Independents (English Congregationalists)

“ 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. ”

“ No denominational purpose will sway them, except that they will try to awaken their own denomination to a sense of its duty; there will be no attempt to make Congregationalists or to present Congregationalism. Deeper, broader and simpler must this work be than any which can be carried on upon denominational lines. In such a forlorn hope there is no room for sectarianism. The Gospel of the love of Christ must be presented in its simplest form, and the one aim in everything must be to rescue and not to proselytise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A seasonable threat of a praemunire, however, from the commons, laid the rising dust in the assembly; but the mounting spirit of the new forcers of conscience was shown in the opposition made to the petition which the independents offered to parliament, that their congregations might have the right of ordination within themselves, and that they might not be brought under the power of the ‘presbyterian classes.’ It would be tedious to follow the war of committees, sermons, pamphlets, which this request, modest in itself, and more modest in form, excited. ”

“ 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 and Baptists are included under the general denomination of Congregationalists. Independents retired into obscurity for a while after the Restoration. The doors of buildings where they had been wont to assemble were nailed up; the pastors were driven out; flocks were scattered; the administration of ordinances could not take place; and meetings could not be held, as the still existing records of communities, which had been prosperous under the Commonwealth, bear ample witness. There is reason to believe that the Independents [165] had diminished in number. ”

“ 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, then, we meet with a distinction (cf. Dale, p. 374 ff.) of moment for the Commonwealth era, between “Independency” as a principle and “Congregationalism” as an ideal of church polity. Independency, like Nonconformity, is primarily a negative term. “It simply affirms the right of any society of private persons to meet together for worship . . . without being interfered with [12] by any external authority.” Such a right may be asserted on other theories than the congregational or even the Christian. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They were as completely dominated by the ideal of a single united national church, one in doctrine, organization, and form of worship, as was the queen herself. Nevertheless, a group of men arose among them, under the general name of Independents, to whom the very idea of a national church seemed idolatrous; who found in the Scriptures, or were driven by the logic of their position, to one plan of church government only—the absolute independence of each congregation of Christian believers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no authoritative way to heal the major part of a Congregation, when it falls into fundamental errours, which is a great disparagement to the Government of Jesus Christ, and reflects deeply upon the wisdome {28} and care of the great King of his Church. ”

“ 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. ”

“ More than four hundred Dissenting societies, Congregationalist and Baptist, are now existing in England, which date their origin before the passage of the Toleration Act under William. [464] To these are to be added many societies of Presbyterians and Quakers.
The Congregational Union of England and Wales is an organized body devoted to the interests of the fellowship to which it succeeds as representing the original single and associated Nonconformists from the date of the English Reformation. ”

“ Indeed, at the conference at Islington, it was frankly admitted that whatever might be the actual condition of the party, the doctrines for which it contends were never so widely preached by the clergy as at present. Certainly, the Nonconformist Churches know no decline, nor is their prosperity to be traced to any abandonment or concealment of evangelical doctrines. Congregationalists, accustomed as they are to breathe the atmosphere of freedom, and unfettered by the restraints of any formal creed, have, perhaps, felt more of the influences of the age than any other body of Christians ”

“ It is our just pride as Congregationalists that through this Association more has been done for the true enfranchisement of the freedmen than through any other agency, and it is our duty to see that this great work, in which we have borne so large and honorable a part, halt not nor slacken in its energy because of our failure to keep its treasury replenished and its faithful laborers re-enforced and supported by our gifts and our prayers. ”

“ Our natural affiliations as a church in this city have not been so much with churches of our own denomination, as with churches of various denominations distinguished like ourselves as predominantly civic, or community, institutions. This congregation is an independent congregation. If the Unitarian name adheres to it at all, it is to the embarrassment of those whose Unitarianism is their pride, and to the confusion of those who, not Unitarians either by birth or conviction, desire to join us in spirit and active work. ”

“ In the theory of the Independents, as fully developed, any group of persons wishing to worship God in common might come together and organize themselves into a Congregational church, existing by as good a warrant as any other church, and entirely free from the control of any bishop, or synod, or council. No outside power could prescribe its creed or interfere with its ceremonial. Each church became, therefore, a little self-governing republic, as completely autonomous as an ancient Greek city, and the union of such churches was based solely upon the spirit of spontaneous Christian fellowship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Presbyterians were rapidly losing their old standing, and were lapsing into the ranks of Unitarianism. A large majority of the general Baptists were adopting similar views. The ablest men among the Congregationalists were devoting themselves to teaching rather than to pastoral work. Unitarianism was the only form of dissent that was gaining in numbers and influence. The more orthodox denominations were daily losing in numbers and influence, and were secluding themselves more and more from the general thought and culture of the age. ”

“ We feel that you agree with us when we express the hope that the time will come when there will be no distinction of North and South, but when our whole people will understand and trust and love each other. Political parties pass away and new ones take their places; but, God helping us, the Congregational method of church government shall never pass away, but it shall be (as long as grass grows and streamlets flow) a firm bond of union and brotherly love between us and you and all other Christians who accept it in its purity. ”

“ First in religion, especially in the commendable quality of zeal, and first in schools and colleges, they have been chief in influence throughout all our borders. Alas for the Presbyterian church! (for their sakes we say it,) the Congregationalism of New-England governs it. They must emancipate themselves as best they can. It is not for us to say which is the better of the two.
Now be it known—such at least is our philosophy—the religious novelties of the age, on our side of the water, owe their being to the New-England spirit, and had their germ in puritanism. ”

“ In an ordinary parish, a presbyterian clergyman would be in possession of the benefice, to attempt {343} an irritating but ineffectual discipline and haggle over tithes, while in the same place there would be a knot of ‘common-prayer men’ with an excluded minister at hand to stimulate their zeal, and a congregation of baptists or independents, who, now that their friends were in power, would see no reason why their enemies should be beneficed. ”

“ There is no Authoritative way to keep out pluralities of Religions. For if the whole power of Church-Government be in the Congregation-Independently, then let a Congregation set up what Religion they think fit, there is no Authoritative Church-remedy left to hinder them.
4. There is no Authoritative way for unity and uniformity in Church-administrations, which doth inevitably lay stumbling blocks before weak Christians, and holds them in suspence, not knowing to what Congregation to joyn, because they see such different wayes of administration of Ordinances. ”