churches.

Independents, or Congregationalists, generally ordain their ministers by a
council of ministers called for the purpose: but still they hold that the
essence of ordination lies in the voluntary choice and call of the people,
and that public ordination is no other than a declaration of that call.

PRESBYTERIANS.

The first settlers of New England were driven away from Old England, in
pursuit of religious liberty. They were required to conform to the
established Protestant Episcopal church, in all her articles of belief,
and modes of worship and discipline: their consciences forbade such
conformity: their ministers were displaced: their property was tithed for
the support of an ecclesiastical prelacy, which they renounced; and the
only relief which they could find, was in abandoning their country for the
new world.

Most of the first settlers of New England were Congregationalists; and
established the government of individuals by the male communicating
members of the churches to which they belonged, and of congregations by
sister congregations, met by representation in ecclesiastical councils. A
part of the ministers and people of Connecticut, at a very early period of
her history, were Presbyterians in their principles of church government.
Being intermixed, however, with Congregational brethren, instead of
establishing presbyteries in due form, they united with their
fellow-Christians in adopting, in 1708, the Saybrook Platform, according
to which the churches and pastors are consociated, so as virtually to be
under Presbyterian government, under another name.

The first Presbyterian churches duly organized in the United States, were
the first Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, and the church at Snow
Hill, in Maryland.

The first presbytery in the United States was formed about 1794, by the
voluntary association of several ministers, who had received Presbyterian
orders in Europe, and who agreed to govern themselves agreeably to the
Westminster Confession of Faith, Form of Government, Book of Discipline,
and Directory for Worship. (See _Andover Orthodox Creed_.)

The reason why the Presbyterians first settled in Pennsylvania, Maryland,
and New Jersey, was undoubtedly this--that in these places they found
toleration, and equal religious rights, while the Episcopacy was
established by law in Virginia, Congregationalism in New England, and the
Reformed Dutch church, with Episcopacy, in New York