ENGLISH AND AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM.
English and American Congregationalism, or Congregationalism as a distinct denomination, arose among the Puritans during the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was at first identified with the name of the Rev. Robert Browne, and called Brownism; but, being an unworthy representative and an apostate from his principles, he was disowned. [1594] It had other and more worthy pioneers, such as Barrowe, Greenwood, Johnson, Ainsworth, Penry, and especially John Robinson. [1595] The Independents were, like every new sect, persecuted under the reigns of James and Charles I., and obliged to seek shelter first in Holland and then in the wilderness of New England.
But with the opening of the Long Parliament, which promised to inaugurate a jubilee to all tender consciences, they began to breathe freely, and hastened to return from exile; 'for,' says Fuller, 'only England is England indeed, though some parts of Holland may be like unto it.' [1596] They had a considerable share in the labors of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, especially through Dr. Goodwill and Rev. Philip Nye, who are styled the 'patriarchs' of orthodox Independency. They became the ruling political and religious power in England during the short protectorate of Cromwell, and furnished the majority to his ecclesiastical commission, called the Triers. After the Restoration they were again persecuted, being held chiefly responsible for the execution of King Charles and the overthrow of the monarchy. In 1689 they acquired toleration, and are now one of the most intelligent, active, and influential among the Dissenting bodies in England.
The classical soil of Congregationalism is New England, where it established 'a Church without a bishop and a State without a king.' From New England it spread into the far West, to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and exerted a powerful influence upon other Churches. Puritan Congregationalism is the father of New England and one of the grandfathers of the American Republic, and it need not be ashamed of its children. [1597] It lacks a proper appreciation of historical Christianity and its claims upon our regard and obedience; but by bringing to light the manhood and freedom of the Christian people, and the rights and privileges of individual congregations, it marks a real progress in the development of Protestantism, and has leavened other Protestant denominations in America; for here congregations justly claim and exercise a much larger share, and have consequently a much deeper interest in the management of their own affairs than in the State Churches of Europe. The Congregational system implies, of course, the power of self-government and a living faith in Christ, without which it would be no government at all. It moreover requires the cementing power of fellowship.
INDEPENDENCY AND FELLOWSHIP.
Anglo-American Congregationalism has two tap roots, independency and fellowship, on the basis of the Puritan or Calvinistic faith. It succeeds in the measure of its ability to adjust and harmonize them. It is a compromise between pure Independency and Presbyterianism. It must die without freedom, and it can not live without authority, Independency without fellowship is ecclesiastical atomism; fellowship without Independency leads to Presbyterianism or Episcopacy. [1598]
It starts from the idea of an apostolic congregation as an organized brotherhood of converted believers in Christ. This was the common ground of the Westminster divines. [1599] But they parted on the question of jurisdiction and the relation of the local congregation to the Church general. The Independents denied the authority of presbyteries and synods, and maintained that each congregation properly constituted is directly dependent on Christ, and subject to his law, and his law only. The whole power of the keys is vested in these individual churches.
At the same time, however, it is admitted and demanded that there should be a free fraternal intercommunion between them, with the rights and duties of advice, reproof, and co-operation in every Christian work.
This fellowship manifests itself in the forms of Councils, Associations (in Massachusetts), Consociations (in Connecticut), on a larger scale in 'the Congregational Union of England and Wales,' and 'the National Council of the Congregational Churches in the United States.' It is this fellowship which gives Congregationalism the character of a denomination among other denominations. But the principle of congregational sovereignty is guarded by denying to those general meetings any legislative authority, and reducing them simply to advisory bodies. [1600]
There were from the start two tendencies among Congregationalists--the extreme Independents or Separatists, of whom the 'Pilgrim Fathers' are the noblest representatives, and the more churchly Independents, who remained in the English Church, and who established on a Calvinistic theocratic basis the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. John Robinson, the Moses of American Independency, who accompanied his flock to the deck of the Speedwell, but never saw the promised land himself, was a separatist from the Church of England, though he disowned Brownism with its extravagances. His colony at Plymouth were Separatists. The settlers of Boston, Salem, Hartford, and New Haven, on the other hand, were simply Nonconformists within the Church of England. Their ministers--John Cotton, Richard Mather, Thomas Hooker, John Davenport, Samuel Stone, and others--were trained in the English Universities, mostly in Cambridge, [1601] and had received Episcopal ordination. They rejected the term Independents, and inconsistently relapsed into the old notion of uniformity in religion, with an outburst of the dark spirit of persecution. But this was only temporary. American Congregationalism at present is a compromise between the two tendencies, and vacillates between them, leaning sometimes to the one, sometimes to the other side.