Towards Reformational Unity

Letter to NAPARC

To the Moderators, Stated Clerks, and Ministers & Elders of the Churches of NAPARC, grace and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Wyatt Pruitt and I am a layman within the Presbyterian Church in America and I am committed to our shared reformational heritage outlined and expressed in our common scriptures, creeds, councils and confessions. I am writing to you in order to bring your attention to an issue of Church unity. Current issues in American Christianity are similar to the times of Bishop Usher. The church has pulled herself apart into many fragmented pieces and it is time for the protestant churches in America to move towards unity based in truth. I am commending Bishop Usher’s proposal of synodal Bishops as part of a solution towards unity within our presbyterian heritage and the larger reformation. Usher neither abolishes presbyterial parity nor establishes prelacy. Rather he proposes a return towards primitive and apostolic polity, that respects Reformed distinctives but roots itself in patristic precedent. This restores the ancient and scriptural pattern of a presiding minister (Bishop/Superintendent) acting synodically with his brethren presbyters as a biblical office of unity, succession, and oversight as witnessed in Scripture and the Fathers. I also recommend a study on the Knoxian Superintendency, John Calvin’s view on the episcopate (especially in his later years), and a re-evaluation of the scriptural and patristic role of the Bishop and Presbytery. 

Our present divisions among confessional Reformed bodies reflect similar tensions to the time of Bishop Usher. We have questions of order, sacramentology, pastoral oversight, and catholic unity. His vision of a Bishop as a president of presbyters gives a clear patristic model that is consistent with the Westminster Standards and conciliar authority. I urge the NAPARC churches to convene a joint study on this model as a means towards greater visible unity in doctrine, worship, and discipline for the strengthening of Gospel witness within the American Church. I hope that this article rekindles a discussion within and outside our communion that leads to greater unity through a recovery of that primitive order of charity and oversight which builds the Body of Christ in truth and concord. 

Wyatt Pruitt

22 October, 2025

THE REDUCTION OF EPISCOPACY Unto the Form of Synodical Government, Received in the ANCIENT CHURCH: 

By the most Reverend and learned Father of our Church Dr. JAMES USHER, late Arch-Bishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland. Proposed in the year 1641. as an Expedient for the prevention of those Troubles, which afterwards did arise about the matter of Church-Government. 

Published by NICHOLAS BERNARD. D. D.

Preacher to the Honourable Society of Grayes-Inne, London. 

LONDON, Printed, Anno Domini, 1658.

TO THE READER.

THE Original of this was given me by the most Reverend Primate, some few years before his death, written throughout with his own hand, and of late I have found it subscribed by himself, and Doctor Holseworth, and with a Marginal Note at the first Proposition, which I have also added. If it may now answer the expectation of many pious, and prudent Persons, who have desired the publishing of it, as a seasonable preparative to some moderation in the midst of those extremes, which this Age abounds with, it will attain the end intended by the Author: And it is likely to be more operative, by the great reputation he had, and hath in the hearts of all good men, being far from the least suspicion to be biased by any private ends, but only aiming at the reducing of Order, Peace, and Unity, which God is the Author of, and not of confusion. For the recovery of which, it were to be wished, that such as do consent in Substantials, for matter of Doctrine, would consider of some conjunction in point of Discipline, that private interest and circumstantials, might not keep them thus far asunder.

Gray’s Inn, Oct. 13, 1657.

N. BERNARD.

THE REDUCTION OF EPISCOPACY UNTO THE FORM OF SYNODICAL GOVERNMENT, RECEIVED IN THE ANCIENT CHURCH; PROPOSED IN THE YEAR 1641, AS AN EXPEDIENT FOR THE PREVENTION OF THOSE TROUBLES, WHICH AFTERWARDS DID ARISE ABOUT THE MATTER OF CHURCH-GOVERNMENT.

Episcopal and Presbyterial Government conjoined.

BY Order of the Church of England, all Presbyters are charged a to administer the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Realm hath received the same; And that they might the better understand what the Lord had commanded therein, the exhortation of Saint Paul, to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus is appointed to be read unto them at the time of their Ordination; Take heed unto your selves, and to all the flock among whom the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to Rule the Congregation of God, which he hath purchased with his blood. Of the many Elders, who in common thus ruled the Church of Ephesus, there was one President, whom our Saviour in his Epistle unto this Church in a peculiar manner styleth the Angel of the Church of Ephesus: and Ignatius in another Epistle written about twelve years after unto the same Church, calleth the Bishop thereof. Betwixt the Bishop and the Presbytery of that Church, what an harmonious consent there was in the ordering of the Church-Government, the same Ignatius doth fully there declare, by the Presbytery, with Saint Paul, understanding the Community of the rest of the Presbyters, or Elders, who then had a hand not only in the delivery of the Doctrine and Sacraments, but also in the Administration of the Discipline of Christ: for further proof of which, we have that known testimony of Tertullian in his general Apology for Christians.  In the Church are used exhortations, chastisements, and divine censure; for judgment is given with great advice as among those, who are certain they are in the sight of God, and in it is the chiefest foreshowing of the judgment which is to come, if any man have so offended, that he be banished from the communion of prayer, and of the Assembly, and of all holy fellowship. The Presidents that bear rule therein are certain approved Elders, who have obtained this honor not by reward, but by good report, who were no other (as he himself intimates) elsewhere but those from whose hands they used to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

