CHAPTER V.

THE ORIGIN OF CONGREGATIONALISM, AND ITS HISTORY IN ENGLAND.

CONGREGATIONALISM had its origin in England in 1581, in the the reign of Elizabeth, just forty years after the proposal and establishment of Presbyterianism at Geneva by Calvin, and twenty-one years after its adoption and establishment by law as the national religion of Scotland.

It was first proposed and experimented upon by Robert Brown, who studied at Cambridge, and was admitted to holy orders in the church of England. But he no sooner entered upon the ministry in that church, than he began to denounce its government and liturgy as antichristian. He first succeeded in converting a congregation of Dutch Presbyterians to his views, and introduced his polity among them at Norwich, in 1581, when he was brought before the ecclesiastical commissioners as a disturber of the public peace, and sent to prison. He soon, however, obtained his release, and went with his congregation to Middleburg, in Zealand, one of the provinces of the Netherlands.

In 1585 he returned to England, and resumed his efforts there in behalf of his new church polity; in consequence of which, he was excommunicated by the bishop of Peterborough. After this, he submitted to the church of England, and received a living in Northamptonshire, of which he had the emoluments without discharging its duties. After a life of frequent collisions with the government, he finally died in Northampton jail, in 1630, where he was confined for offences against the magistrates, particularly for contumacy.

His scheme of church polity, however, did not die with him; neither did it lose its hold on the affections and interests of others, on being deserted by its author. The conception of it

seems to have been new. It had been lost for ages in the church, and was covered up deep under the rubbish of more than a thousand years, when Robert Brown had the distinguished honor of exhuming it, and proposing it anew to the world.

He did not propose it as an original conception, but a discovery in regard to primitive Christianity; a feature of the church under Christ and the apostles, lost amid the ignorance and apostasies of subsequent times. It met with violent opposition in the church and state, as all improvements have; and was denounced by good conservatives as subversive of all order and happiness in both. The character of Brown is drawn by his enemies in the darkest colors, with pencils dipped in gall. At this distance, it is impossible to determine his real character. If his enemies are to be believed, he was one of the worst and vilest of men; factious, petulant, disorderly, unstable, unprincipled and ambitious. But it is not safe to take an estimate of any man's character from his enemies, without making large deductions for the blinding influence of prejudice and passion. There are men that can do justice to an enemy, and that would scorn to do him intentional injustice; but unfortunately they have always been few, and boundless depreciation is one of the common arts of malignity.

The Congregationalists of the time of Brown were called, after the founder of their order, Brownists. And such was the activity and success of this order after the death of Brown, that stringent laws were found necessary by parliament to suppress their organizations, and restrain the diffusion of their principles. Their progress was impeded by these means; but their principles continued to become more and more widely diffused, and to gain increasing favor.

The Brownists did not originally admit a professional ministry, deriving its support from the people, but allowed public teaching and preaching to be performed voluntarily by the brethren at their discretion, as has since been done by the Quakers. But this policy was soon abandoned, and a professional ministry

introduced. The name of Brownists was also abandoned, and that of Independents adopted, as descriptive of one of the great principles of their polity, the independence of single churches. The system of the independency of single churches, each having complete and inalienable powers of spiritual sovereignty, was regarded as the greatest innovation made by this order on the usages of the times, and was considered the most remarkable and distinctive feature of their system.

Subsequently, the democracy of this system attracted more attention; its general court, consisting of the entire brotherhood assembled in church-meetings for the transaction of business, and this court having supreme jurisdiction in all matters of doctrine and discipline in respect to the membership, and the name of Independency having acquired associations unfavorable to the progress of the order, the church was called the Congregational church, and its system of polity Congregationalism. This name is likely to be permanent, and is probably the most appropriate that could be assumed, unless that of church democracy should be preferred. The most suitable name of this polity is that of church democracy, and there would be some advantages in adopting it.

The second father of Congregationalism was John Robinson, also an Englishman, and, like Robert Brown, a graduate of Cambridge. He for some time held a benefice in the church of England; but, embracing the doctrines of the Independents, he relinquished his benefice, and, in 1602, at the age of twentyseven, became the pastor of a Brownist church in the north of England. This was in the last year but one of the reign of Elizabeth. James VI. followed. There were three great parties in the nation. 1. The party of the established church, the great conservative party; 2, The party of the Roman Catholics, the retrogressive party; 3, The party of the Puritans, the progressive party.

Conservatism was in the ascendant; but each of the other parties was sufficiently strong to be formidable. The Puritans

were much the stronger of the two which were not in the ascendency; but still they were under persecution and restraint. The advanced column of the Puritans were the Independents. They demanded the largest liberty both in the church and state. In many cases they demanded democracy in the church, and republicanism in the state, as the forms of government most favorable to liberty, and most conducive to the public good, and the only system under which liberty can be secure.

The Presbyterians were more moderate. With a limited ministerialism in the church, they wanted only a limited monarchy in the state, and had no objections to the institution of monarchy. The Independents were subject to great annoyance from the civil authorities. They were watched with the greatest jealousy, and their operations restricted as much as possible.

In 1608, in consequence of persecution, Mr. Robinson went with his church to Holland, and located first at Amsterdam, and then at Leyden. At the latter place, he held a public disputation with Episcopias, an eminent Presbyterian minister and professor of theology in the university at Leyden, in 1613, in which he advocated the scriptural authority and expediency of Independency. It does not appear that this debate resulted in any considerable change of opinion on this subject either way. The cause of Independency, however, held its own, and was, on the whole, progressive.

The earliest confession of faith of the Independents that has been preserved was composed by Mr. Robinson, and published in 1619. It is in Latin, and is called " Apologia pro exulibus Anglis, Brownistae vulgo appellantur," an apology for the English exiles commonly called Brownists.

The second was printed in London during the ascendency of the Presbyterians, in the time of Cromwell, 1658. It is entitled "A Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practised in the Congregational churches in England (more than one hundred in number), agreed upon and consented to by their elders and

messengers (ministers and delegates) in their meeting at the Savoy, October 12, 1658."

In the Westminster Assembly the Independents demanded free toleration of all Protestant Dissenters, and their members had great influence in parliament and with the nation. They withdrew from the Westminster Assembly in 1646, and protested against the action of that body, as intolerant, unscriptural and inexpedient. Presbyterianism was established by law, but Congregationalism was not prohibited.

The Presbyterians were generally conservatives and royalists; the Independents were revolutionists and republicans. This led, naturally, in the course of the civil war with the king, to a predominance of Congregationalists in the army. Being desirous of revolutionizing the country, they enlisted against the king the more readily.

The civil war was commenced in August, 1642, the initiatory being made by the king, Charles I. It was terminated in 1645, when the king met with a final overthrow at Naseby, and being unable longer to keep the field against his subjects, threw himself upon the protection of the Scotch. In 1647, he was surrendered to the parliamentary leaders. By this time, the ascendency of the Independents in the army gave them the ascendency in the nation; and Oliver Cromwell, the head of the Independent military party, was the virtual head of the nation. The king insisted on Episcopacy, and parliament on Presbyterianism; and the two were endeavoring to agree on a single national church establishment, to the exclusion of all dissent.

Under these circumstances, Cromwell forcibly excluded from parliament about two hundred members of the Presbyterian party who were supposed to be favorable to royalty and to an exclusive Presbyterian state church establishment, seized the king, and brought him to trial for making war on his subjects, and otherwise violating the constitution of his country and the principles of its government, and caused him to be condemned