Presbyterianism Sentence Examples

The origin of Presbyterianism is a question of historical interest.

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In episcopacy the control of church affairs is almost entirely withdrawn from the people; in congregationalism it is almost entirely exercised by the people; in Presbyterianism it rests with a council composed of duly appointed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

It may be said broadly, therefore, that in .episcopacy the government is monarchical; in congregationalism, democratic; and in Presbyterianism, aristocratic or representative.

There are deacons in Presbyterianism inferior in rank to presbyters, their duties being regarded as non-spiritual.

The kirk-session is the first of a series of councils or church courts which are an essential feature of Presbyterianism.

But it shall not be so among you."From the foregoing outline it will be seen that Presbyterianism may be said to consist in the government of the Church by representative assemblies composed of the two classe s of presbyters, ministers and elders, and so p ?'

Those who favour state connexion and those who oppose it agree in claiming spiritual independence as a fundamental principle of Presbyterianism.

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

Even, therefore, where people desired the Reformation there were powerful influences opposed to the setting up of church government and to the exercise of church discipline after the manner of the apostolic Church; and one ceases to wonder at the absence of complete Presbyterianism in the countries which were forward to embrace and adopt the Reformation.

We look in vain, therefore, for much more than the germs and principles of Presbyterianism in the churches of the first Reformers.

The doctrines of Presbyterianism are those generally known as evangelical and Calvinistic. The supreme standard of belief is the Word of God in the original languages.

The form of worship associated with Presbyterianism has been marked by extreme simplicity.

Presbyterianism has two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Somewhat reluctantly it was accepted by Scottish Presbyterianism as a substitute for an older version with a greater variety of metre and music. "Old Hundred" and "Old 124th" mean the moth and 124th Psalms in that old book.

The object is not to form one great Presbyterian organization, but to promote unity and fellowship among the numerous branches of Presbyterianism throughout the world.

It is pathetic and yet inspiring to study the development of Presbyterianism in France; pathetic because it was in a time of fierce persecution that the French Protestants organized themselves into churches, and inspiring, because it showed the power which scriptural organization gave them to withstand incessant, unrelenting hostility.

Their ecclesiastical polity came much more from Paris than from Geneva."2 To trace the history of Presbyterianism in France for the next thirty years would be to write the history of France itself during that period.

Early in the 18th century Antoine Court made marvellous efforts to restore Presbyterianism.

In 1789 all citizens were made equal before the law, and the position of Presbyterianism improved till 1791.

From the geographical position of the Netherlands, Presbyterianism there took its tone from France.

Only in Jersey and Guernsey, whither large numbers of Huguenots had fled after the St Bartholomew massacre, was Presbyterianism fully permitted.

The West minster Assembly, through its Confession, Directory and Catechisms, has become so associated with the Presbyterian Church that it is difficult to realize that it was not a church court at all, much less a creation of Presbyterianism.

The Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms are recognized and venerated standards in all the lands where British Presbyterianism, with its sturdy characteristics, has taken root.

As compared with Scotland, English Presbyterianism had more of the lay element.

Indigenous Presbyterianism became almost unknown.

The Presbyterianism now visible in England is of Scottish origin and Scottish type, and beyond the fact of embracing a few congregations which date from, or before, the Act of Uniformity and the Five Mile Act, has little in common with the Presbyterianism which was for a brief period by law established.

Presbyterianism is comparatively strong in three districts of England, namely Northumberland, Lancashire and London.

The danger in this direction is that when Presbyterianism has been modified far enough to suit the English taste it may be found less acceptable to its more stalwart supporters from beyond the Tweed.

In common with the general Presbyterianism of the British Isles, the Presbyterian Church of England has in recent years been readjusting its relation to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

This, except historically, is a misnomer, for, though descended from the old English Presbyterians, they retain nothing of their distinctive doctrine of polity - nothing of Presbyterianism, indeed, but the name.

After the Restoration the determination of the government to put down Presbyterianism was speedily felt in Ireland.

During the 18th century Irish Presbyterianism became infected with Arianism.

Presbyterianism in the United States is a reproduction and further development of Presbyterianism in Europe.

Beginning with 1620, New England was colonized by English Presbyterians of the two types which developed from the discussions of the Westminster Assembly (1643-1648) into Presbyterianism and Congregationalism.

Presbyterianism was stronger in Connecticut than in Massachusetts.

Doughty preached in Virginia and Maryland in 1650-1659, and was the father of British Presbyterianism in the Middle Colonies.

Irish Presbyterianism was carried to America by an unknown Irish minister in 1668.

The contention brought to a crisis the struggle between the moderate Presbyterians and the Scots on the one side, who decided to maintain the monarchy and fought for an accommodation and to establish Presbyterianism in England, and on the other the republicans who would be satisfied with nothing less than the complete overthrow of the king, and the Independents who regarded the establishment of Presbyterianism as an evil almost as great as that of the Church of England.

On the 25th of November Cromwell charged Manchester with "unwillingness to have the war prosecuted to a full victory"; which Manchester answered by accusing Cromwell of having used expressions against the nobility, the Scots and Presbyterianism; of desiring to fill the army of the Eastern Association with Independents to prevent any accommodation; and of having vowed if he met the king in battle he would as lief fire his pistol at him as at anybody else.

