How to use Episcopacy in a sentence

The controversy chiefly turned on the question of the necessity of episcopacy.

As one of the three principal systems of ecclesiastical polity known to the Christian Church, Presbyterianism occupies an intermediate position between episcopacy and congregationalism.

In episcopacy the supreme authority is a diocesan bishop; in congregationalism it is the members of the congregation assembled in church meeting; in Presbyterianism it is a church council composed of representative presbyters.

In episcopacy the control of church affairs is almost entirely withdrawn from the people; in congregationalism it is almost entirely exercised by the people; in Presbyterianism it rests with a council composed of duly appointed office-bearers chosen by the people.

The ecclesiastical unit in episcopacy is a diocese, comprising many churches and ruled by a prelate; in congregationalism it is a single church, self-governed and entirely independent of all others; in Presbyterianism it is a presbytery or council composed of ministers and elders representing all the churches within a specified district.

But Presbyterianism was associated in the 2nd century with a kind of episcopacy.

This episcopacy was at first rather congregational than diocesan; but the tendency of its growth was undoubtedly towards the latter.

They were unanimous in rejecting the episcopacy of the Church of Rome, the sanctity of celibacy, the sacerdotal character of the ministry, the confessional, the propitiatory nature of the mass.

Episcopacy, Erastianism and Independency, though of little account in the assembly, were to bulk largely in England's future; while the church polity which the assembly favoured and recommended was to be almost unknown.

Then with the Restoration came Episcopacy, and the persecution of all who were not Episcopalians; and the dream and vision of a truly Reformed English Church practically passed away.

He belonged to the Root and Branch party, and spoke in favour of the petition of the London citizens for the abolition of episcopacy on the 9th of February 1641, and pressed upon the House the Root and Branch Bill in May.

Then parliament enacted a new system of Church courts which, though to some extent in its turn superseded by the revival of episcopacy under James VI., was revived or ratified by the act of 1690, c. 7, and stands to this day.

The proper symbol of episcopacy is not so much the mitre as the ring and pastoral staff.

The author of The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy or Episcopacy Asserted against the Aerians and Acephali New and Old (1642), could scarcely hope to retain his parish, which was not, however, sequestrated until 1644.

There were, at the date of the Restoration, about seventy Presbyterian ministers in the north of Ireland, and most of these were from the west of Scotland, and were imbued with the dislike of Episcopacy which distinguished the Covenanting party.

When Charles visited Scotland to give his formal assent to the abolition of Episcopacy, Montrose communicated to him his belief that Hamilton was a traitor.

During the establishment of Episcopacy in Scotland, Edinburgh was the seat of a bishop, and the ancient collegiate church of St Giles rose to the dignity of a cathedral.

Provided that the preaching of the gospel was free and full, Luther was willing to tolerate episcopacy and even papacy.

Under the present heading it is proposed only to discuss briefly the various types of episcopacy actually existing, and the different principles that they represent.

The deepest line of cleavage is naturally between the view that episcopacy is a divinely ordained institution essential to the effective existence of a church as a channel of grace, and the view that it is merely a convenient form of church order, evolved as the result of a variety of historical causes, and not necessary to the proper constitution of a church.

Apart altogether, however, from the question of orders, episcopacy represents a very special conception of the Christian Church.

This high theory of episcopacy which, if certain of the Ignatian letters be genuine, has a very early origin, has, of course, fallen upon evil days.

At the Vatican Council of 1870 episcopacy made its last stand against papalism, and was vanquished.

The pope still addresses his fellow-bishops as "venerable brothers"; but from the Roman Catholic Church the fraternal union of coequal authorities, which is of the essence of episcopacy, has vanished; and in its place is set the autocracy of one.

The modern Roman Catholic Church is episcopal, for it preserves the bishops, whose potestas ordinis not even the pope can exercise until he has been duly consecrated; but the bishops as such are now but subordinate elements in a system for which "Episcopacy" is certainly no longer an appropriate term.

The word Episcopacy has, in fact, since the Reformation, been more especially associated with those churches which, while ceasing to be in communion with Rome, have preserved the episcopal model.

The Church of England since the Reformation has been the chief champion of the principle of Episcopacy against the papal pretensions on the one hand and Presbyterianism and Congregationalism on the other.

