HUGUENOTS An appellation given by way of contempt to the reformed or protestant Calvinists of France. the name had its rise in 1560, but authors are not agreed as to the origin and occasion thereof. Some derive it from the following circumstance:--One of the gates of the city of Tours is called the gate of Fourgon, by corruption from feu Heugon, i. e. the late Hugon. This Hugon was once count of Tours, according to Eginhardus in his life of Charles the Great, and to some other historians. He was, it seems, a very wicked man, who by his fierce and cruel temper made himself dreadful, so that after his death he was supposed to walk about in the night time, beating all those he…

PRESBYTERIANS The title Presbyterian comes from the Greek word which signifies senior or elder, intimating that the government of the church in the New Testament was by presbyteries, that is, by association by presbyteries, that is, by association of ministers and ruling elders, possessed all of equal powers, without any superiority among them, either in office or order. The Presbyterians believe, that the Gospel, to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, and to feed the flock of Christ, is derived from the Holy Ghost by the imposition of the hands of the presbytery; and they oppose the independent scheme of the common rights of Christians by the same arguments which are used for that purpose by the Episcopalians. They affirm, however, that…

LUTHERANS Those Christians who follow the opinions of Martin Luther, the celebrated reformer of the church, in the sixteenth century. In order that we may trace the rise and progress of Lutheranism, we must here refer to the life of Luther himself. Luther was a native of Eisleben, in Saxony, and born in 1483. Though his parents were poor, he received a learned education, during the progress of which he gave many indications of uncommon vigour and acuteness of genius. As his mind was naturally susceptible of serious impressions, and tinctured with somewhat of that religious melancholy which delights in the solitude and devotion of a monastic life, he retired into a convent of Augustian friars; where he acquired great reputation not only for piety,…

PURITANS A name given in the primitive church to the Novatians, because they would never admit to communion any one, who from dread of death, had apostatized from the faith; but the word has been chiefly applied to those who were professed favourers of a farther degree of reformation and purity in the church before the act of uniformity, in 1662. After this period, the term Nonconformists became common, to which succeeds the appellation Dissenter. "During the reign of queen Elizabeth, in which the royal prerogative was carried to its utmost limits, there were found many daring spirits who questioned the right of the sovereign to prescribe and dictate to her subjects what principles of religion they should profess, and what forms they ought to…