RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Congrregrationalists
tions, were active in promoting the colonial success.' The earliest written code of Massachusetts, The Body of Liberties, published in 1641, had been the work of a Congregational minister. Rev. Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, and the earliest written constitution in human history which led to a civil government — excepting the famous Mayflower compact— that of Connecticut, had been largely drawn up by Rev. Thomas Hooker (q.v.), of Hartford, in 1639.
Contemporaneously with the efforts for spiritual reform in the earlier years of the century occurred a modification of Congregationalism in practise. Probably the prevalent religious indifference caused within the churches some consciousness of inefficiency, and an external, rather than the more necessary internal, remedy was sought. Associations of ministers had been distrusted as f d inclining their members to assume ex- Chai^e of cessive authority over the churches. Polity There had been a Ministers' Convention in Massachusetts, but it was feeble. At this time it was revived, new local associations were formed, and it was proposed to " consociate " the churches into formal unions and to establish standing councils. In Massachusetts this policy was attempted in 1705, but, although adopted, it became a dead letter. But in Connecticut, where it was adopted somewhat later than in Massachusetts, it prevailed generally, and, although of little significance, it never has been abandoned wholly. The Mathers were chiefly responsible for it, and that it accomplished so little was due principally to Rev. John Wise (q.v.), of Ipswich, Mass. Its tendency was to destroy the independence of the churches, but practically it has had scanty results of any sort.
During the nineteenth century Congregationalism made rapid progress, in spite of hindrance outside of New England by a plan of union with the Presbyterians, agreed upon in 1801, of which the unforeseen operation cost it at least 2,000 churches. In 1827 an Illinois Band was formed by a dozen recent graduates of Yale Divinity School, who accomplished large results in that State, and similar bodies afterward did notable service 7. Growth in other Western States. Stimulated in the West by the needs of the native settlements and South, in the Interior and the West, and by the enormous inflow of foreigners, Congregationalists have followed the westward movement of population indefatigably. In the Middle West the earliest church in Ohio was formed in 1796, in Michigan in 1827, in Illinois in 1831, in Indiana in 1834, in Wisconsin in 1836, in Iowa in 1838, in Minnesota in 1851, and in Kansas in 1854. On the Pacific coast the earliest in Oregon dates back to 1844, in California to 1851, and in Washington to 1865. Throughout the whole Interior and West Congregational churches have increased from hundreds to thousands within the last fifty years. They are less numerous relatively in the Middle States; and in the Southern States, although one or two were formed in 1852-53, and one even in 1832, there were very few before the Civil War. Since then they have multiplied con-
siderably, although less rapidly than in the West. The first Congregational general assembly since the Cambridge Synod in 1646-48 was the Albany Convention in 1852, which gave a vigorous impulse to the denominational activities. Its members represented seventeen states. It abandoned the Plan of Union, indorsed the Congregational Home Missionary Societies, condemned slavery, called for $50,000 for church building in the West, and took steps resulting in the publication, in 1854, of the annual Year-Book, containing the denominational statistics, and in the organization of the American Congregational Association.
The theological differences of the eighteenth century became more marked during the early years of the nineteenth and developed into the Unitarian Controversy. Its special arena was eastern Massachusetts. Many ministers and churches gradually had come to deny certain doctrines believed vital, and therefore insisted upon the more strongly by others; e.g., the moral corruption of human nature, Christ's deity, the need and nature of the atonement, and eternal punishment. Friction increased steadily. Finally matters
8. The TTni- reached a climax in the election of tarian Con- Rev. Henry Ware (q.v.) as HoUis
troversy. professor of divinity at Harvard College in 1805, a Unitarian success. Thirty-nine churches became Unitarian. Nearly a hundred others were divided, the conservatives usually being obliged to withdraw and form new churches and the Unitarians retaining what had been the common property. Among the leaders of the latter were Drs. J. S. Buckminster and W E. Channing and President Kirkland and Prof. Andrews Norton, of Harvard. Eminent defenders of the old faith were Drs. Lyman Beecher, Nathaniel Emmons, Jedidiah Morse, Enoch Pond, Moses Stuart, Samuel West, Leonard Woods, and Samuel Worcester. The Unitarians have been zealously loyal to Independency as a polity, but the name of Congregationalists by general consent has continued to signify the Trinitarian body. A temporary result of this controversy was a revival, especially in Connecticut, of the desire for consociation, already described.
During the last twenty years of the century, another doctrinal difference caused intense feeling. Advocates of the so-called " New Theology," styling itself Christocentric, holding radical views of the nature of inspiration and the office of Biblical criticism and asserting a possible fu-
9. The An- ture probation for at least some of the dover Con- impenitent, claimed to be true Controversy, gregationalists in doctrine, but the
claim was disputed stoutly. This difference affected the settlement of pastors for some years, but was notable chiefly in connection with the choice of professors at the T^dover Seminary and of candidates for foreign missionary service. It reached the courts, but indecisively. It led to no formal rupture, however, and now the teachings of the New Theology are tolerated, although not universally accepted by Congregationalists.
When the first Congregational settlers came to
Cong-reerationalists