Dissenting congregation

“ If the incumbent or minister of any parish be thus dishonest, having subscribed to what he never cordially believed, and preaching doctrines contrary to the articles he has subscribed, when his incumbency or ministry in that parish ceases by death or any other cause, the articles of the church remain in full force. But if no such test existed, and if the election to church preferment were vested in the people, a single incumbency might so corrupt the opinions of the congregation as to perpetuate heresy from generation to generation. ”

“ But as the bishop is superior to other persons in honour, so the assembly or congregation possesses more authority than one individual. It was a gross outrage, therefore, for one man to transfer to himself all the power of the community, and thereby to open a door to licentious tyranny, to deprive the Church of its rights, and to suppress and abolish an assembly appointed by the Spirit of Christ. ”

“ Commonly, the only resource of such a clergy upon such an emergency is to summon the government to persecute or expel their adversaries. “It was thus that the Roman Catholic clergy called upon the civil magistrate to persecute the Protestants, and the Church of England to persecute the Dissenters.”
An established church may have a superiority of learning, but in the art of gaining popularity the advantage is always with its adversaries. He finds that, as dissenting bodies grow richer, their zeal and activity abate. ”

“ But, after all, it is evident, by the fundamental law and constitution of the society, that a general congregation has a far greater power and authority over the general than he can pretend to over the society. The same general assembly, or representative body of the order, which creates him general, names also and appoints his assistants, who have a watchful eye upon his behaviour, and, when they observe any great fault in his conduct, or defect in his administration, are bound by oath to inform against him, and to denounce him to the society ”

“ To the contrary, this Church affirms the complete cessation of Divine commission in churchly organizations, and the consequent necessity of a restoration—a new dispensation from the heavens.
This Church disavows any and all derivation of appointment or commission, direct or implied, from other organizations, Catholic or Protestant, "established" or dissenting churches sects or parties. It defends the rights of all men, whether church members or not, to worship as they severally choose to do, and to believe in and advocate the genuineness of any sect or church to which they elect to belong ”

“ The churchmen get public money, not because they are churchmen, but because they are the majority. The dissenters get nothing, not because they are dissenters, but because they are a small minority. There are districts where the case will be reversed, where there will be dissenting schools, and no Church schools. In such cases the dissenters will get what we have to give, and the churchmen will get nothing. ”

“ Here, however, it was the Baptists, rather than the Independents collectively, that had pushed their theory of the all-sufficiency of congregational censure to its finest issue. To both sects the world or civil society presented itself as a medium in which there might be Christian vortices, concourses of true Christian souls, that should constitute, when numbered together and catalogued unerringly in the books of heaven, the Church or Kingdom of Jesus. ”

“ The Independents wished a total disruption of church and state, and disliked synods almost as much as they did bishops. They believed that every congregation was a distinct church, and had a right to elect the pastor. They preferred the greatest variety of sects to the ascendency of any one, by means of the civil sword. They rejected all spiritual courts, and claimed the right of each church to reject, punish, or receive members. In politics, they wished a total overthrow of the government—monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy ”

“ In England the gentry know hardly anything about Dissenters. As to the organization of dissenting communities, nobody ever hears of any of them having bishops, and so it is supposed that they must have some [Pg 257] sort of democratic system. Genteel knowledge of dissenting faith and practice is confined to a very few points,—that Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity, that Baptists have some unusual practice about baptism, and that Methodists are fond of singing hymns. ”

“ They therefore began to desert the parish churches, and hold private meetings for worship under the displaced clergy. In our time, no statesman would think of opposing the people in such a course. They would be allowed quietly to raise dissenting meeting-houses for themselves and favourite clergymen, and the peace of the country would not be disturbed. But the reader must have been prepared to see that no such course could then be adopted. The Presbyterian establishment itself had only a few years before sternly put down all external expression of dissent. ”

“ Only Protestant congregations enjoy the doubtful advantage of having the election of their clergy controlled, and the candor of their clergy made the theme of penal inquiry.... And yet Protestant congregations have a ready means of escape at their disposal. Let them leave the church, and they are free to elect whomsoever they may choose as their minister. As it is, the indecision of the congregations maintains the status quo by forcing liberal clergymen into the dogmatic straight-waistcoat of the consistories. ”

“ Thus many notorious offenders, whom the Mormons would, for their own sakes, willingly see cut off from the congregation—in simple words, hung—escape with impunity after the first excitement has settled down: the most terrible crimes are soon forgotten in the party fight, and in the race to "go ahead;" ”

“ And there are practices against which congregations have a right to protest, not only as Christians, but as free Englishmen. Congregations have a right to protest against any minister who introduces obsolete ceremonies which empty his church and drive away his people. Those ceremonies may be quite harmless in themselves, as I really believe most of them are; many of them may be beautiful, and, if properly understood, useful, as I think they are; but a thing may be good in itself, and yet become bad by being used at a wrong time, and in a way which produces harm. ”

“ The people—who, for the most part, were passionately attached to the simple fabric of their national church, and dreamt of no rivalship or enmity to it except in episcopacy—how they must have felt at the novel sight of a group of men who, in declaring against bishops, also found fault with sessions and synods, with indeed all ecclesiastical action whatever, considering each congregation independent in itself, and no member of it less entitled to pray and preach than the pastor! ”

