Free Essays on The Presbyterian Church

The Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism in based in the system of church government by representative assemblies called presbyteries. This is in opposition to government by bishops, the Episcopal system, or by congregations, congregationalism. In its strict sense, Presbyterianism is the name given to one of the groups of ecclesiastical bodies that represent the features of Protestantism emphasized by French lawyer John Calvin, whose writings pushed forward much of the Reformed thinking that came before him. The most important standards of orthodox Presbyterianism are the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms of 1647. The chief distinctive features set forth in the Westminster declarations of belief are Presbyterian Church government, Calvinistic theology, and absence of prescribed forms of worship. Presbyterians trace their history to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. Some of the principles articulated by John Calvin remain at the core of Presbyterian beliefs. Among these are the sovereignty of God, the authority of the scripture, justification by grace through faith and the priesthood of all believers. What they mean is that God is the supreme authority throughout the universe. Knowledge of God and God's purpose for humanity comes from the Bible, particularly what is revealed in the New Testament through the life of Jesus Christ. Our salvation through Jesus is God's generous gift and not the result of our own accomplishments. It is everyone's job - ministers and lay people alike - to share this Good News with the whole world. That is also why the Presbyterian Church is governed at all levels by a combination of clergy and laity, men and women alike. In 1706, eight Presbyterian ministers met in Philadelphia and formed the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the first Presbyterian presbytery in the New World. The clergy assumed the freedom to organize and the right to worship, preach and teach, and to administer the... Free Essays on The Presbyterian Church Free Essays on The Presbyterian Church The Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism in based in the system of church government by representative assemblies called presbyteries. This is in opposition to government by bishops, the Episcopal system, or by congregations, congregationalism. In its strict sense, Presbyterianism is the name given to one of the groups of ecclesiastical bodies that represent the features of Protestantism emphasized by French lawyer John Calvin, whose writings pushed forward much of the Reformed thinking that came before him. The most important standards of orthodox Presbyterianism are the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms of 1647. The chief distinctive features set forth in the Westminster declarations of belief are Presbyterian Church government, Calvinistic theology, and absence of prescribed forms of worship. Presbyterians trace their history to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. Some of the principles articulated by John Calvin remain at the core of Presbyterian beliefs. Among these are the sovereignty of God, the authority of the scripture, justification by grace through faith and the priesthood of all believers. What they mean is that God is the supreme authority throughout the universe. Knowledge of God and God's purpose for humanity comes from the Bible, particularly what is revealed in the New Testament through the life of Jesus Christ. Our salvation through Jesus is God's generous gift and not the result of our own accomplishments. It is everyone's job - ministers and lay people alike - to share this Good News with the whole world. That is also why the Presbyterian Church is governed at all levels by a combination of clergy and laity, men and women alike. In 1706, eight Presbyterian ministers met in Philadelphia and formed the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the first Presbyterian presbytery in the New World. The clergy assumed the freedom to organize and the right to worship, preach and teach, and to administer the...

NaN, Infinity, and Divide by Zero in VB.NET

NaN, Infinity, and Divide by Zero in VB.NET Beginning programming books usually include this warning: Dont divide by zero! Youll get a runtime error! Things have changed in VB.NET. Although there are more programming options and the calculation is more accurate, it isnt always easy to see why things happen the way they do. Here, we learn how to handle division by zero using VB.NETs structured error handling. And along the way, we also cover the new VB.NET constants: NaN, Infinity, and Epsilon. What Happens If You Run 'Divide By Zero' in VB.NET If you run a divide by zero scenario in VB.NET, you get this result: Dim a, b, c As Double a 1 : b 0 c a / b Console.WriteLine( _ Have math rules _ vbCrLf _ been repealed? _ vbCrLf _ Division by zero _ vbCrLf _ must be possible!) So whats going on here? The answer is that VB.NET actually gives you the mathematically correct answer. Mathematically, you can divide by zero, but what you get is infinity. Dim a, b, c As Double a 1 : b 0 c a / b Console.WriteLine( _ The answer is: _ c) Displays: The answer is: infinity The value infinity isnt too useful for most business applications. (Unless the CEO is wondering what the upper limit on his stock bonus is.) But it does keep your applications from crashing on a runtime exception like less powerful languages do. VB.NET gives you even more flexibility by even allowing you to perform calculations. Check this out: Dim a, b, c As Double a 1 : b 0 c a / b c c 1 Infinity plus 1 is still infinity To remain mathematically correct, VB.NET gives you the answer NaN (Not a Number) for some calculations such as 0 / 0. Dim a, b, c As Double a 0 : b 0 c a / b Console.WriteLine( _ The answer is: _ c) Displays: The answer is: NaN VB.NET can also tell the difference between positive infinity and negative infinity: Dim a1, a2, b, c As Double a1 1 : a2 -1 : b 0 If (a1 / b) (a2 / b) Then _ Console.WriteLine( _ Postive infinity is _ vbCrLf _ greater than _ vbCrLf _ negative infinity.) In addition to PositiveInfinity and NegativeInfinity, VB.NET also provides Epsilon, the smallest positive Double value greater than zero. Keep in mind that all of these new capabilities of VB.NET are only available with floating point (Double or Single) data types. And this flexibility can lead to some Try-Catch-Finally (structured error handling) confusion. For example, the .NET code above runs without throwing any kind of exception, so coding it inside a Try-Catch-Finally block wont help. To test for a divide by zero, you would have to code a test something like: If c.ToString Infinity Then ... Even if you code the program (using Integer instead of Single or Double types), you still get an Overflow Exception, not a Divide by Zero exception. If you search the web for other technical help, you will notice that the examples all test for OverflowException. .NET actually has the DivideByZeroException as a legitimate type. But if the code never triggers the exception, when will you ever see this elusive error? When You'll See DivideByZeroException As it turns out, Microsofts MSDN page about Try-Catch-Finally blocks actually uses a divide by zero examples to illustrate how to code them. But theres a subtle catch that they dont explain. Their code looks like this: Dim a As Integer 0 Dim b As Integer 0 Dim c As Integer 0 Try   Ã‚  Ã‚  a b \ c Catch exc As Exception   Ã‚  Ã‚  Console.WriteLine(A run-time error occurred) Finally   Ã‚  Ã‚  Console.ReadLine() End Try This code does trigger an actual divide by zero exception. But why does this code trigger the exception and nothing weve coded before does? And what is Microsoft not explaining? Notice that the operation they use is not divide (/), its integer divide (\)! (Other Microsoft examples actually declare the variables as Integer.) As it turns out, integer calculation is the only case that actually throws that exception. It would have been nice if Microsoft (and the other pages that copy  their code) explained that little detail.