|
Puritanical
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English and early American history, especially in the Protectorate in Great Britain, and the earlier settlement of New England. Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's religious toleration of certain practices associated with the Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a covenant theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents). In church polity, Puritans were divided between supporters of episcopal, presbyterian, and congre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gathered Church
Under Charles I of England, Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Catholic influence both at Court and (as they saw it) within the Church. After the First English Civil War political power was held by various factions of Puritans. The trials and executions of William Laud and then King Charles were decisive moves shaping British history. While in the short term Puritan power was consolidated by the Parliamentary armed forces and Oliver Cromwell, in the same years, the argument for theocracy failed to convince enough of the various groupings, and there was no Puritan religious settlement to match Cromwell's gradual assumption of dictatorial powers. The distinctive formulation of Reformed theology in the Westminster Assembly would prove to be it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divine grace, the priesthood of all believers, and the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. The five solae, five ''solae'' summarize the basic theological beliefs of mainstream Protestantism. Protestants follow the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began in the 16th century with the goal of reforming the Catholic Church from perceived Criticism of the Catholic Church, errors, abuses, and discrepancies. The Reformation began in the Holy Roman Empire in 1517, when Martin Luther published his ''Ninety-five Theses'' as a reaction against abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, which purported to offer the remission of the Purgatory, temporal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congregational Polity
Congregational polity, or congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church (congregation) is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or " autonomous". Its first articulation in writing is the Cambridge Platform of 1648 in New England. Major Protestant Christian traditions that employ congregationalism include Baptist churches, the Congregational Methodist Church, and Congregational churches known by the ''Congregationalist'' name and having descended from the Independent Reformed wing of the Anglo-American Puritan movement of the 17th century. More recent generations have witnessed a growing number of nondenominational churches, which are often congregationalist in their governance. Although autonomous, like minded congregations may enter into voluntary associations with other congregations, sometimes called conventions, denominations, or associations. Congregationalism is distinguished from episc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congregational Church
Congregationalism (also Congregational Churches or Congregationalist Churches) is a Reformed Christian (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. These principles are enshrined in the Cambridge Platform (1648) and the Savoy Declaration (1658), Congregationalist confessions of faith. The Congregationalist Churches are a continuity of the theological tradition upheld by the Puritans. Their genesis was through the work of Congregationalist divines Robert Browne, Henry Barrowe, and John Greenwood. In the United Kingdom, the Puritan Reformation of the Church of England laid the foundation for such churches. In England, early Congregationalists were called '' Separatists'' or '' Independents'' to distinguish them from the similarly Calvinistic Presbyterians, whose churches embraced a polity based on the governance of elders; this commitment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonconformist (Protestantism)
Nonconformists are Protestant Christians who do not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England. Use of the term ''Nonconformist'' in England and Wales was precipitated by the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 renewed opposition to reforms within the established church. By the late 19th century the term specifically included other Reformed Christians ( English Presbyterians and Congregationalists), plus the Baptists, Brethren, Methodists, and Quakers. English Dissenters, such as the Puritans, who violated the Act of Uniformity 1558 – typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist, dissent – were retrospectively labelled as Nonconformists. In Ireland, the comparable term until the Church of Ireland's disestablishment in 1869 was Dissenter (the term earlier used in England), commonly referring to Irish Presbyterians who dissented from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Act Of Uniformity 1662
The Act of Uniformity 1662 ( 14 Cha. 2. c. 4) is an act of the Parliament of England. (It was formerly cited as 13 & 14 Cha. 2. c. 4, by reference to the regnal year when it was passed on 19 May 1662.) It prescribed the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rites of the Established Church of England, according to the rites and ceremonies prescribed in the 1662 ''Book of Common Prayer''. Adherence to this was required in order to hold any office in government or the church, although the new version of the ''Book of Common Prayer'' prescribed by the Act was so new that most people had never even seen a copy. The Act also required that the ''Book of Common Prayer'' "be truly and exactly Translated into the British or Welsh Tongue". It also explicitly required episcopal ordination for all ministers, i.e. deacons, priests and bishops, which had to be reintroduced since the Puritans had abolished many features of the Church during the Civil War. The a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stuart Restoration