As to the divine origin of Episcopacy and, consequently, of its universal obligation in the Christian Church, Anglican opinion has been, and still is, considerably divided.'

Methodist episcopacy is therefore based on the denial of any special potestas ordinis in the degree of bishop, and is fundamentally distinct from that of the, Catholic Church - using this term in its narrow sense as applied to the ancient churches of the East and West.

Of these the latter, who separated from the Roman communion after the promulgation of the dogma of papal infallibility, represent a pure revolt of the system of Episcopacy against that of Papalism.

He spoke against the illegal canons on the 14th of December 1640, and again on the 9th of February 1641 on the occasion of the reception of the London petition, when he argued against episcopacy as constituting a political as well as a religious danger and made a great impression on the House, his name being added immediately to the committee appointed to deal with church affairs.

Upon the opening of the Long Parliament he distinguished himself in defence of the Presbyterian cause, and had a principal share in writing the conciliatory work known as Smectymnuus, against Bishop Joseph Hall's presentation of episcopacy.

Varied as are the forms which this idea has assumed under varying conditions of time and place, it remains distinctive enough to constitute one of the three main types of ecclesiastical polity, the others being Episcopacy and Presbyterianism.

Such were the leading features of Browne's Congregationalism, as a polity distinct from both Episcopacy and Presbyterianism.

Mason, who, in The Christian's Magazine, of which he was editor, had attacked the Episcopacy in general and in particular Hobart's Collection of Essays on the Subject of Episcopacy (1 806).

While he maintained the puritan doctrines as a whole, the special point of his attack was the Episcopacy.

His recantation of Episcopacy (1590) is probably spurious.

In the episcopacy it has numerous adherents; it has, made progress in the universities, and most of the learned and theological reviews are conducted in its spirit.

Congregational episcopacy was the rule for a number of generations.

So long as each church had its own bishop the presbyters constituted simply his council, but with the growth of diocesan episcopacy it became the custom to put each congregation under the care of a particular presbyter, who performed within it most of the pastoral duties formerly discharged by the bishop himself.

They were only representatives of the bishop, and the churches over which they were set were all a part of his parish, so that the Cyprianic principle, that the bishop is necessary to the very being of the Church, held good of diocesan as well as of congregational episcopacy.

The see remained vacant from 1580 to 1606, and from 1638 till the Restoration, and, after the accession of William II., the episcopacy was finally abolished (1697), although many of the clergy refused to conform.

In 1581 episcopacy was abolished as a result of the report of a commission on which Craig had sat; he also assisted at the composition of the Second Book of Discipline and the National Covenant of 1580, and in 1581 compiled "Ane Shorte and Generale Confession" called the "King's Confession," which was imposed on all parish ministers and graduates and became the basis of the Covenant of 1638.

His first work, De diversis gradibus ministrorum Evangelii (1590; in English, 1592, and reprinted), was an argument for episcopacy, which led to a controversy with Theodore Beza, and gained him incorporation (9 June 1590) as D.D.

He consulted the older and graver Laurentius Andreae, who told him how "Doctor Martinus had clipped the wings of the pope, the cardinals and the big bishops," which could not fail to be pleasing intelligence to a monarch who was never an admirer of episcopacy, while the rich revenues of the church, accumulated in the course of centuries, were a tempting object to the impecunious ruler of an impoverished people.

He soon, on some points, especially matters of discipline, became alienated from the Church; and after the requirement of what is called "the et cetera oath," he rejected episcopacy in its English form.

The history of presbyteral government as opposed to episcopacy and pure congregationalism is not known in detail.

The third stage of the development of the office is marked by the rise of the single episcopus as the head of the individual church (see Bishop; Episcopacy).

Episcopacy was restored, the court of high commission was revived, and ministers who refused to recognize the authority of the bishops were expelled from their livings.

About 1604 he became minister of Crailing, near Jedburgh, where he became conspicuous for his resolute opposition to the introduction of Episcopacy.

As Hector Boece, " that pillar of falsehood," dubbed these presbyters " Culdees," " the pure Culdee," a blameless presbyterian, almost prehistoric, has been claimed as the ancestor of Scottish presbyterianism; and episcopacy has been regarded as a deplorable innovation.

