Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Pertaining to Thomas Erastus, a Swiss polemic (1524–83), author of a work on excommunication, in which he purposed to restrict the jurisdiction of the church.
- noun One who maintains the doctrines held by or attributed to Erastus.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Eccl. Hist.) One of the followers of Thomas Erastus, a German physician and theologian of the 16th century. He held that the punishment of all offenses should be referred to the civil power, and that holy communion was open to all. In the present day, an Erastian is one who would see the church placed entirely under the control of the State.
Etymologies
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Examples
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Indulgence, the strict Covenanters were reduced to what they style themselves in the "Informatory Vindication," a "wasted, suffering, anti-popish, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian remnant."
The Life of James Renwick A Historical Sketch Of His Life, Labours And Martyrdom And A Vindication Of His Character And Testimony Thomas Houston
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Save for a few surface evils he sees nothing wrong in an acquisitive society, with its equation of money and virtue, its pious millionaires and erastian clergymen.
Charles Reade 1940
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Save for a few surface evils he sees nothing wrong in an acquisitive society, with its equation of money and virtue, its pious millionaires and erastian clergymen.
Collected Essays 1900
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Their principle, so far as it was intelligible, asserted that paramount species of presbyterian church-government which was established in the year 1648, and they continued to regard the established church as erastian and time-serving, because they prudently remained silent upon certain abstract and delicate topics, where there might be some collision between the absolute liberty asserted by the church and the civil government of the state.
Famous Reviews R. Brimley Johnson 1899
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To the erastian lawyer the church was an institution erected on principles of political expediency by act of parliament.
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859 John Morley 1880
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It was anti-Roman as much as it was anti-sectarian and anti-erastian.
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859 John Morley 1880
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An erastian statesman of our own time, when alarmists ran to him with the news that a couple of noblemen and their wives had just gone over to Rome, replied with calm, 'Show me a couple of grocers and their wives who have gone over, then you will frighten me.'
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859 John Morley 1880
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Lord Derby, I think, early began to escape from the erastian yoke which weighed upon Peel.
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859 John Morley 1880
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Russell, the latitudinarian, the erastian, the appropriationist, the despoiler; and worse still, of Molesworth, sometimes denounced as a
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859 John Morley 1880
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Through the influence of the unhappy Indulgence, the strict Covenanters were reduced to what they style themselves in the “Informatory Vindication,” a “wasted, suffering, anti-popish, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian remnant.”
The Life of James Renwick Houston, Thomas 1865
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