The Stuart Restoration was the reinstatement in May 1660 of the Stuart monarchy in Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland. It replaced the Commonwealth of England, established in January 1649 after the execution of Charles I, with his son Charles II of England, Charles II. The Commonwealth of England had been governed by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and then his son Richard Cromwell. The term is also used to describe the reign of Charles II (1660–1685), and sometimes that of his younger brother King James II, James II (1685–1688). The Protectorate After Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector from 1658 to 1659, ceded power to the Rump Parliament, Charles Fleetwood and John Lambert (general), John Lambert then dominated government for a year. On 20 October 1659, George Monck, the governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched south with his army from Scotland to oppose Fleetwood and Lambert. Lambert's a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point between 1639 and 1653, while around 4% of the total population died from war-related causes. These figures illustrate the widespread impact of the conflict on society, and the bitterness it engendered as a result. Conflict over the role of Parliament and religious practice dated from the accession of James VI and I in 1603. These tensions culminated in the imposition of Personal Rule in 1629 by his son, Charles I, who recalled Parliament in April and November 1640. He hoped by doing so to obtain funding that would enable him to reverse his defeat by Scots Covenanters in the Bishops' Wars, but in return Parliament demanded a greater share in government than he was willing to concede. In its early stages, the vast majority on both sides s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church Of Scotland
The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While membership in the church has declined significantly in recent decades (in 1982 it had nearly 920,000 members), the government Scottish Household Survey found that 20% of the Scottish population, or over one million people, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity in 2019. In the 2022 census, 20.4% of the Scottish population, or 1,108,796 adherents, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity. The Church of Scotland's governing system is Presbyterian polity, presbyterian in its approach, therefore, no one individual or group within the church has more or less influence over church matters. There is no one person who acts as the head of faith, as the church believes that role is the "Lord God's". As a pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Prerogative
The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, Privilege (law), privilege, and immunity recognised in common law (and sometimes in Civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy) as belonging to the monarch, sovereign, and which have become widely vested in the government. It is the means by which some of the executive (government), executive powers of government, possessed by and vested in a monarch with regard to the process of governance of the state, are carried out. Evolution In most Constitutional monarchy, constitutional monarchies, prerogatives can be abolished by Parliament under its legislative authority. In the Commonwealth realms, this draws on the constitutional statutes at the time of the Glorious Revolution, when William III of England, William III and Mary II of England, Mary II were invited to take the throne. In the United Kingdom, the remaining powers of the royal prerogative are devolved to the head of the government, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Church
A national church is a Christian church associated with a specific ethnic group or nation state. The idea was notably discussed during the 19th century, during the emergence of modern nationalism. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in a draft discussing the question of church and state around 1828 wrote that :"a National Church might exist, and has existed, without Christianity, because before the institution of the ''Christian'' Church – as ..the Levitical Church in the Hebrew Constitution, ndthe Druidical in the Celtic, would suffice to prove". John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote about the National Church of Sweden in 1911, interpreting the Church of Sweden and the Church of England as national churches of the Swedish and the English peoples, respectively. The concept of a national church remains alive in the Protestantism of United Kingdom and Scandinavia in particular. While, in a context of England, the national church remains a common denominator for the Church of E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was a council of Divinity (academic discipline), divines (theologians) and members of the English Parliament appointed from 1643 to 1653 to restructure the Church of England. Several Scots also attended, and the Assembly's work was adopted by the Church of Scotland. As many as 121 ministers were called to the Assembly, with nineteen others added later to replace those who did not attend or could no longer attend. It produced a new Form of Presbyterial Church Government, Form of Church Government, a Westminster Confession of Faith, Confession of Faith or statement of belief, two catechisms or manuals for religious instruction (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Shorter and Westminster Larger Catechism, Larger), and a liturgical manual, the ''Directory for Public Worship'', for the Churches of England and Scotland. The Confession and catechisms were adopted as doctrinal standards in the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches, where they ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
