The Church in Relation to Its Constitution
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We may consider three senses in which the Scottish Presbyterian tradition has employed the term constitution. George Gillespie, writing in 1641, frequently alludes to individual laws and regulations of the church as constitutions. The same sense of the word is found in the Church of Scotland’s Barrier Act of 1697. Alexander Henderson, also writing in 1641, uses the word to designate the characteristic form, composition and membership of the church’s superior courts. From these and similar usages, the modern meaning of the term, signifying a body of fundamental principles with which all other legislation must harmonize, gradually emerged during the years between the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and and drafting of the U.S. Constitution in 1789.