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.

The doctrines of the Presbyterian church are Calvinistic; and the only fundamental principle which distinguishes it from other Protestant churches is this -- that God has authorized the government of his church by presbyters, or elders, who are chosen by the people, and ordained to office by predecessors in office, in virtue of the commission which Christ gave his apostles as ministers in the kingdom of God; and that, among all presbyters, there is an official parity, whatever disparity may exist in their talents or official employments.

All the different congregations, under the care of the general assembly, are considered as the one Presbyterian church in the United States, meeting, for the sake of convenience and edification, in their several places of worship. Each particular congregation of baptized people, associated for godly living, and the worship of Almighty God, may become a Presbyterian church, by electing one or more elders, agreeably to the form prescribed in the book styled the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church, and having them ordained and installed as their session.

They judge that to presbyteries the Lord Jesus has committed the spiritual government of each particular congregation, and not to the whole body of the communicants; and on this point they are distinguished from Independents and Congregationalists. If all were governors, they should not be able to distinguish the overseers or bishops from all the male and female communicants; nor could they apply the command, "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account." (Heb.13:17.) If all are rulers in the church who are communicants, they are at a loss for the meaning of the exhortation, "We beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake."

If an aggrieved brother should tell the story of his wrongs to each individual communicant, he would not thereby tell it to the church judicially, so that cognizance could be taken of the affair. It is to the church, acting by her proper organs, and to her overseers, met as a judicatory, that he must bring his charge, if he would have discipline exercised in such a way as God empowered his church to exercise it.

The general assembly is the highest judicatory in the Presbyterian church, and is constituted by an equal number of teaching and ruling elders, elected by each presbytery annually, and specially commissioned to deliberate, vote, and determine, in all matters which may come before that body. Each presbytery may send one bishop and one ruling elder to the assembly: each presbytery, having more than twelve ministers, may send two ministers and two ruling elders, and so, in the same proportion, for every twelve ministerial members.

Every Presbyterian church elects its own pastor; but, to secure the whole church against insufficient, erroneous, or immoral men, it is provided that no church shall prosecute any call, without first obtaining leave from the presbytery under whose care that church may be; and that no licentiate, or bishop, shall receive any call, but through the hands of his own presbytery.

Any member of the Presbyterian church may be the subject of its discipline; and every member, if he judges himself injured by any portion of the church, may, by appeal, or complaint, carry his cause up from the church session to the presbytery, from the presbytery to the synod, and from the synod to the general assembly, so as to obtain the decision of the whole church, met by representation in this high judicatory.

Evangelical ministers of the gospel, of all denominations, are permitted, on the invitation of a pastor, or of the session of a vacant church, to preach in their pulpits; and any person known properly, or made known to a pastor or session, as a communicant in good, regular standing, in any truly Christian denomination of people, is, in most of their churches, affectionately invited to occasional communion. They wish to have Christian fellowship with all the redeemed of the Lord, who have been renewed by his Spirit; but, in ecclesiastical government and discipline, they ask and expect the cooeperation of none but Presbyterians. See Statistics.