James Vernon Bartlet

“ Formal and technical tests of membership, such as the reception of sacraments from a duly authorized clergy, came to replace Christ’s own test of character. The church ceased even to be thought of as a society of “saints,” or to be organized on that basis. The gulf between the “laity” and “clergy” went on widening during the 5th and 6th centuries; and the people, stripped of their old prerogatives (save in form here and there) , passed into a spiritual pupillage which was one distinctive note of the medieval Church. ”

“ But while in practice it is religious democracy, in theory it claims to be the most immediate form of theocracy, God Himself being regarded as ruling His people directly through Christ as Head of the Church, whether Catholic or local. So viewed, Congregationalism is essentially a “high church” theory, as distinct from a high clerical one. It springs from the religious principle that each body of believers in actual church-fellowship must be free of all external human control, in order the more fully to obey the will of God as conveyed to conscience by His Spirit. ”

“ CONGREGATIONALISM, the name given to that type of church organization in which the autonomy of the local church, or body of persons wont to assemble in Christian fellowship, is fundamental. Varied as are the forms which this idea has assumed under varying conditions of time and place, it remains distinctive enough to constitute one of the three main types of ecclesiastical polity, the others being Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. ”

“ Yet the relation of Congregational polity to its religious ideal had already become less intimate and conscious than even half a century before: the system was held simply as one traditionally associated with a serious and unworldly piety. “Church privileges” meant to many only the sacred duty of electing their own ministry and a formal right of veto on the proposals of pastor and deacons. ”

“ Church and State, citizenship in the one and membership in the other, thus became identical, and the foundation was laid for those troubles and consequent severities that vexed and shamed the early history of Independency in New England, natural enough when all their circumstances are fairly considered, indefensible when we regard their idea of the relation of the civil power to the conscience and religion, but explicable when their church idea alone is regarded. ”

“ These, the two senses recognized by Congregationalism, remained the only ones known to primitive Christianity. Writing of the unity of the church as set forth by Paul in Ephesians, Dr Hort (The Christian Ecclesia, p. 168) says: “Not a word in the epistle exhibits the One Ecclesia as made up of many Ecclesiae. To each local Ecclesia St Paul has ascribed a corresponding unity of its own; each is a body of Christ and a sanctuary of God: but there is no grouping of them into partial wholes or into one great whole. The members which make up the One Ecclesia are not communities but individual men. ”

“ These semi-separatists still set great store by the church-covenant, in which they bound themselves “to walk together in all God’s ways and ordinances, according as He had already revealed, or should further make them known to them.” But they realized that “the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth of his Holy Word”; and this gave them an open-minded and tolerant spirit, which continued to mark the church in Plymouth Colony, as distinct from the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. Such, then, was the type of church formed in 1616 by Henry Jacob in London. ”

“ The seat of authority in Discipline, the means by which the church strives to preserve the Christian standard of living from serious dishonour in its own members, is the touch-stone of church politics. The local Ecclesia in the Apostolic age was itself responsible for the conduct of its members (1 Cor. vi. 1 ff. and the Epistles passim) . “If a man will not hear the church,” when the local church-meeting utters the mind of Christ on a moral issue, he has rejected the final court of appeal and is ipso facto self-excommunicate (Matt. xviii. 17) . ”

“ From Browne’s idea of a holy people, covenanted to walk after Christ’s mind and will, all else flowed, as is set forth in his Book which sheweth the life and manners of all true Christians. As it may be called the primary classic of congregational theory, its leading principles must here be summarized. Hearing the word of God unto obedience being due to “the gift of His Spirit to His children,” every church member is a spiritual person, with a measure of the spirit and office of King, Priest and Prophet, to be exercised directly under the supreme Headship of Christ. ”

“ In certain Anabaptist circles the primitive idea of a “covenant” between believers and God as conditioning all their life, especially one with another, was revived (Champlin Burrage, The Church-Covenant Idea, Philadelphia, 1904) . Their local church life, as moulded by this idea (found even in the church constitution adopted by Hesse in 1526) , was congregational in type. But Anabaptism was not to remain an abiding force on the continent; and though colonies of its exiles settled in England, they did not produce the Congregationalism which sprang up there under Elizabeth. ”

“ Conjoint repression of civil and religious liberty had made thoughtful men ponder matters of church polity. The majority, indeed, even of determined opponents of personal rule in state and church favoured Presbyterianism, particularly before 1641, when Henry Burton’s Protestation Protested brought before educated men generally the principles of Congregationalism, as distinct from Puritanism, by applying them to a matter of practical politics. ”

“ But of organized churches we can trace none in England, until we come in 1586 to Greenwood and Barrow, the men whose devotion to a cause in which they felt the imperative call of God seems to have rallied into church-fellowship the Separatists in London, whether those of Fytz’s day or those later convinced by the failure of the Puritan efforts at reform and by the writings of Browne. ”

“ It advocated “the polity that our Saviour Jesus Christ hath established,” with “pastors, superintendes, deacons”; so that “all true pastors have equal power and authority . . . and for this cause, that no church ought to pretend any rule or lordship over other”; and none ought “to thrust himself into the government of the Church [as by ordination at large] , but that it ought to be done by election.” See Burrage, The Church-Covenant Idea, p. ”

