On the 21st of August 1715 he summoned all the preachers in the Cevennes and Lower Languedoc to a conference or synod near the village of Monoblet.
Before he left Paris he had thrown himself with ardour into the controversy raging between the university and the Friar-Preachers respecting the liberty of teaching, resisting both by speeches and pamphlets the authorities of the university; and when the dispute was referred to the pope, the youthful Aquinas was chosen to defend his order, which he did with such success as to overcome the arguments of Guillaume de St Amour, the champion of the university, and one of the most celebrated men of the day.
This influence was due not only to his publications, but also to the "school" or classes for the training of clergymen which he conducted for many years at his home and from which went forth scores of preachers to every part of New England and the middle colonies (states).
As followers rapidly increased they were compelled to hold their own Sunday services, and this naturally led them to appoint as preachers godly laymen possessing the gift of exhortation.
At the death of Wesley the figures were: 313 preachers, 119 circuits and mission stations, and members.
In the United States: 97 circuits, 198 preachers and 43,265 members.
V.) local and travelling preachers, and the organization of local societies with class leaders, stewards and trustees.
They were unanimous in adopting the idea of a church in which all the members were priests under the Lord Jesus, the One High Priest and Ruler; the officers of which were not mediators between men and God, but preachers of One Mediator, Christ Jesus; not lords over God's heritage, but ensamples to the flock and ministers to render service.
In 181r its preachers were first presbyterially ordained and authorized to administer the sacraments.
The appetite of the Welsh people for sermons is enormous, and the preachers are characterized by an exceptionally high order of pulpit power.
Open-air conventicles were held in all parts of the provinces, and the fierce Calvinist preachers raised the religious excitement of their hearers to such aitch that it found vent in a furious outburst The lcono- P oasts.
Being nephew to the well-known cardinal of the same name, he early displayed an attraction for the Dominican order; and, as soon as allowed, he joined the Friars Preachers in their convent at Valladolid.
Moreover, the great Christological controversies of the age tended to encourage in Christian writers and preachers an intellectual acuteness and an accuracy of thought and expression of which the earlier centuries had not felt the need.
Thus the English canon of 1571 directs preachers "to take heed that they do not teach anything in their sermons as though they would have it completely held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered from that doctrine."
He wore on his breast a badge with his title of "Pere," was spoken of by his preachers as "the living law," declared, and probably believed, himself to be the chosen of God, and sent out emissaries in a quest of a woman predestined to be the "female Messiah," and the mother of a new Saviour.
According to Knox, Grindal distinguished himself from most of the court preachers in 1553 by denouncing the worldliness of the courtiers and foretelling the evils to follow on the king's death.
During these years he won a foremost place among the preachers of Scotland.
The greatest testimony to the work that earned for him the title of the "Father of American Methodism" was the growth of the denomination from a few scattered bands of about 300 converts and 4 preachers in 1771, to a thoroughly organized church of 214,000 members and more than 2000 ministers at his death, which occurred at Spottsylvania, Virginia, on the 31st of March 1816.
In matters of religion she at first tried to hold the balance between the Catholic and Protestant factions and allowed the Presbyterian preachers the practice of their religion so long as they refrained from public preachings in Edinburgh and Leith.
At Clermont became the staple for wandering preachers, among whom Peter the Hermit distinguished himself by his fiery zea1.2 Riding on an ass from place to place through France and along the Rhine, he carried away by his eloquence thousands of the poor.
But drastic measures were taken, and in one year thirty preachers were struck off the list.
On the other hand there was legal persecution all over the country, and the preachers suffered many things from the hands of rural clergy and county magistrates.
Local preachers received notice to quit their holdings, labourers were discharged, those who opened their cottages for meetings were evicted, and to show any hospitality to a travelling preacher was to risk the loss of home and employment.
Conference - the supreme assembly - was a very jealously guarded preserve, being attainable only to preachers who had travelled 18 and superintended 12 years, and to laymen who had been members 12 and officials io years.
Yet when Conference met at Tunstall in the latter year to celebrate its jubilee it could report 675 ministers and 11,384 local preachers, 132,114 members, 2267 chapels, 167,533 scholars and 30,988 teachers.
Statistics for 1909 show 1178 ministers, 16,158 local preachers, 212,168 members, 4484 chapels, 465,531 Sunday scholars, 59,557 teachers.
Brooke, Great French Preachers (sermons of Bourdaloue and Bossuet, London, 1904); F.
In England the chief orders of friars were distinguished by the colour of their habit: thus the Franciscans or Minors were the Grey Friars; the Dominicans or Preachers were the Black Friars (from their black mantle over a white habit), and the Carmelites were the White Friars (from their white mantle over a brown habit): these, together with the Austin Friars or Hermits, formed the four great mendicant orders - Chaucer's "alle the ordres foure."
