Doctrine
Doctrinally, the church describes itself as fundamentalist, evangelical, and separatist. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are recognised as sacraments of the Free Presbyterian Church. Members are allowed to determine the proper mode (dipping, pouring, sprinkling) and subjects (adult believers) that they prefer, but the church does not sanction Baptismal Regeneration. The Lord's Supper is observed monthly, unless a local congregation prefers a more frequent observance. Alongside the Free Presbyterian Articles of Faith, the Westminster Standards are considered doctrinal standards subordinate to the Bible. On account of their additional adherence to the Articles of Faith, and because of their baptismal views, some regard the church as only nominally Presbyterian, nearer to the Baptist Church, and more nearly allied to modern Fundamentalist Christianity than to the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition.
For many outside the church, political and religious opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, considered by the Free Presbyterians to be a Protestant Reformation principle, represents the single most distinctive characteristic of this denomination, not least because this is a distinctive characteristic of Ian Paisley's own theological outlook.
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Famous quotes containing the word doctrine:
“You ask if there is no doctrine of sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute sorrow I suppose that I know comparatively little. My saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets. The place of sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a certain hard and proportionately barren indifference. I am of kin to the sod, and partake of its dull patience,—in winter expecting the sun of spring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“She, too, would now swim down the river of matrimony with a beautiful name, and a handle to it, as the owner of a fine family property. Women’s rights was an excellent doctrine to preach, but for practice could not stand the strain of such temptation.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i’ the sun
And bleat the one at th’ other. What we changed
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed
That any did. Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne’er been higher reared
With stronger blood, we should have answered heaven
Boldly “Not guilty,” the imposition cleared
Hereditary ours.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)