This, they said, was absolute Erastianism, or subjection of the church of God to the regulations of an earthly government, and therefore but one degree better than prelacy or popery.
The history of Christendom contains no story so humiliating as the story of Prelacy in Scotland during the seventeenth century.
Prelacy was abolished, and Presbytery was re-established.
The King, enraged to find his beloved Prelacy overthrown at once and entirely, prepared to force it upon the Scottish Covenanted Church and people by force of arms.
The flattering servility of the English bishops inflated his vanity to an extravagant degree, and rendered him the more determined to subvert wholly the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and to erect Prelacy on its ruins.
Therefore as by the covenant Prelacy was not to be reformed, but to be abolished, so, by the same covenant, church government was not to be abolished, but to be reformed.
Doubtless many materials of Prelacymust of necessity be retained, as absolutely necessary.
Such was the monstrous and intolerable tyranny exercised by Prelacy in Scotland, in its desperate attempts to destroy the Presbyterian Church.
But when Prelacy was re-imposed on Scotland, after the restoration of Charles II.
At the very time when Prelacy and king-craft were uniting for its destruction, its Divine Head was graciously supporting it under its trials, giving it life to endure them, and preparing for its deliverance.
No doubt Rutherford raged furiously against prelacy as a work of the devil, and the enemy of Scots freedom; no doubt he also wrote books which struck hard at the authority of the King, and made for the cause of the people.
It may be well to remark here that the Prelacy which was so detested by the people of Scotland was not English Episcopacy, but Scotch Prelacy.
I've seen more than enough of hanging, quartering, and shooting to convince me that Presbytery is not to be rooted out, nor Prelacy established, by such means.
Any person who will contrast the sentiments expressed in his treatises on Prelacy with the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical architecture and music in the Penseroso, which was published about the same time, will understand our meaning.
But, when his opinion seemed likely to prevail, he passed on to other subjects, and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of writers who now hastened to insult a falling party.
It is probable that some who disliked the ascetic habits and rigid discipline of the Presbyterians wished for an union as the only mode of maintaining prelacy in the northern part of the island.
Nobody could deny that prelacy was established by Act of Parliament.
And was there no reason for following that order in Scotland except a reason which might be urged with equal force for maintaining Prelacy in England, Popery in Spain, and Mahometanism in Turkey?
They could not patiently contemplate the establishment of prelacy among them.
Clergy and laity in the Southern provinces seem, many of them, to have been as strongly opposed, for temporary or other reasons, to the introduction of a foreign prelacy as were those at the North.
When the reactionary measures of the Restoration brought back Prelacy to Scotland, hundreds of ministers gave up their homes and stipends to the more compliant “curates” that braved popular scorn for the sake of a living.
Protestantism availed to draw Scotland from the arms of France into those of England; then Prelacy and Presbytery set the near neighbours again at odds.
He was a learned and amiable man, but without much knowledge of human nature, as shown by his earnest effort to preach an Eirenicon between his exotic prelacy and Scotch Presbyterianism.
For no sooner did prelacy and Erastianism appear on the field, in opposition to our antient and laudable form of church-government, at the restoration of Charles II.
There being no door of access then to the ministry for him, or any such, when prelacy was on such an advance in Scotland.
Mr. Dickson continued at Edinburgh, discharging his trust with great diligence and faithfulness, until the melancholy turn by the restoration ofprelacy upon the return of Charles II.
Whether in his prayers against Popery, he had joined Prelacy with it?
There is no reason to doubt but he would have been subjected to the same sufferings with many others of his brethren, had he lived, but before the cope-stone was laid on prelacy in Scotland, he had entered into the joy of his Lord.
Colvil (a man who complied with prelacy afterward) to adhere to the government of the church of Scotland, and to the doctrine of the covenant, and to have a care to feed the youth with sound knowledge.
But he returned, Presbytery was not established, so that he is not bound to us in religion, save to prelacy in Scotland.