The war being now over, the great question of the establishment of Presbyterianism or Independency had to be decided.

In a letter to the city, possibly written by Cromwell himself, the officers repudiated any wish to alter the civil government or upset the establishment of Presbyterianism, but demanded religious toleration.

At the decisive battle of Naseby (the 14th of June 1645) he commanded the parliamentary right wing and routed the cavalry of Sir Marmaduke Lang exclusion from pardon of all the king's leading adherents, besides the indefinite establishment of Presbyterianism and the refusal of toleration to the Roman Catholics and members of the Church of England.

Both the army and the parliament gave cold replies to his offers to negotiate; and Charles, on the 27th of December 1647, entered into the Engagement with the Scots by which he promised the establishment of Presbyterianism for three years, the suppression of the Independents and their sects, together with privileges for the Scottish nobles, while the Scots undertook to invade England and restore him to his throne.

He published in 1911 The Rise and Development of Presbyterianism in Scotland.

He failed, because Charles could not even then consent to abandon the bishops, and because no Scottish party of any weight could be formed unless Presbyterianism were established ecclesiastically.

But the annual meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Edinburgh is now the public manifestation of the predominance of Presbyterianism as the national church.

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.

For the promulgation of these views, which were confessedly at variance with the doctrines of the standards of the national church of Scotland, he was summoned (1726) before his presbytery, where in the course of the investigations which followed he affirmed still more explicitly his belief that "every national church established by the laws of earthly kingdoms is antichristian in its constitution and persecuting in its spirit," and further declared opinions upon the subject of church government which amounted to a repudiation of Presbyterianism and an acceptance of the puritan type of Independency.

An opponent of church government in any form, he was no friend to the rigid and tyrannical Presbyterianism of the day, and inclined to Independency and Cromwell's party.

During the course of the 19th century in Scottish Presbyterianism the affirmation of Christ's atoning death for all men, the denial of eternal punishment, the modification of the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures by acceptance of the results of the Higher Criticism, were all censured as perilous errors.

He also at this time showed a leaning to Presbyterianism, but on the approach of the Restoration his views on church government underwent a change; indeed, he was always regarded as a time-server, though by no means a self-seeker.

Calamy was an active member in the Westminster assembly of divines, and, refusing to advance to Congregationalism, found in Presbyterianism the middle course which best suited his views of theology and church government.

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

The majority, indeed, even of determined opponents of personal rule in state and church favoured Presbyterianism, particularly before 1641, when Henry Burton's Protestation Protested brought before educated men generally the principles of Congregationalism, as distinct from Puritanism, by applying them to a matter of practical politics.

In the early days of this expansion Congregationalism and Presbyterianism worked hand in hand, but the so-called "Plan of Union" (1801) was successively abandoned by the Conservative Presbyterians in 1837 and by the Congregationalists through the "Albany Convention" in 1852.

The town was governed largely after the Mosaic law and continued essentially Puritan for fifty years or more; about 1730 Presbyterianism superseded Congregationalism, and in 1734 Colonel Josiah Ogden, having caused a schism in the preceding year, by saving his wheat one dry Sunday in a wet season, founded with several followers the first Episcopal or Church of England Society in Newark - Trinity Church.

Though commonly denominated a Presbyterian, he had no exclusive attachment to Presbyterianism, and often manifested a willingness to accept a modified Episcopalianism.

After the Reformation, however, it was adopted by Calvin and his followers, who created that system which has ever since been known as Presbyterianism.

Even in Ireland, where it was for over three centuries the established religion, and in Scotland, where it early gave way to the dominant Presbyterianism, its religious was long overshadowed by its political significance.

As regards Christianity in these regions, Protestantism, Presbyterianism and patriotism find here a battle-ground.

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.

The English parliament, at war with the king, demanded aid from Scotland; it was granted under the conditions of the Solemn League and Covenant (1643), by which the Covenanters expected to secure the establishment of Presbyterianism in England, though the terms of agreement are dubious.

In their eyes, as Charles had taken both Covenants, he was bound to remain a Presbyterian and to establish Presbyterianism in England, a thing impossible and entailing civil war in the attempt.

With the violent party in a majority, refusing the jurisdiction of the state, insisting on the establishment of Presbyterianism in England, excommunicating and scolding, Scotland would be as much disturbed as in the days of Andrew Melville.

Now " by concession " (a third indulgence) " and repression, the once mighty force of Scottish Presbyterianism had at length been broken " (Hume Brown).

By " Presbyterianism " we are here to understand, not the Presbyterian form of church government - the kirk whose motto is Nec tamen consumebatur - but the pretensions of preachers to dominate the state by the mythical " power of the keys," by excommunication with civil penalties and by the fiercest religious intolerance.

Presbyterianism can exist and flourish without these survivals of the proudest pretensions of Romanism.

He learnt to read and to write, and was taught the narrowest form of Dutch Presbyterianism.

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.

