Congregationalists

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the innumerable meetings caused to spring up by this awakening from one end of the country to the other, it has been impossible to distinguish Baptists, Presbyterians, or Congregationalists from each other. All have been there, and no one has betrayed by the least shade of dogmatism those self-styled profound divisions about which so much noise is made. I invite those still in doubt to look at the manner in which public worship is established in the West: as soon as a few men have formed a settlement, a missionary comes to visit them ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Now, though, in politeness, the Presbyterians were willing occasionally to distinguish between the orthodox Independents and the miscellaneous Sectaries, yet, as the Congregationalist principle, which was the essence of Independency, was credited with the mischief of having generated all the sects, and as it was for this Congregationalist principle that toleration was demanded, it was quite as common to huddle all the Sects and the orthodox Congregationalists together under the one name of Independents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The earliest leaders in national organization for the propagation of Christianity at home and abroad were the Congregationalists of New England and men like-minded with them. But the societies thus originated were organized on broad and catholic principles, and invited the coöperation of all Christians. They naturally became the organs of much of the active beneficence of Presbyterian congregations, and the Presbyterian clergy and laity were largely represented in the direction of them. They were recognized and commended by the representative bodies of the Presbyterian Church. ”

“ The average membership of these churches, planted among a humble people who have no Congregational trend nor training, stands at the encouraging number of 62 for each church, while the average membership for each Congregational Church west of the Mississippi is only 43. And these people in the South are loyal Congregationalists. ”

“ 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 and Unitarians are specially numerous in the New England States, the Episcopalians and Presbyterians in New York and Pennsylvania, while the Methodists are specially strong in the South, the Baptists in the Middle West, and the Catholics all through the East. ”

“ In regard to church government, the Baptists agree with the Congregationalists that each separate church is complete in itself, and has, therefore, power to choose its own ministers and to make such regulations as it deems to be most in accordance with the purpose of its existence, that is, the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. A comparatively small section of the denomination maintain that a “plurality of elders” or pastors is required for the complete organization of every separate church. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To the Congregationalists belongs an honor in the past which, in recent generations, they have not been jealous to retain. Beyond any sect, except the Moravians, they have cherished that charity which seeketh not her own. The earliest leaders in the organization of schemes of national beneficence in coöperation with others, they have sustained them with unselfish liberality, without regard to returns of sectarian advantage. The results of their labor are largely to be traced in the upbuilding of other sects. ”

“ That its expanding and important work is restricted by the want of adequate funds, and that while Congregationalists--churches and individuals--have the undoubted right to exercise their own choice in aiding institutions in these particular fields, outside of the work of the Association, yet they ought to bear in mind their responsibility to sustain the Association in the work which they assign to it.
CHURCH WORK IN THE SOUTH. We invite the attention of our readers to the illustrated article "In North Carolina." ”

“ The reservation of baptism for adults is merely the outward expression of a desire to set up the visible Church as a body of pure and regenerate believers—in fact to make the visible Church correspond with the invisible Church which exists only in the knowledge of God. The aim of the Baptists is higher than that of the Congregationalists, who discarded the idea of a visible Church that they might affirm the rights of separate congregations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ainsworth was a fine type of the Elizabethan puritan—learned, sincere, earnest, and uncompromising. He attached himself to those who were styled ‘Brownists,’ who, under the name of ‘Independents,’ afterwards played so important a part in English history, and who were the ancestors of the ‘Congregationalists’ and other free churches of the present time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ He secured an excellent set of scientific apparatus and improved the instruction in the natural sciences; he introduced courses in Hebrew and French about 1772; and he did a large part of the actual teaching, having courses in languages, divinity, moral philosophy and eloquence. In the American Presbyterian church he was a prominent figure; he worked for union with the Congregationalists and with the Dutch Reformed body; and at the synod of 1786 he was one of the committee which reported in favour of the formation of a General Assembly and which drafted “a system of general rules for ... ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If considered as antagonistic, which it is not, but rather co-operative, the real rival of the Methodist Episcopal church in the South is the Congregational, with its institutions of learning sustained by the American Missionary Association. It moves upon those lines which will give it a future, while other and older denominations are sleeping, apparently unconscious of the mighty revolution that has taken place, and indifferent to those principles which will inevitably impress themselves upon the church of the next century. Intelligence and morality are everywhere seen in that communion. ”