There is a singularity which is the element of progress; but there is a catholicity which is the condition of permanence.-B. F. Westcott. Ecclesiasticism has often put conscience in deadly peril. But history has also its warning against the intolerance of separatists.-Newman Smyth. Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the great: Christian love among the churches looked the twin of heathen hate. -Tennyson. Men are loath to be persuaded that they have spent so much breath to so little purpose, and have been so hot and eager for somewhat which at last appears to be a matter of Christian liberty.-Stillingflect. But what is left to men's discretion is not therefore meant to be left to their indiscretion.-Richard Whately. In vain the surge's angry shock, In vain the drifting sands; --Samuel Johnson. (372) I. THE CONGREGATIONAL IDEA. We can imagine all the Christian congregations of the world united in a single organization-one world-wide, self-governing communion. But it would be simply a bold venture of the imagination. The most conspicuous and persistent attempt to actualize the conception has given rise to the chief tragedies of ecclesiastical history. Neither by force nor by rational, righteous, and brotherly methods has such a dream been able to find fulfillment hitherto. We can imagine a national church. Let it be without organic connection with the state, self-governing. But let it be accepted with practical unanimity as representing the Christianity of the nation, and let it not extend beyond the national boundaries—one nation, one church. Such an ecclesiasticism has been proposed by certain serious inventive minds. But an example of it is not now to be found in any land. Indeed, in what age and under what sky has an example of it ever yet appeared? What we do see is a number of separate and self-governing churches, occupying Christendom and penetrating continually into the missionary regions beyond. Some of them, happily, are becoming more and more closely assimilated in spirit, teaching, and labor for the kingdom of God. As to size, the disparity among them is great indeed. There are those that number no more than five or six persons-as, for instance, certain Congregational or Baptist churches-while on the other hand the Church of Rome reports a membership of over two hundred millions. We see churches, also, that have lost their autonomy by submitting to the control of the state. These are national establishments as in Germany, England, Russia-dependent for law and government upon the rulers of the respective nations in whose. territories they are situated.' "We distinguish between a National and an Established Church; for the one we feel the utmost reverence, but the other we do not even respect. Now it is this denominational idea of organized Christianity that offers the present and final phase of our subject. Nor, as a matter of course, shall we be content simply to bring the denomination in which we are personally most interested within the circle of observation. Rather let the radius be lengthened so that the chief organic forms in which the various churches of Christendom are facing the future shall be included. Thus at least may be avoided the not uncommon error of those who take the rustic murmur of their burg For the great wave that murmurs round the world. And so also may we get a better understanding of that which is our own, and haply learn to appreciate it more truly. It will be fitting to begin with the simplest and most primitive of all the ways of church organizing-with the Congregational Idea. Each church, or congregation of Christians, must govern itself and manage its own affairs, by a majority vote of its membership, independently of all outside authority whatever. That is the original formative idea of congregationalism. Is it also the fundamental New Testament idea of structural Christianity? Whether this be so or not, it is certain that other organic ideas than that of local democratic self-government became dominant in the second century. And not until fifteen hundred years had passed did the congregational polity which, it is believed with good reason, prevailed in the New Testament churches, begin to take form and reappear.' Its representatives The church that has failed to make a nation believing, reverent, and dutiful to God may be an Established Church, without being in any real or even in a tolerated sense national." (Fairbairn, "Studies in Religion and Theology," p. 4.) "It [congregationalism] was originally a divine gift, made through spiritual guidance of the New Testament churches to the Church of all time. It was a gift germinal and typical, though crude; tender, though fresh and vigorous. It suffered in the early centuries an arrest of development: it lay dormant yet vital in the garden of the Lord through many medieval centuries. In the sixteenth century in England it was dug out of its place of hiding and sleeping with the sword of the Word." (Ladd, "Principles of Church Polity," p. 338.) were the Anabaptists of the European Continent and the English Separatists. Let us give attention first to the latter body, and trace some of the conditions and circumstances in which its congregations originated. I. ORIGINAL MOTIVE OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES. It was in the sixteenth century. The Church of England was an episcopally governed Establishment. The Puritans, a strong and influential party, were opposed to episcopacy (as well as to Romish dogmas and practices) but favorable to the union of Church and State-especially favorable, if their successors of the next century who emigrated to America may be taken as typical, to the Church's getting control of the State. All baptized persons were regarded (save in the rare case of excommunication) as church members-which, indeed, was equally the case on the Continent. The sovereign, without any reference whatever to his moral or religious character, must be not only a member of the Church but its supreme ruler. As might, therefore, easily have been foreseen, there was practically no discipline in moral conduct. But it is contrary to the word of Christ that men should be enrolled as Christians simply on the ground of their baptism in infancy; and that the notorious evil-liver, even "profane atheists" and "scandalous mockers," should kneel side by side at the Lord's table with the true, however imperfect, believer. This all-inclusive membership was destructive of the spiritual character and power of a Christian congregation. At least there were Englishmen of that time who had this conviction. The Puritans had it; and they looked to the civil magistrates to effect the needed reformation.' There were others, however, a feeble folk, who saw no remedy for the prevalent lack of dis 'It should not be overlooked that the Puritans were as much concerned for a pure and evangelical church as were the Separatists; but they hoped and strove for reform from within. "They [the Puritans] say, the time is not yet come to build the Lord's house (Haggai i.); they must tarry for the magistrates and for Parliament to do it. They want the civil sword forsooth. . . . For his [Christ's] government and discipline is wanting (say |