THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
S84
2. Massachusetts and Other
remain, it was agreed that each part should be considered a complete churcli, and that, if any members of either should rejoin the other, they should be recognized as already members. The Congregationalism of this Pilgrim church was essentially like that of the present. But 1. The it did not blend the offices of pastor Ch^r^^ and teacher and it retained the eldership, to which attached for some time Plymouth, rather more of authority than to the diaconate, which gradually absorbed the eldership. In Leyden it had been trained to a liberality which permitted communion with the Reformed churches, and in the Plymouth Colony no man was interfered with for his religion unless he antagonized the Congregational churches actively. But such was its high conception of the ministry that, as it had no ordained pastor until 1629, when it secured Rev. Ralph Smith, it had no administration of the Lord's Supper until then. Elder Brewster, however, served efficiently as its preacher and religious leader.
The Massachusetts Bay colonists, in 1628-30, were Puritans rather than Congregationalists. Although repelled by many of its features, they did not mean to separate from the Anglican Church. Moreover, although animated strongly by a religious motive, theirs was primarily a commercial colony. But Congregationalism, as illustrated at Plymouth, seemed so peculiarly adapted to their new conditions that they adopted it at once. Colonies, organizing a church at Salem in Aug.
1629, the Plymouth church being represented. Other similar churches soon were formed, as well as in the neighboring New England colonies, and until 17(J0 there were hardly any others than Congregational churches, although a policy of entire ecclesiastical freedom was adopted in 1691. But soon the original simplicity of their Congregationalism was modified. The Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies limited political suffrage to church-members, although the former abandoned this practise in 1693 and the latter as early as 1664. Moreov er, and this continued until well into the nineteenth century, Congregational churches and ministers were supported by public taxation, a plain violation of the principle of a free Church in a free State. But for some time before its abandonment taxpayers were allowed to select the church which they preferred to help maintain.
An important feature in Congregational history during that century was the Half-way Covenant. It was the early rule to baptize infants one of whose parents was a church-member. When such baptized persons grew up and married Half° but failed to join the Church, the .^g^y" question arose whether their children Covenant, should be baptized, and it became customary to allow such baptized but non-communicant parents to " own the covenant." They publicly accepted the fundamental truths of the Gospel and promised to maintain a general fellowship with the Church, and then, although they could not receive the communion or vote in
and Development after 1700.
church matters, they could have their children baptized. This compromise, although strongly opposed, became common, but led to laxity in admitting members to the churches and was practically abandoned about 1800 (cf. Walker, Creeds, 238-339).
In Vermont the first church was established at Brattleboro in 1762, and by 1800 there were seventy-four and they had formed a general convention. New York had been occupied by the Dutch, but it contained a few Congregational Growth churches. In New England churches continued to multiply rapidly, most, and in many localities all, being Congregational. But the specially noteworthy feature of the Congregationalism of that century was its theological and religious development. In 1700 a serious spiritual decline had become general. Carelessness in requiring evidence of piety before admission to the Church, the influence of the deism then prevalent in Europe, increased absorption in the pursuit of material prosperity, and the diversion of public attention from religion due to the excitements of the Revolution had combined to diminish the vividness of personal religious belief and experience. Partly to counteract this tendency, Yale College had been founded at Say brook. Conn., in 1701, and the synod at Saybrook, Sept. 9, 1708, instituted by the General Court of Connecticut to prepare a form of ecclesiastical discipline, had recommended as a doctrinal statement the Savoy Declaration, which Massachusetts had adopted in 1680, and had drawn up the Saybrook Platform, which remained civU law until 1784 (see below. III., § 1). But the chief cause of the spiritual change which followed was the Great Awakening, a wide-spread religious revival, which began in 1734-35 and continued intermittently for about seven years (see Revivals OF Religion).
Out of the inevitable theological discussions accompanying it grew up two schools of belief. The more conservative was that of the New England Theology (q.v.), or the New Divinity. The more advanced was called the Arminian, or Liberal.
The former adhered to the traditional Calvinism, with minor modifications. The latter rejected it in respect to certain prominent doctrines, e.g., sin, Christ's deity, and the atonement, and exalted rectitude of life rather than the work of Christ as the means of salvation. A long and earnest controversy resulted which producetl a considerable literature. On the conservative side the elder and the younger Edwards, President Timothy Dwight of Yale, Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, and Stephen West were eminent, and among the Arminians Lemuel Briant, Charles Chauncy, Experience and Jonathan May hew, and Samuel Webster.
But this controversy caused no open rupture and political affairs soon overshadowed ecclesiastical. Congregationalism had so aided in developing the democratic spirit, alike in Church and State, that it was an influential cause of the Revolution, and its ministers and other leaders, with few excep-
5. Theological Controversy.