In a long series of crafty movements James managed to reintroduce episcopacy (1598-1600) by the aid of packed General Assemblies, later declared void by the Covenanters (1638).

Andrew, who behaved with injudicious violence, was banished to France, James to Newcastle; other preachers were confined to their parishes; and by a mixture of chicanery (as at the pseudo assembly of Linlithgow) and of violence, the king established his tottering episcopacy, and sowed the dragon's teeth of civil war.

Middleton, Tarbat and Clarendon overcame Charles's reluctance to restore episcopacy; Lauderdale fell into the background; The Rev. James Sharp, hitherto the agent of the Resolutioners, or milder party among the preachers, turned his coat, and took the archbishopric of St Andrews.

Episcopacy being restored, some three or four hundred preachers were driven from their parishes (1663).

While adhering rigidly to his views on the divine institution of episcopacy as essential to the Christian Church, Dr Gore from the first cultivated friendly relations with the ministers of other denominations, and advocated co-operation with them in all matters when agreement was possible.

Here he published (1659) his Irenicum, in which he sought to give expression to the prevailing weariness of the faction between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, and to find some compromise in which all could conscientiously unite.

Cameron was prepared to accept Episcopacy, and was cordially disliked for his adherence to the doctrine of passive obedience.

In 1572 a kind of Episcopacy was set up in the interest of the nobles, who in order to draw the income of the episcopal sees had to arrange with men possessing a legal title to them.

The assembly of 1575 decided that all ministers were bishops; that of 1578 abolished the name of bishop as denoting an office in the church, and that of 1580 in spite of a royal remonstrance abolished Episcopacy, a decree to which all the bishops except five submitted.

In 1612 the act of 1592 which established Presbytery was rescinded, and Episcopacy became the legal church system of Scotland.

Presbytery was rapidly growing in that country, and the English parliament sought the alliance of the assembly, while the Independents, though in the event Presbytery was as little to their liking as Episcopacy, joined in the wish to get rid of the episcopal system.

At the Restoration it was a question whether the bulk of the population was in favour of Presbytery or of Episcopacy.

Episcopacy was restored by a letter from the king on the 5th of September 1661.

William would have decided for Episcopacy in Scotland, as the great body of the nobles and gentry adhered to it, but only on condition that the Episcopalians agreed to support him and that they had the people with them.

Effect was given to this; and in April 1690 the act was passed on which the establishment of the Church of Scotland rests, the Westminster Confession being recognized, the laws in favour of Episcopacy repealed, though the Rescissory Act remained on the statute book, and the assembly appointed to meet.

Presbytery, being loyal to the house of Hanover, while Episcopacy was Jacobite, was now in enjoyment of the royal favour and was treated as a firm ally of the government.

After the decline of episcopacy the building was neglected for a long period, but the choir, which contains some carved oak stalls of the 16th century, was restored in 1873, and the nave roofed and restored in 1892-1895, under the direction of Sir Rowand Anderson, the architect.

He was engaged in an interesting controversy with John Selden as to the historical grounds of episcopacy, in the course of which he published his Eutychius vindicatus, sive Responsio ad Seldeni Origines (Rome, 1661).

In Scotland episcopacy was set up, the covenant to which Charles had taken so many solemn oaths burnt by the common hangman, and Argyll brought to the scaffold, while the kingdom was given over to the savage and corrupt administration of Lauderdale.

He would have reduced episcopacy to narrow limits; and his views had considerable influence on the Puritans of Elizabeth's reign, when many editions of Hooper's various works were published.

The Church of England, both in constitution and doctrine, represents in general the mean between Roman Catholicism on the one hand and the more advanced forms of Protestantism on the other (see Episcopacy).

After the legislation under William and Mary disestablishing episcopacy in Scotland and subjecting its professors to civil penalties, little attention was given to canon law for many years.

The parliament having gained the ascendancy, Hale signed the Solemn League and Covenant, and was a member of the famous assembly of divines at Westminster in 1644; but although he would undoubtedly have preferred a Presbyterian form of church government, he had no serious objection to the system of modified Episcopacy proposed by Usher.

In July of that year he went with other commissioners to Aberdeen in the vain attempt to induce the university and the presbytery of that city to subscribe the National Covenant, and in the following November sat in the general assembly at Glasgow which abolished episcopacy in Scotland.

But the members who favored the king, and who formed a considerable minority, wished to see a certain liberty of religious thought, together with a return under a modified Episcopacy to the forms of worship which prevailed before Laud had taken the church in hand.

He published a collection of tracts at Oxford in that year, including a defence of episcopacy and the doctrine of non-resistance.

He restored Christianity, and in accordance with the traditions of Irish episcopacy chose the island of Lindisfarne, close to the royal city of Bamborough, as his see.

He disapproved of the methods used to enforce Episcopacy, and refused a bishopric.

Dr. Williams should admit as much and abolish the episcopacy.

Sent to the island to introduce prelatic episcopacy, he went as he came.

I didn't claim I don't think that episcopacy was the biblical model of the church - and I wouldn't.

Wright wants to argue that we see Mary being an apostle, and thereby establishing female apostleship and, by extrapolation, female episcopacy.

Even the archbishop of Canterbury favoured a modification of episcopacy, and an approach to Presbyterian polity and dicipline; but attention was mainly directed to the settlement of doctrine and worship. Cranmer wrote that bishops and priests were not different but the same in the beginning of Christ's religion.

In 1642 the Long Parliament abolished Episcopacy (the act to come into force on the 5th of November - 1643) and summoned an assembly of divines to meet at Westminster in June 1643 to advise inster W J 43 parliament as to the new form of Church government.

Their preponderance in Ulster and their consciousness of their great service to England led them first of all to hope that Presbyterianism might be substituted for Episcopacy in Ulster, and afterwards, that it might be placed on an equal footing with the latter.

Natural Law, he claims, leaves room for discretionary arrangements like episcopacy; Scripture does not mean to supersede the light of reason.

As Henderson was forced upon his parish by Archbishop George Gladstanes, and was known to sympathize with episcopacy, his settlement was at first extremely unpopular; but he subsequently changed his views and became a Presbyterian in doctrine and 'church government, and one of the most esteemed ministers in Scotland.

The origin and development of episcopacy in the Christian Church, and the functions and attributes of bishops in the various churches, are dealt with elsewhere (see Church History and BIsHoP).

Within the Roman Catholic Church the high doctrine of episcopacy continued to be maintained by the Gallicans and Febronians (see Gallicanism and Febronianism) as against the claims ' See Bishop C. Gore, The Church and the Ministry (1887).

At the Vatican Council of 1870 episcopacy made its last stand against papalism, and was vanquished '(see' Vatican Council).

Episcopacy in a stricter sense is the system of the Moravian Brethren and the Methodist Episcopal Church of America (see Methodism).

They included Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, who had practised this polity during exile abroad and now strove to avert the substitution of Presbyterian uniformity for the Episcopacy which, as the ally of absolutism, had alienated its own children (see Presbyterianism).

This system admits that the pope represents the unity of the Church, and acknowledges his primacy, but only in the sense that he is primus inter pares; while at the same time it claims on behalf of the bishops that, in virtue of the divine ordinance, they possess an inalienable right to a share in the government of the Church (see Episcopacy).

Dr Lindsay goes on to argue that all insistence on the principle of historical continuity, whether urged by members of the An,glican or the Roman Catholic Church, as upholders of episcopacy, is a deliberate return to the principle of Judaism, which declared that no one who was outside the circle of the " circumcised," no matter how strong his faith nor how the fruits of the Spirit were manifest in his life and deeds, could plead " the security of the Divine Covenant."

From this time onward the Jansenist Church of Holland has continued as an independent body, accepting the authority of the general councils, up to and including that of Trent, but basing itself on the Gallican theory of Episcopacy and rejecting the Vatican council, the infallibility of the pope and the papal dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Acting on the constitutional principle that the king's right to convene did not interfere with the church's independent right to hold assemblies, they sat till the 10th of December, deposed all the Scottish bishops, excommunicated a number of them, repealed all acts favouring episcopacy, and reconstituted the Scottish Kirk on thorough Presbyterian principles.