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The charter members were three ministers, the Rev. Samuel W. Pond, Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M.D., and Rev. Stephen R. Riggs and one elder Alexander G. Huggins. It was an independent presbytery, and, for fourteen years, was not connected with any Synod. It was a lone presbytery, in a vast region, now covered by a dozen Synods and scores of presbyteries.
Synodal, consisting of ministers and elders, sent from presbyterial assemblies, to consult and conclude about matters of common and great concernment to the church within their limits. Such was that assembly mentioned, Acts xv. These synodal assemblies are either, 1. Of ministers and elders from several presbyteries within one province, called provincial. 2.
The amount of their testimony, when taken together, appears to be simply this, that there have been ruling elders, as distinct from preaching elders, in the Church of Christ from the beginning. It is therefore judged unnecessary to give the quotations from these authors at large. S. Rutherford in his Due Right of Presbyteries, chap. 7, pages 159 to 175.
Over there they are treading on one another's heels. While the population of Ireland has diminished one-half, the population of the Presbyteries and convents has multiplied threefold or more. Comparisons are then instituted between the Sacerdotal census of Ireland, and that of the European Papal countries. I shall state results only.
"As I was saying, she was an Episcopawlian, a downright, open-day defender o' Archbishop Laud and the bloody Claverhouse; and she wished to prove down through me the priority and supremacy o' bishops ower presbyteries, just downright nonsense, ye ken; but there's nae accounting for sooperstition. A great deal depends on how a body's brought up.
Both names, viz. synod and council, are of such latitude of signification, as that they may be applied to any public convention of people: but in the common ordinary use of these words, they are appropriated to large ecclesiastical assemblies, above classical presbyteries in number and power.
It is known enough, that the most considerable of the nobility and gentry there, as well as great numbers of the people, dread the tyrannical discipline of those synods and presbyteries; and at the same time have the utmost contempt for the abilities and tenets of their teachers.
The same terms, to be sure, would now be applied to the interference of preachers and presbyteries with private life and opinion. By 1612 the king had established Episcopacy, which, for one reason or another, became equally hateful to the nobles, the gentry, and the populace. James's motives were motives of police.
They were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and onie ane o' them had as muckle smeddum and rumblegumtion as the half o' some presbyteries that you and I baith ken. I was gaun to write ye a lang pystle, but, Gude forgie me, I gat mysel sae notouriously fou the day after kail-time that I can hardly stoiter but and ben.
Bishops were appointed in 1606; presbyteries and synods were ordered to elect perpetual moderators, and the scheme was devised so that the moderator of almost every synod should be a bishop. The members of the Linlithgow Convention, which accepted this scheme, were specially summoned by the king, and it was in no sense a free Assembly of the Church.
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