Congregationalist

“ It would be absurd to imagine that Congregationalists could forget their spotless record, and could now, for the pride of the addition of fifty or a hundred churches, consent to help a movement that should put colored brothers in a separate fellowship by themselves. This they will never do. They will hold out a warm hand of welcome to all comers, and warmest to those who come to them from the South, white and black: but they want them to come together, not apart. ”

“ But if the Church of England rests this practice on such insufficient grounds, how do the Pædobaptist Congregationalists support the practice? They appear to me to have scarcely any ground at all which they can acknowledge, consistently with their fundamental principles as Congregationalists. They are supported in the practice wholly by clinging to custom, and by borrowing the arguments of the advocates of national churches just for an occasion. ”

“ The London Missionary Society, which embraces all conservative Protestant denominations outside the Baptists, are now practically Congregationalists, all other British Protestant denominations having in later years established societies of their own. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And now we repeat what we have so often said to our brother ministers, especially of the South, where they are brought in contact with this energetic body of men: Know, once for all, that the Church possessed of the best cultured heads and the best cultured hearts, is to win. That we are infinitely stronger in numbers to-day than are the Congregationalists, argues nothing for the future. ”

“ A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep, and we shall awake in the whirls of that maëlstrom which has but one passage, and that downward.
There is yet one body of Christians whose influence we have not considered, and that a most important one,—the Congregationalists of New England and of the West. From the very nature of Congregationalism, she cannot give so united a testimony as Presbyterianism; yet Congregationalism has spoken out on slavery. ”

“ CONGREGATIONALISTS, a denomination of protestants, who maintain that each particular church has authority from Christ for exercising government, and enjoying all the ordinances of worship within itself. ”

“ Independents or Congregationalists are a Protestant sect deriving both names from their principle of government; repudiating both Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, they hold that every congregation should manage its own affairs, and elect its own officers independent of all authority save that of Christ; they profess to derive all rules of faith and practice from the Scriptures, and are closely akin to Presbyterians in doctrine. Numerous as early as Queen Elizabeth's time, they suffered persecution then ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besides the champions of State-intervention in the Church, there were other and more dangerous opponents, who asserted the autonomy of all religious congregations, and their total independence of the State, even more strongly than the Presbyterians. The Congregationalists, who appear more definitely as the Independents, formed perhaps a seventh part of the Assembly. ”

“ Specifically, as among the Congregationalists, a society, consisting of a number of ministers, generally the pastors of neighboring churches, united for promoting the interests of religion and the harmony of the churches. ”

“ This resolution, drawn and offered, I think, by my hospitable friend, Mr. Binney, I have mislaid, and cannot find it. It was, however, in character and spirit, just what Mr. James here declares it to be.
6. I have been told since my return, that there are some slaveholding Congregational churches in the south; but they have no connection with our New England churches, and certainly are not generally known as Congregationalists distinct from the Presbyterians.
7. This has always been supposed and claimed in the United States. Now the time has come to test its truth. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ These little church groups of evangelized and educated families are at once the prime sources and the constituent elements of the new Christian civilization which already heralds the coming of the kingdom to those neglected, outcast peoples, to secure whose human rights, Christian privileges and church fellowship is the first, loudest, longest call upon the Congregational Churches of America.
Therefore, in the name of this Association, whose heroic type of missionary and teaching service makes our whole membership and ministry the more attractive and ennobling ”

“ 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. ”

“ If, in view of all the facts, it should be ultimately decided that the Congregational churches should be represented at the South by one missionary society, the decision should be reached in the broadest spirit of Christian wisdom and kindness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every day individuals attend, requesting his Society to establish a Christian congregation in their part of the country.
“During my stay, about thirty persons, who had previously been instructed, were baptized. He always performs the service with such solemnity that all present are moved to tears. He has certainly received from God a most peculiar gift of teaching the truths of religion. Heathens of the highest rank, who never intend to become worshippers of the true God and disciples of Jesus Christ, hear his instructions with pleasure. ”

“ They brought Congregational Protestantism—the democracy of Christianity, involving, what they neither granted nor knew, the universal right of search for truth and justice, the natural right to take or reject, as a man’s own spirit should require. ”

“ The leaven of their intelligence and higher standard of morality is taking hold of many families about them. From many centers the call reaches us for the organization of Congregational churches, churches which shall stand for morality, equal membership rights and a more rational type of piety. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A congregation is a mysterious and subtle social force. Its effect on a minister he can neither analyze nor explain. But he knows that its power is mesmeric and cannot be escaped. He goes into its presence from an hour of exalted and uplifted prayer, serene, happy, strong, and prepared to speak words of power and life. Gazing at his people—he can never tell why—the words freeze on his lips. An icy hand seems laid upon his heart, and he makes a cold and formal presentation of his glowing theme, and wonders who or what has done it all. ”

“ The experience of worship is impossible in an atmosphere of difference. This is a reason for the cleavage of denominations, and the splitting of congregations. Without this separating, men could not enjoy the uniting, and without the aversion, men could not taste the sweets of fellowship. ”

“ Among all the religions of this world—from the creed of cannibals who devoured flesh, to that of Calvinists who polluted souls—there is none, there has been none, there will be none, more utterly heartless and inhuman than was the orthodox Congregationalism of New England in the year of grace 1813. ”