THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
about 3,600 members. Its theological hall in Glasgow is under the care of two professors and one lecturer. Its annual income is between two and three thousand pounds sterling. The total income of congregations from all sources amounted last year to £5,863, an average contribution from each member of £1,12, 6d. It supports a vigorous, wellequipped mission at Seoni in the central province of India, an ordained male missionary, a fully qualified female missionary, a trained zenana visitor, and a large number of native catechists and Christian workers. It. Morton.
II. Presbyterian Church of England: Presbyterianism, with its popular government, is at the opposite pole of church life from the absolutism of Rome. Hence at the Reformation its principles were much favored in England though but imperi. Presby- fectly understood, while the episcopacy terian of Edward VI. was so mild that in
Principles his reign no man suffered for dissent- Informally ing from the newly established church. Established. Under Mary every form of Protestantism was suppressed, when Episcopalians and Presbyterians alike fled to the continent for safety. On the accession of Elizabeth, the exiles returned to find themselves but little better off than they had been under Mary, for the queen was of too despptic a nature to allow any to differ from her views. The Puritan or Presbyterian section of the church, which desired government by elders, was now called on to suffer, yet Presbyterian principles spread so widely that, in 1570, Bishop Sandys writing to Bullinger at Zurich gave him, infj. summary of the views which were spreading among the ministers and members of the Episcopal Church, an excellent epitome of Presbytery, closely resembling what it is to-day. The Presbyterians at that date numbered, it is said, one hundred thousand. As the result of the queen's oppression, a considerable number of persons " separated " themselves in 1556 from the Established Church, and maintained religious services according to the Presbyter^ ian order, and against these the queen's anger blazed fiercely. Their sufferings did not deter others who still remained in the Church from going still farther and holding conferences or " ministers' meetings," one of which in London deputed in 1572 two of its members to visit Wandsworth, a little village near that city, who there, with the assistance of the lecturer of the parish and a number of leading Puritan church members, formally organized a " Particular Church " in accordance with Presbyterian order. This was the first open formation in England of a church different from that which had been established. In a surprisingly short time hundreds of similar churches were organized throughout the country, generally, as ecclesiolw in ecclesia, revealing the hold Presbyterian principles had taken of the people, and that a new chapter in the history of England was about to open.
James recognized the situation and, determining to crush it, held immediately after his accession the Hampton Court Conference (q.v.), ostensibly to harmonize the views of both parties, but really to give himself an opportunity of saying that he
would " harry " out of the land the members of the church in which he had been brought up. Led
by Bancroft, the episcopal church now
2. Royal gathered itself together, separated from
and Parlia- the continental Reformers, and became
mentary identified with the sacramental system.
Opposition. Under Charles I. Laud, who said he
regarded Presbytery as worse than Romanism and whose watchword was " thorough," promoted those Star Chamber prosecutions of the Non-conformists which form a black page in English history. The king's own conduct drove the great mass of the Presbyterian members of the church into the ranks of the Parliamentarians, while the subsequent alliance of the parliament with the Scottish army, the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant, together with the decisions of the Westminster Assembly in 1647 a.d., resulted in the overthrow' of the episcopal church and its replacement in the Establishment by that of presbytery\ That assembly was the latest of the great councils of the Christian Church, and by it the Calvinistic system of doctrine was expressed in a Confession of Faith, and its system of polity in a Directory of Church Government. The Establishment being now Presbyterian, the parish churches were occupied by Presbyterian ministers, yet after all, the Presbyterian polity was accepted largely only in London and Lancashire. In the former, indeed, a provincial synod embracing presbyteries with their constituent church sessions had been formed, but before long all had come to an end. Presbytery had no leaders competent to resist Cromwell and the army, and by means of this, or at its dictation, Cromwell replaced presbytery by independency. Shortly afterward came the Restoration when, under the reign of a king who on two occasions had sworn the Solemn League and Covenant, the Presbyterians expected some improvement in their condition, a change which Charles had no intention of granting. In 1662 he therefore sanctioned the Act of Uniformity, (see Uniformity, Acts of), enjoining reordination of every minister not episcopally ordained, — adherence to everything in the Book of Common Prayer, obedience to the ordinary (bishop), abjuration of the Solemn League and Covenant, with an additional oath declaring that it was not lawful under any circumstances to take up arms against the king. More than 2,000 parish ministers refused obedience to the Act and, on August 24th (St. Bartholomew's Day), resigning their congregations, walked out of their manses, leaving their pulpits empty. By the subsequent Conventicle Act (q.v.), these men were forbidden to preach to their former congregations, and by the Five Mile Act (q.v.), could not live within five miles of their former parishes. Under these conditions, Presbyterianism ceased 4i.q be a visible religious force in English national life} with a result that was inevitable. ^NeverTfaving had any central organization like a general assembly to bring its members together and to keep them in connection with one another, these drifted into fragments and the vitality of the system was ]osQ In 1688 came the Revolution, when, the aim of all being to secure in