“ Congregationalism in America has thus spread from New England, its primitive home, over the West to the Pacific, but has never had more than a slight foothold in the Southern states. The remarkable junction or fusion of the Independents or “Separatists” who emigrated from Leiden to Plymouth, Massachusetts, with the Puritan Nonconformists of Massachusetts Bay, modified Independency by the introduction of positive fraternal relations among the churches. ”

“ There is a tendency, moreover, to accord to the conferences the function of determining the tests of ministerial standing in the Congregational denomination. In some of the states the licensing of preachers, which was formerly left to the voluntary associations of ministers in the different localities, has been made a function of the state conferences. At the very first, in New England, the theory was held that a minister, on ceasing to be the pastor of a particular church, falls into the rank of laymen. ”

“ In such a Catholic atmosphere Congregationalism could have no being, save among little groups of men who protested against the existing order. These, in proportion as they revived a primitive type of piety, tended to recover also some of its forms of organization. “They bore witness to the loss of the true idea of the Christian church,” though they did not avail to restore it. Still, a good deal of semi-congregationalism probably did exist in obscure circles which preluded the wider Reformation and were merged in it. ”

“ Organization corresponded to the life distinctive of the new Ecclesia. This was one of essential equality among “the saints” or “the brethren,” turning on common possession of and by the one Spirit of Christ. “The whole congregation of the faithful was responsible for the whole life of the church—for its faith, its worship, and its discipline” (Dale) . ”

“ Thus the “authority and office” of “church governors” is not derived from the people, but from God, “by due consent and agreement of the church.” Conference between sister churches for counsel is provided for; so that, while autonomous, they do not live as isolated units. Such were the leading features of Browne’s Congregationalism, as a polity distinct from both Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. ”

“ Such consecration, however, whatever its form, was a function of the local Ecclesia as a whole, acting through those of its members most fitted by gift or standing to be its representatives on the occasion. As to the specific officers thus called into being, whether for supervision or relief (1 Cor. xii. 28) , the New Testament knows none in the local church superior to elders, the ruling order in Judaism also. “Bishop” (overseer) was “mainly, if not always, not a title, but a description of the elder’s function” (Hort, p. 232) . ”

“ Indeed Cyprian plainly lays it down that the church members must withdraw from sinful officers, since “the people itself in the main has power either of choosing worthy priests (bishops) or of refusing unworthy ones” (Ep. 67. 3) . ”

“ Here we have essential Congregationalism, formulated for the first time in England as the original and genuine Christian polity, and as such binding on those loyal to the Head of the Church. All turns, as we see from the petition addressed in 1571 to the queen by twenty-seven persons (the majority women, possibly wives in some cases of men in prison) , upon the duty of separation with a view to purity of Christian fellowship (2 Cor. vi. 17 f.) , and upon moral discipline “by the strength and sure warrant of the Lord’s good word, as in Matt. ”

“ It must, therefore, be admitted that the great expansion which marked the first half of the 19th century has not been proportionately maintained. None the less, Congregationalism has through its leading representatives taken an increasingly important part in theological controversy and scholarship generally. ”

“ But after half a century’s further experience, public opinion, stimulated by growing need for common action in relation to certain practical problems of home and foreign work, proved ripe for the realization of the earlier idea in its double form. In 1904 the Union was again modified so as to embrace (1) a council of 300, representative of the county associations, to direct the business for which the Union as such is responsible, and (2) a more popular assembly, made up of the council and a large number of direct representatives of the associated churches. ”

“ During the 18th century, though the Independents increased at the expense of the Presbyterians, it is doubtful whether they kept pace with the increase of population, until the Evangelical Revival. In 1832 they reckoned some 800 churches, the Baptists 532. In 1907 the figures were, for Great Britain [17] as a whole: Churches, branch churches and mission stations, 4928; sittings, 1,801,447; church members, 498,953; Sunday school scholars, 729,347, with 69,575 teachers; ministers (with or without pastoral charge) , 3197, together with 299 evangelists and lay pastors ”

“ As a result of these assemblies it was decided that those who had become members in childhood simply by virtue of their parents’ status could not subsequently join in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper nor record votes on ecclesiastical issues, unless they should approve themselves fit; they might, however, in their turn bring their children to baptism and hand on to them the degree of membership which they themselves had received from their own parents. ”

“ This was confessed alike by the bishops (e.g. Whitgift) and by the Puritans, who maintained the paramount duty of remaining within the queen’s church and there working for the further reformation which they recognized as sadly needed by English religion. But the radical “Puritans” (the above documents in the State Paper Office are endorsed “Bishop of London: Puritans”) felt that this meant treason to the Headship of Christ in His Church ”

“ In both cases the Congregationalists took the “high,” the Presbyterians the “moderate” view. These specific differences revealed different religious tendencies, [14] the one type being more warmly Evangelical, the other more “rational” and congenial in temper with 18th-century Deism. The theological division was accentuated by the Salters' Hall Controversy (1717–1719) , which, nominally touching religious liberty versus subscription, really involved differences as to Trinitarian doctrine. Ere long Arianism and Socinianism were general among English Presbyterians (see Unitarianism) . ”

“ In other parts of the British empire there are some 1045 churches and mission stations (many native) , South Africa, 385; Australia, 311, and Tasmania, 49; British North America, 151; British Guiana, 50, and Jamaica, 48; New Zealand, 35; India, 15; Hongkong, 1. There are also congregational churches in Austria, Bulgaria, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and in Japan (93) . ”