Fox and his fellow-preachers spoke whenever opportunity offered, - sometimes in churches(declining, for the most part, to occupy the pulpit), sometimes in barns, sometimes at market crosses.
Margaret Fell (1614-1702), wife of Thomas Fell (1598-1658), vice-chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and afterwards of George Fox, opened her house, Swarthmore Hall near Ulverston, to these preachers and probably contributed largely to this fund.
The interruption of preachers when celebrating divine service rendered the offender liable to three months' imprisonment under a statute of the first year of Mary, but Friends generally waited to speak till the service was over.'
Arran too was soon won over to his views, dismissed the preachers by whom he had been surrounded, and joined the cardinal at Stirling, where in September 1543 Beaton crowned the young queen.
The autobiographies of these early Methodist preachers are among the classics of the Evangelical Revival.
One of the preachers in each circuit was the "assistant," who had general oversight of the work, the others were "helpers."
He named one hundred preachers who after his death were to meet once a year, fill up vacancies in their number, appoint a president and secretary, station the preachers, admit proper persons into the ministry, and take general oversight of the societies.
At the conference of 1769 two preachers, Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor, volunteered to go out to take charge of the work.
The class-meeting, the love-feast, the watch-night, the covenant service, leaders, stewards, lay preachers, all were the fruit of this readiness to avail himself of suggestions made by men or events.
He inspired his preachers and his people with his own spirit and made everything subordinate to his overmastering purpose, the spread of scriptural holiness throughout the land.
He was beloved by all the preachers, and his Checks to Antinomianism show that he was a courteous controversialist.
His long life enabled him to perfect the organization of Methodism and to inspire his preachers and people with his own ideals, while he had conquered opposition by unwearying patience and by close adherence to the principles which he sought to teach.
A Free Enquiry into the Causes of the very great Esteem that the Nonconforming Preachers are generally in with their Followers (1673) has been attributed to Eachard on insufficient grounds.
He began distributing tracts and visiting the poor, joined the lay preachers' association, and gave his first sermon at Teversham, near Cambridge.
Among more recent preachers he had most affinity with George Whitefield, Richard Cecil and Joseph Irons.
In 1908 its statistics showed 2343 chapels with accommodation for 714,793 persons, 848 ministers and 5621 local preachers, 165,463 church members and 332,756 Sunday scholars; there were 55 foreign missionaries, and about 30,000 church members and probationers in the foreign field.
In 1784 he became vicar of Epsom in Surrey, where he continued until his death on the 27th of April 1804, becoming known as one of the most eloquent preachers of his day.
Nevertheless, on many occasions, fashion has led the preachers of a particular epoch to develop rules for the composition of sermons, the value of which is more than doubtful.
It is impossible to name all the eminent preachers of this time, but a few must be mentioned.
These preachers of the Restoration were controversialists, keen, moderate and unenthusiastic. These qualities were accentuated in the 18th century, when for a while religious oratory ceased to have any literary value.
These are the great classic preachers whose discourses continue to be read, and to form an inherent pare of the body of French literature.
In Germany, the great preachers of the middle ages were Franciscans, such as Brother Bertold of Regensburg (1220-1272), or Dominicans, such as Johann Tauler (1290-1361), who preached in Latin.
The last of the great German preachers of this school was P. J.
The method generally adopted was to deprive the preachers in the towns of their churches by force, Italian mercenaries being preferably employed for the purpose.
I-Iere he came under the influence of the new Methodist preachers, and in 1757 took orders, being ordained by the bishop of Bangor.
He started a theological college (the Scholae Cancellarii), founded night schools, delivered courses of lectures on church history, held Bible classes, and was instrumental in founding a society of mission preachers for the diocese, the "Novate Novale."
To the men of the middle ages, in any case, St Catherine was very real; she was ranked with the fourteen most helpful saints in heaven, and was the constant theme of preachers and of poets.
The wheel being her symbol she was the patron saint of wheelwrights and mechanics; as the confounder of heathen sophistry she was invoked by theologians, apologists, preachers and philosophers, and was chosen as the patron saint of the university of Paris; as the most holy and illustrious of Christian virgins she became the tutelary saint of nuns and virgins generally.
Here he at once took the place he so long held as one of the ablest preachers in Scotland.
C. Lake, Classic Preachers of the English Church (1st series, 1877).
With the poor exceptions of one or two names like those of Theodore of Mopsuestia and John of Damascus, the Eastern Church produced no preachers of distinction.
About this time, no doubt, some preachers began to use the vernacular, though no examples of such a practice have been preserved.
Among the popular preachers vigour was often blended with coarseness and vulgarity.
Towards the close of the century comes John Wycliffe and his English travelling preachers, who passed the torch to Hus and the Bohemians, and in the next age Savonarola, who was to Florence what Jeremiah had been to Jerusalem.