The principal of these took place during the prelacy of Sylvester de la Corvelle, and were occasioned by the wars of Edward III.
It was by him that the prelacy was first held in commendam, an example too tempting not to be followed; and the abbey, thus constantly gaining in the dignity of its superiors, as constantly lost in their real value.
This happened during the prelacyof Geoffrey de Servin.
He had been elected to the prelacy in 1303; and, fifteen years afterwards, he commenced the structure.
Nor were influences lacking, either in England or in America, which were brought to bear in blocking that legislation without which the English Prelacy declined to act.
Whether the English prelacy did or did not grasp, and acquiesce in, this ideal of a bishop and his office, I cannot find that they pressed this objection further.
Again, it is evident, that the revolution church is constituted in the same Erastian manner with the late Prelacy in Scotland.
Nevertheless, the same have been known to be the staple and constant fruits of Prelacy too, which, to the extent of its reach and influence, has as much Christian blood wrapped up in its skirts as Popery, if not more.
For proof of which, observe, that as Prelacy was never ecclesiastically asserted to be of divine authority, neither has Presbytery, by any explicit and formal act of Assembly, at or since the revolution.
Act abolishing Prelacy, they abolished Prelacy for the foresaid reason, and further declare, that they will settle by law that church government in this kingdom, which is most agreeable to the inclinations of the people.
They can distinctly pray for the head, author, authorizer and prime supporter, of abjured Prelacy and Prelates, that God would bless him in his government, and yet not pray for the Prelates themselves.
The unfaithfulness of this body appears further, in shunning to declare the divine right and unalterableness of Presbyterial Church Government, she testifies not against Prelacy or Independency.
I loved no King since forty-one, When Prelacy went down; A cloak and band I then put on And preach'd against the crown.
In fine, he favoured Prelacy both in essentials and ceremonial; and although, we parted with tears and embraces, it was to follow very different courses.
The rooting out of prelacy and the wicked hierarchy therein so obviously described, is the main duty.
Prelacy was the accursed thing, and that must be rooted out at every hazard.
Prelacy and the English ceremonies had then, for a considerable time, been imposed upon the Church of Scotland.
Presbyterianism is the friend of civil freedom, and that Prelacy in the Church will more readily consent to despotism in the State.
The secular arm is the authority of princes, which have ever upholden that mountain: ye know secular princes uphold antichrist, and prelacy in this land is upholden by the secular power.
The "Anti-Christian" hierarchy of Prelacy is implanted in the national constitution and sustained by the whole prestige of the realm.
So hath prelacyflattered itself, finding such a party to stand up on its side among the rotten lords and commons, the debauched gentry, and abased people of the kingdom: "Surely the bitterness of death is past.
The two main pillars that prelacystands on are a civil and secular arm, and an ecclesiastical tongue, so to speak.
A large body of Protestants, on the other hand, regardedprelacy as positively unlawful, and persuaded themselves that they found a very different form of ecclesiastical government prescribed in Scripture.
They hated Presbyterianism much, and Prelacy more.
The very Highlanders whom he now summoned to extirpate Prelacy he had a few years before summoned to defend it.
The power of English prelacy did not extend beyond the borders of England: idolatrous ceremonies could be eschewed in Massachusetts without fear of persecution.
Popery and prelacy alone, whose genius seemed to tend towards superstition, were treated by the Independents with rigor.
This was touching Charles in a very tender point: his honor his conscience, as well as his interest, he believed to be intimately concerned in supporting prelacy and the liturgy.
Through faith Margaret Wilson, a youthful maiden, chose rather to depart and be with Christ than to disown His holy Cause and Covenant, to own Erastian usurpation, and conform to prelacy enforced by cruel laws.
He did not believe, he said, that monarchy or prelacy would be tolerated by the people, but that a moderate Presbyterian government, with liberty of conscience, appeared most likely to be acceptable.
Middleton assured Charles that the restoration of prelacy was now the earnest desire of the nation, and a proclamation was issued announcing the king's intention.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "prelacy" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
