CONTENTS. CHAPTER FIRST. II. Presbytery republican in its doctrines, III. The framers of our ecclesiastical system designed that VIII. Presbytery eminently republican, also, in its various. IX. Presbytery republican in several other particulars, with testimonies in its favor, X. Presbytery republican in its creeds; in its protection of minorities; in the framing of its laws; in its universal suffrage; and in its simplicity and oppo- sition to all unnecessary forms, . XI. Presbytery eminently republican in having originated and secured in this country, the separation of CHAPTER THIRD. II. The form of government among the Waldenses, who have always been thorough Presbyterians, was as CHAPTER FOURTH. The system of Presbytery more republican than the CHAPTER FIFTH. Sec. I. True liberality, as distinguished from bigotry and II. The liberality of the Presbyterian Church, in her general principles as to the nature of the Christian V. The objection founded upon the persecuting principles CHAPTER SIXTH. Sec. I. The catholicity of Presbytery in its ecclesiastical system, in contrast with Popery and Prelacy, 271 CHAPTER SEVENTH. ECCLESIASTICAL REPUBLICANISM. CHAPTER I. THE PRINCIPLES OF REPUBLICANISM EXPLAINED, AND SHOWN TO EXIST IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. SECTION I. Preliminary remarks. THE subject to which the attention of our readers is invited, is the republicanism of those ecclesiastical systems, which come under the denomination of PRESBYTERY, as opposed to PRELACY. All denominations who agree in holding to one order of ministers are properly presbyterian, and are, therefore, included under the term presbytery. And the question before us, is, whether there is any connection between ecclesiastical and civil governments, so as that the former, according to their nature, will exert a corresponding influence upon the latter; and if they do, whether the forms of ecclesiastical government, included under the term presbytery, are more congenial to republicanism, and promotive of it, than either prelacy or popery. In entering upon this discussion, we wish it to be most explicitly understood, that we do not identify christianity, or the christian church, with any form of civil government. On the contrary, it is one of the fundamental principles of presbyterian faith, that the kingdom of Christ while in this world is not of it, but is entirely sepa |