“ His congregation stirred and swayed and yielded—not to persuasion, for of that there was none; not to the minister's personality, for they had forgotten him; not in the hope of reward, for he spoke but of wrath and pitiless requital of sin, and merciless judgment, and endless woe—they yielded to their own fears.
For this man was lashing his own soul with the copy-righted invective of his sect, pronouncing against himself and (as in the midst of his mental agony he realized) against all mankind a doom of woe and wrath if they did not believe. ”

“ Whosoever fails in the aforementioned points, or in any of them, wilfully and of purpose, and will not by the grace and mercy of God correct his fault after the degrees of admonition have been observed, nor will be subject to Christian order, he cannot and shall not be a member of our Evangelical Lutheran congregation, and he shall have no right or share in its privileges, still less have right to vote or to hold office. ”

“ The meetings of the Bible Society, it is said, by breaking in a degree the line of demarcation between churchmen and dissenters, tend to injure the establishment; and that, although the dissenter may gain, the churchman must lose by them. But how can this be? can the union of persons, where the peculiarities of each is kept out of view, have any bearing upon those peculiarities? Is it the fact, that churchmen have been converted to dissenters by these meetings? If there is a danger of conversion taking place, is it not a bad compliment to the church to suppose that she will be the loser? ”

“ The Guardian itself, in an editorial comment on the decreasing attendance of men in the Anglican churches, says frankly that a large number of men are "repelled by the extremely low standard of preaching which prevails, and the comparative success of Nonconformity may be due in part to the attention which is devoted to the preparation of the sermon." "Another source of offence is the over-elaboration of musical services, and the practical exclusion of the congregation from any real share in prayer and praise. ”

“ The scandalous lives of the established clergy, their total neglect of the religious instruction of the people, and the profanation of Christian worship by gross idolatry, were the most glaring abuses. The lords of the Congregation resolved to take immediate steps for removing these, by abolishing the popish service, and setting up the reformed worship in all those places to which their authority or influence extended, and in which the greater part of the inhabitants were friendly to the design. ”

“ The individual, or even the congregation, is not the final authority. The presbytery, the synod, the general assembly, are all legislative and judicial courts, deciding questions of doctrine and discipline with authority, and exacting submission from each individual clergyman and layman as a condition of church fellowship. They avow, therefore, and act on the principle, that the revolt of the individual against church discipline is, ipso facto, schism, and his revolt against church doctrine, ipso facto heresy ”

“ Offending brethren are not reclaimed, nor are others deterred from offending; the leaven that should have been purged has infected the whole lump; instead of Christ's honor being vindicated, people have no respect for a pusillanimous church; and the wrath of God seems about to fall upon us. From ecclesiastical country clubs, good Lord, deliver us!
"For the better government and further edification of the Church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils. ”

“ With us, at all events, where the Church party rules, the privileges and exemptions of the clergy are the chief source of suffering, and the state of passive ignorance in which they have kept the people has bred in the latter a dull resignation that is the surest obstacle to reform. ”

“ The Protestant service has too little fulness and consistency to be able to hold the congregation together; hence, it easily happens that members secede from it, and either form little congregations of their own, or, without ecclesiastical connexion, quietly carry on their citizen-life side by side. ”

“ Dissenters can still enjoy this money, if that be their wish, if they profess the faith which it was originally left to maintain. If they dissent from that faith they are quite at liberty to form congregations of their own. We can respect them for their sincerity; but if they demand that the Church's wealth should be taken away and be devoted to other purposes than those for which it was originally given, for this we could not respect them. ”

“ The second cause of dissensions may be in the external relations of the associates. This would be the more dangerous, because the occasion of it might be an apparent external good to be effected. The will of the bishop or of the pastor may not agree with the desire of the society. In a case of this kind, if the society should act in spite of the episcopal will or opposed to it publicly, a great scandal would happen in the diocese, and the society would fall to pieces. What is the remedy for such calamities? The associates must have filial reverence and obedience for the pastors of the church. ”

“ Is it the criterion of a Church to be without formulated dogmas—or to have doctrinal standards from which her clergy have indefinite liberty to dissent? In the former case the Episcopal communion is not a Church—in the latter, Congregationalists or Presbyterians might easily become a Church, by according liberty of dissent from their standards. The only thing that hinders among them the laxity of subscription and interpretation which Mr. Brook claims for his own Church is that they really believe in their beliefs, and make fidelity to them a matter of conscience. ”

“ That God might be glorified, the offendor shamed, humbled, reduced, and sin not suffered to rest upon him. That others may be preserved from contagion, and made to fear. That scandal and pollution of the Ordinances, may be prevented, or removed. All which argue as strongly and fully for subordination of an offending Congregation to superiour and greater Assemblies, as of an offending brother to a particular Congregation: And the truth is, whosoever denyes the subordination of a Congregation unto a Synod, together with appeals thereunto, doth in plain tearms affirm these three things,
1. ”

“ You next observe, that, “the dissenters of all denominations, qualify themselves according to the act of toleration: otherwise, they are liable to the penalties of all the laws recited in this act.”
I answer, as before, all this strikes wide. It relates wholly to “persons dissenting from the church.” But we are not the men. We do not dissent from the church. Whoever affirms it, we put him to the proof.
You go on, “One of those laws so recited (viz. 22 Charles II. chapter 1.) is that which forbids field-preaching by name ”