For a short time he read private lectures on divinity in London; and in 1622 the king appointed him principal of the university of Glasgow in the room of Robert Boyd, who had been removed from his office in consequence of his adherence to Presbyterianism.

Holding a church theory to which the rulers of the country were for a century strongly opposed, Scotland became the leading exponent of Presbyterianism; and this note has been the dominant one in her religious history even in recent times.

The Scottish church, hitherto without a definite constitution, soon espoused under his able leadership a logical and thorough Presbyterianism, which was expressed in the Second Book of Discipline, adopted by the assembly in 1577, and was never afterwards set aside by the church when acting freely.

On the other hand, Presbyterianism stood in Scottish history for freedom, and for the rights of the middle and lower classes against the crown and the aristocracy; and it might not have been held with such tenacity or proved so incapable of compromise but for the opposition and persecution of the three Stuart kings.

For some years after its inception Presbyterianism carried all before it.

The succeeding decennium is the culminating period of Scottish Presbyterianism, when, having successfully resisted the crown, it not only was supreme in Scotland but exercised a decisive influence over England.

In its period of triumph the Presbyterianism of Scotland displayed its character.

The league did not mention Presbyterianism; but the assembly had refused to hear of any recognition of independency; if religion were thoroughly reformed, they considered the result must be Presbyterianism in England as in Scotland.

Knox was even more clearly in this case the chief author, and he had by this time come to desire a much more rigid Presbyterianism than he had sketched in his "Wholesome Counsel" of 1555.

On the 1st of May he signed the first draft of a treaty at Breda with the latter, in which he accepted the Solemn League and Covenant, conceded the control of public and church affairs to the parliament and the kirk, and undertook to establish Presbyterianism in the three kingdoms. He also signed privately a paper repudiating Ormonde and the loyal Irish, and recalling the commissions granted to them.

In August he was forced to sign a further declaration, confessing his own wickedness in dealing with the Irish, his father's blood-guiltiness, his mother's idolatry, and his abhorrence of prelacy, besides ratifying his allegiance to the covenants and to Presbyterianism.

As a youth, says Clarendon, " the ill-bred familiarity of the Scotch divines had given him a distaste " for Presbyterianism, which he indeed declared " no religion for gentlemen," and the mean figure which the fallen national church made in exile repelled him at the same time that he was attracted by the " genteel part of the Catholic religion."

Presbyterianism constituted a dangerous encroachment on the royal prerogative; the national church and the cavalier party were indeed the natural supporters of the authority of the crown, but on the other hand they refused to countenance the dependence upon France; Roman Catholicism at that moment was the obvious medium of governing without parliaments, of French pensions and of reigning without trouble, and was naturally the faith of Charles's choice.

While at this academy Butler became dissatisfied with the principles of Presbyterianism, and after much deliberation resolved to join the Church of England.

The following years witnessed a counter attempt to introduce the Scottish liturgy into England, especially for those who in the southern kingdom were inclined to Presbyterianism.

As an inducement, the Solemn League and Covenant was signed by all Parliamentarian Englishmen, the terms of which were interpreted by the Scots to bind England to submit to Presbyterianism, though the most important clauses had been purposely left vague, so as to afford a loophole of escape.

But under the influence of Neander he was gradually breaking away from "Puritanic Presbyterianism," and in 1840, having resigned his chair in Allegheny, he was appointed professor of theology in the (German Reformed) Theological Seminary at Mercersburg, Pa., and thus passed from the Presbyterian Church into the German Reformed.

He soon rose to the rank of lieutenantcolonel, but in April 1645, having become dissatisfied with the predominance of Presbyterianism, and refusing to take the covenant, he resigned his commission, presenting at the same time to the Commons a petition for considerable arrears of pay.

The book, being attacked from the standpoint of high Calvinism, became the standard of a far-reaching movement in Scottish Presbyterianism.

That this tendency exists cannot be doubted, and there is reason to fear that its influence, by identifying Presbyterianism with dissent in England and Scotland, is unfavourable to the general tone and character of the Presbyterian Church.

The action of the Commons in 1584, stimulated by the opposition of the Lords, showed that the principles of Presbyterianism were strongly held.

They were able men, whose preaching drew great crowds, and increased the desire for the establishment of Presbyterianism.

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.

Presbyterianism had an independent development in the Carolinas, whither there was a considerable Scotch migration in 1684-1687.

But while the sectarians were in a vast majority in the army, the parliament was equally strong in Presbyterianism and opposed to toleration.

Lindsay's Church and Ministry in Early Centuries (1902) on the whole agrees with Hatch, but is too eager to find modern Presbyterianism in the early church.

In the Presbyterian churches (see Presbyterianism) a synod is an assembly containing representatives of several presbyteries and intermediate between these and the General Assembly; similarly in the Wesleyan and other Methodist churches the synod is the meeting of the district which links the circuits with the conference.

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).

The history of the various branches of the Christian Church since the Reformation will therefore be found under their several titles (see Roman Catholic Church; Church of England; Presbyterianism; Baptists, &c., &c.).

He was convinced that James was as hostile to Elizabeth as Mary herself, and failed to perceive that he was as inimical to popery as he was to presbyterianism.

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.