late John Paul D.D.