Congregationalism

“ To adopt such a principle as this is, appears to me more in harmony with the spirit of the New Testament dispensation, than putting in a claim for the Divine right of Episcopacy, or Presbyterianism, or Congregationalism; it is an equitable concession to others of the liberty we claim for ourselves; and hence, without being guilty of any degree of inconsistency, we can cultivate Christian fellowship with our brethren of other denominations, without compromising our own principles. ”

“ Congregationalism goes to these people as the representative of pure, intelligent and progressive Christianity. We can gather them into schools, Sunday-schools and churches, anywhere where we can put a Christian worker. Our only limit is consecrated workers and the support for them. The field is as ripe this very day for a thousand as for a score. But the school and the church must go together. ”

“ Down South are being planted those two principles upon which the great superstructure of our liberty rests firm—a church without a bishop and a state without a king. This is what Congregationalism is carrying into that land long ruled by aristocracies. It is giving these people who possess liberty the knowledge of how to use it aright. ”

“ It may be well for those of a different polity to quote their different authorities, but the only authority we recognize is the authority of Him whose dominion stretches from sea to sea and from pole to pole. Such is Congregationalism. It is adapted to every human being God has made. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This system of Browne contains the great principles of Congregationalism. 1. The separation of the faithful from sinners. Each congregation consisted of believers, and its object was to maintain a high standard of purity and holiness among its members. 2. Resistance to all outward control, either on the part of the State or of a hierarchy. Each congregation was to be a voluntary body. ”

“ A single church organized on the right basis, watched over with painstaking care, so that her members shall adorn the doctrines they profess, will do more for the prosperity of Congregationalism in this part of the country than would a score of churches hastily organized and unsuitably located. We think the officers of this society have been wise in their movements thus far; nearly all the churches organized having made a history that deserves the admiration of Christian people everywhere. ”

“ Presbyterianism stands for the rule of an official aristocracy, exercising collective control through an ascending series of ecclesiastical courts. In contrast to both of these, which in different ways express the principle of clerical or official authority, Congregationalism represents the principle of democracy in religion. It regards church authority as inhering, according to the very genius of the Gospel, in each local body of believers, as a miniature realization of the whole Church, which can itself have only an ideal corporate being on earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He first dwelt upon the history of Congregationalism, especially in its freedom from complicity with slavery, its prominence in the anti-slavery movement, and its comparative freedom from the sect spirit, as peculiarly indicating its call to work among the freedmen. He then brought out the peculiar features of the polity, independence and fellowship, and [144] showed how they tend (1) to develop and sustain republican institutions, and to fit the church member for his duties as a citizen; (2) to promote intelligence ”

“ In New England Congregationalism, the church and the ecclesiastical society were separate and distinct bodies. The church kept the records of births, deaths, marriage, baptism, and membership, and, outside these, confined itself to spiritual matters; the society dealt with all temporal affairs such as the care and control of all church property, the payment of ministers' salaries, and also their calling, settlement, and dismissal. ”

“ Congregationalism had done nothing for the Protestantism or liberties of England, and it would have been strange indeed had there not been some among the emigrants who would not consider their change of latitude and longitude as destroying their Church membership, and sundering the additional ties which connected them with their forefathers and the associations of all their past life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Regarding their system as alone having divine institution, Presbyterians could not recognise any other religious or ecclesiastical party, and must demand uniformity, not only in regard to doctrine and creed, but also in regard to constitution, discipline, and worship.474―On the other hand, Independent Congregationalism, inasmuch as it made prominent the N.T. ideas of the priesthood of all believers and spiritual freedom, demanded unlimited liberty to each separate congregation, and unconditional equality for all individual church members. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Still, in arguing so, they must have had some latitude of view as to the amount of uniformity desirable. If every congregation were to be independent within itself, and if moreover congregations might be formed on the principle of elective affinities, or the concourse of like-minded atoms, it was difficult to see why Congregationalism should not be expected to evolve sects, and why therefore this progressive evolution of sects should not be accepted as a law of religious life. ”

“ The Christian people who give so liberally, and those who are intrusted with the responsibility of this work, do not know the difficulties and trying circumstances under which Congregationalism has grown, and is growing, in some parts of the South. ”

“ 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. ”

“ May we not, the children of the Pilgrims, have faith enough in God and in these men to give them the church polity of these founders?
We are encouraged to recommend the planting of Congregational churches among the blacks, because we have great advantages in so doing. The eager aspiration of the blacks to be men, will help. Congregationalism has a clean record South. Has any other of our leading denominations? There is no prejudice to be overcome by it, as a polity. In the competitions of the denominations on the ground, will not there be an advantage for us? ”

“ Congregationalists or Independents in the sittings of the Assembly pleaded for liberty of conscience to all sects, "provided that they did not trouble the public peace." (Later, Congregationalists differentiated themselves from the Independents by adding to the principle of the independence of the local church the principle of the local sisterhood of the churches.) In the Assembly, averaging sixty or eighty members, Congregationalism was represented by but five influential divines and a few of lesser importance. There were also among the members some thirty laymen. ”

“ Attempting to adjust themselves between the old order of things on the one side, and the new forces of evangelism and liberalism on the other, another great body of Congregationalists found a middle ground in a movement of modified Calvinism, which sustained the life of Congregationalism in large areas of New England. ”

“ But, in the providence of God, this society is called upon to prosecute this fourfold work. It cannot abandon a single field and must not be asked to. It can do in the next five years a work for Christianity and for Congregationalism in the South and West which will tell on the coming century. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now it has sometimes been questioned whether a Congregational organization, working on thoroughly Congregational principles, could so well plant the Christian church among an ignorant, degraded people, needing guidance, oversight, care, government. ”

“ Organized on the Independent, or Congregational, form, each religious congregation was a law unto itself, electing its own deacons and minister, and was but little influenced by the occasional synods, or councils of churches, which at last fell into disuse. ”

“ The Congregationalists, or Independents, are so called from their maintaining that each congregation of Christians, which meets in one house for public worship, is a complete church, has sufficient power to act and perform every thing relating to religious government within itself, and is in no respect subject or accountable to other churches. ”

“ The platform of church discipline which was drawn up in 1648, and agreed upon by the elders and messengers of the churches, assembled in the synod at Cambridge, in New England, defines a congregational church to be, by the institution of Christ, a part of the militant visible church, consisting of a company of saints by calling, united in one body by a holy covenant, for the public worship of God, and the mutual edification of one another in the fellowship of the Lord Jesus. ”

“ My purpose was to preach Christ to men for the sake of bringing them to a higher life. And though I preferred the polity and economy of the Congregational Church, yet I also felt that God was in all the other churches, and that it was no part of my ministry to build up sectarian walls; that it was no part of my ministry to bombard and pull down sectarian structures; but that the work of my ministry was to find the way to the hearts of men, and to labor with them for their awakening, and conversion, and sanctification. ”

“ The Congregationalists and the Independents are one and the same. They maintain that each congregation is an independent religious community entitled to exercise the right of appointing its own ministers and managing its own affairs. ”

“ According to this simple but effective organization of God’s church, every local congregation is entirely independent, supervised and tended, under God, by 97 a group of men known as overseers or pastors or elders. Now, that’s what the Bible teaches on church organization. The church which follows this plan is right on that point. Wherever you see a group of congregations tied together by some inter-congregational organization, that group’s wrong on their organization. I know some groups that maintain congregational independence, but are wrong in some other way. ”