For with the Bishop, who was the chief President (and therefore styled by the same Tertullian in another place, Summus Sacerdos for distinction sake) the rest of the dispensers of the Word and Sacraments joined in the common Government of the Church; and therefore, where in matters of Ecclesiastical Judicature, Cornelius Bishop of Rome used the received form of gathering together the Presbytery; of what persons that did consist, Cyprian sufficiently declareth, when he wisheth him to read his letters to the flourishing Clergy: which there did preside, or rule with him: The presence of the Clergy being thought to be so requisite in matters of Episcopal audience, that in the fourth Council of Carthage it was concluded, That the Bishop might hear no man’s cause without the presence of the Clergy: and that otherwise the Bishop’s sentence should be void, unless it were confirmed by the presence of the Clergy: which we find also to be inserted into the Canons of m Egbert, who was Archbishop of York in the Saxon times, and afterwards into the body of the Canon Law itself.

True it is, that in our Church this kind of Presbyterial Government hath been long disused, yet seeing it still professes that every Pastor hath a right to rule the Church (from whence the name of Rector also was given at first unto him) and to administer the Discipline of Christ, as well as to dispense the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the restraint of the exercise of that right proceeds only from the custom now received in this Realm; no man can doubt, but by another Law of the Land, this hindrance may be well removed. And how easily this ancient form of Government by the united suffrages of the Clergy might be revived again, and with what little show of alteration the Synodical conventions of the Pastors of every Parish might be accorded with the Presidency of the Bishops of each Diocese and Province, the indifferent Reader may quickly perceive by the perusal of the ensuing Propositions.

I.

In every Parish the Rector, or Incumbent Pastor, together with the Church-Wardens and Sides-men, may every week take notice of such as live scandalously in that Congregation, who are to receive such several admonitions and reproofs, as the quality of their offence shall deserve; And if by this means they cannot be reclaimed, they may be presented to the next monthly Synod; and in the mean time debarred by the Pastor from access unto the Lord’s Table.

II.

Whereas by a Statute in the six and twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth (revived in the first year of Queen Elizabeth) Suffragans are appointed to be erected in 26 several places of this Kingdom; the number of them might very well be conformed unto the number of the several Rural Deanries into which every Diocese is subdivided; which being done, the Suffragan supplying the place of those, who in the ancient Church were called Chorepiscopi, might every month assemble a Synod of all the Rectors, or Incumbent Pastors within the Precinct, and according to the major part of their voices, conclude all matters that shall be brought into debate before them.

To this Synod the Rector and Church-wardens might present such impenitent persons, as by admonitions and suspension from the Sacrament would not be reformed; who if they should still remain contumacious and incorrigible, the sentence of Excommunication might be decreed against them by the Synod, and accordingly be executed in the Parish where they lived. Hitherto also all things that concerned the Parochial Ministers might be referred, whether they did touch their Doctrine, or their conversation, as also the censure of all new Opinions, Heresies, and Schisms, which did arise within that Circuit; with liberty of Appeal, if need so require, unto the Diocesan Synod.

III.

The Diocesan Synod might be held, once, or twice in the year, as it should be thought most convenient: Therein all the Suffragans, and the rest of the Rectors, or Incumbent Pastors (or a certain select number of every Deanery) within the Diocese might meet, with whose consent, or the major part of them, all things might be concluded by the Bishop, or Superintendent (call him whether you will) or in his absence, by one of the Suffragans; whom he shall depute in his stead to be Moderator of that Assembly.

Here all matters of greater moment might be taken into consideration, and the Orders of the monthly Synods revised, and (if need be) reformed: and if here also any matter of difficulty could not receive a full determination: it might be referred to the next Provincial, or National Synod.

IV.

The Provincial Synod might consist of all the Bishops and Suffragans, and such other of the Clergy as should be elected out of every Diocese within the Province, the Archbishop of either Province, might be the Moderator of this meeting, (or in his room some one of the Bishops appointed by him) and all matters be ordered therein by common consent as in the former Assemblies. This Synod might be held every third year, and if the Parliament do then sit (according to the Act of a Triennial Parliament) both the Archbishops and Provincial Synods of the Land might join together, and make up a National Council: wherein all Appeals from inferior Synods might be received, all their Acts examined, and all Ecclesiastical Constitutions which concern the state of the Church of the whole Nation established.

WE are of the judgment That the form of Government here proposed is not in any point repugnant to the Scripture; and that the Suffragans mentioned in the second Proposition, may lawfully use the power both of Jurisdiction and Ordination, according to the Word of God, and the practice of the ancient Church.

End of Usher’s Proposition

Updated to modern spelling

Original Text: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A64679.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext