Divinity Library
KS

fr!33

f

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

TBE GENIUS OF CONGREGATIONALISM.

ill I

A.N" ADDEE8S

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

NEW HAVEN CONGREGATIONAL CLUB,

October 11, 1886,

BY

SIMEON E. BALDWIN.

NEW HAVEN:
TUTTLE, MOEBHOTJSB & TATLOE, PBINTERS,
1886.

THE GENIUS OF CONGREGATIONALISM.

The members of any particular religious denomination are
generally such because it was that of their fathers before them.
It is the only concrete form of Christianity with which they
have ever been really familiar. Its mode of worship, and rules
of order they have known from childhood, and early associa
tions give them a certain home feeling in the old church,
where they first heard the gospel preached, and to which per
haps they were united in infancy by the bond of baptism.
We of this Club were, most of us, born Congregationalists.
"We felt that we were Congregationalists, perhaps, before we
felt that we were Christians But we have not lived to matur
ity as members of Congregational churches, without sometimes
asking ourselves why it was that to us and for us they seemed
better than other churches. Let us ask ourselves this question,
again, to-night.
It is not, I think, because we may believe their organization
to be most like that of the first Christian assemblies founded
by the Apostles.
The best scholars and the most candid investigators differ as
to whether each of these early churches was equal and inde
pendent, or whether there was some sort of episcopal super
vision. Nor were they either in their morals, or beliefs,
specially worthy of our imitation. The revels at the very
table of the Lord, the pollution of private life, the extrava-
| a gances of doctrine, which St. Paul reproves in his epistles,
\ leave us little to admire in their system of church organization.
<-)$ "We do not uphold Congregationalism because its polity is most
C^» like that of the country in which we live. The subject of a
v king or emperor is trained by his surroundings to become
accustomed to bow to authority, without asking the reason
why. To him bishop and archbishop, primate and pope, may

well seem natural forms of ecclesiastical power. In a consti
tutional republic, in like manner, the citizens will be naturally
inclined to respect a written law, and to submit to the orderly
forms of a complex representative government. To them the
most fitting form of church organization would be likely to
appear that ruled by a succession of regular judicatories, end
ing at last in a national assembly of delegates from every part
of the land. The Presbyterian church is the most republican
church, the most American church, so far as political institu
tions can be assimilated to religious institutions. And its
great constituency, reaching into every State, and intelligent
and active in all, is the best proof of it.
The type of Congregationalism in politics is a pure democ
racy. It was a form of religion hardly germane even to the
independent days of the first Pilgrim settlements on these
shores, for the colonists owned their subjection to the British
crown. But when the separate Colonies-, grown into States,
found something stronger than confederation necessary, and
the United States rose into being, as a nation supreme over all,
democracy ceased forever to be a characteristic of American
government. So far, then, as we follow it, we are un-Ameri
can. We are not Congregationalists because we are fond of its
ritual. It has none.
I can well understand how to many a man, still more to
many a woman, the solemn liturgy, the scenic effect, the ancient
forms, of Episcopal worship, whether Catholic or Protestant,
must be a real power and help : how they may become a real
necessity, to hold them to religious life. Who is there that has
trod the soil of the old world, where these things flourish best,
the growth of ages, who has not, at times, come under this
spell, as he knelt in some great cathedral whose rocky walls
seemed to shut off the every-day surroundings of the world,
and leave the worshipers alone with God ?
I do not wonder that so few Catholics become Protestants ;
that since the days of Luther, the boundaries of Catholic
Europe have remained unchanged. I do not wonder that so
few Episcopalians ever transfer their church allegiance. There
are minds, and many of them, to whom such stately and im-

posing forms are almost the substance of religion. Such men
could never be, and ought never to be, Congregationalists.
We are not Congregationalists, again, because we have any
special theory as to the sacraments of the church, or the mode
of their administration.
Our brethren, the Baptists, agreeing with us in their general
views of the independence of the individual church, push to
the front their rule of baptism by immersion, and baptism only
for those who have acquired a Christian character.
We are happy in being more tolerant of difference of belief,
on points like these.
Not' that I mean that tolerance in such matters is an element
of strength, so far as numbers are concerned. Congregational
ism can hardly be said to be a popular denomination.
Even here, where it was cradled, in New England, its
growth little more than replaces its decay. For every new
city church that rises in the suburbs, the're are two that are
dropping to pieces on the country hill-sides. If there can be
said to be a fashion in church-going, it is Episcopalianism
rather than Congregationalism, that is now the fashion in our
larger towns.
And out of New England, our denomination has nowhere
taken such strong root as to give it a controlling influence. It
thrives only among a sober and thoughtful people. It appeals
to reason and reflection ; to the sentiment of individualism ; to
the sense of personal dignity and independence. It lacks
color. To those who are not within it, it may seem to lack
form, and warmth. It is an exotic, in the restless, jostling life
of the West, and among the class lines of the South ; its spirit
of expansion checked, its whole nature chilled and stiffened.
We love it, not because others do, but because it is lovely to
us. Whatever it may appear to those brought up in different
schools of thought, it seems to us in harmony with the sincere,
steady, quiet, resolute life of New England.
We are not CongregationaUsts because we believe that every
assembly of worshipers should choose their own preacher and
pastor. There are now hardly any of our Protestant churches
which have not this power practically, whatever form may be
interposed of appointment by bishop or conference.

JSor are we Congregationalists because we are attached to
any particular creed or standard of doctrine. I do not believe
that there is a layman present who could name the five points
of Calvinism, or tell precisely where our churches have gen
erally differed in belief from those of the Methodists. There
are probably Arminians, and Sabellians among our number,
but they are none the less Congregationalists.
No legislature, no council, no synod, has imposed or can im
pose any form of words on your church or mine for its state
ment of belief.
There are certain historic documents to which our ministers
in their associations and councils sometimes refer as containing
the commonly accepted doctrines of Congregationalism. They
sometimes say that they accept them " for substance." To the
ordinary layman they seem now rather a shadow- ; — the shadow
of good things that are past. Time was when they spoke the
convictions and language of living men. Time was when they
were a legal rule to Congregationalism on this soil.
The Saybrook Platform, adopted by a general synod of Con
necticut churches in 1708, was formally reported to the legisla
ture of the colony, and established by statute as the true ex
pression of Christian belief. I do not think there is a man
here who would now approve of all its propositions. But its
confession of faith began in the truest spirit of Congrega
tionalism, with a frank admission that the synod had no right
to ask any man to take his beliefs on trust from them, but that
the Bible was " the only sufficient and invariable rule of re
ligion." " You ought," it continues, addressing the people of
the colony, " to account nothing ancient that will not stand by
this rule, nor anything new that will."
The descendants of the good men, who met at Saybrook,
have learned that the sanction of the legislature adds nothing
to the force of divine truth. They have found occasion to
question or reject many of the heads of doctrine, which seemed
incontestable in 1708. But they have steadfastly maintained
that fundamental rule that the Bible is the only sufficient and
invariable rule of religion, and that nothing which stands by
this should be accounted new. Our fathers had no dread of
" new " theology, however it might differ from theirs, so long
as it did not differ from the Bible as wisely read.

. In the Journal intime of the late Professor Amiel, of
Geneva,* he says in his keen way, " Protestantism is a com
bination of two factors, the authority of the Scriptures and
free inquiry ; as soon as one of these factors is threatened or
disappears, Protestantism disappears."
In a special sense is this statement true of our Congrega
tionalism ; and here, I think, more than in anything else, we
find its real genius and essential idea.
This absence of any barrier of authority between us and our
Bible is what gives it its greatest charm.
There are no Thirty-nine Articles, no Westminster cate
chism, no papal bull, no Savoy confession before which we
must bow ; to explain which in conformity to our views of
truth, we must struggle. Such documents of human device
have been found helpful in darker ages to all, and are helpful
in this age to many. But we trust that we have attained to
that measure of liberty when we can safely leave it to our
separate churches, each to state in some brief way if it pleases,
its system of belief, but to repose for its great rules of life and
faith on nothing less than the words, and all the words of the
Holy Scriptures.
We of Connecticut have, for this New World, an ancient
and honorable history ; but the best part of it has been written
since this century came in. The days when Congregationalism
was an established church, one with the State, and supported
like any other State institution by general taxation, were its
evil days as compared with these. It did not begin to put
forth its real strength and rise to its true height till the State
was beginning to cast it off. Until then, hardly $25,000 a
year was contributed in any public way for the spread of the
Gospel in the whole United States. There were no foreign
missionaries sent out from America. The American Bible
Society, the American Board, the Home Missionary Society,
all the great fraternity of charitable organizations now sup
ported in whole or part by Congregationalists, sprang into
being after the era of our religious independence.
We do not dwell on our being a historic church. Ours has
been a history of constant change, and of change for the better.
* Under date of April 28th, 1866.

8
The churches that love to call themselves historic are apt to
cling too closely to the soil and the times in which they first
took root. A certain form was then impressed upon them,
which they still wear. They look backwards for their in
spiration, but not always so far back as to the founders of
Christianity. The founders of their church may seem to offer
a more natural starting point, and they have much to say of
the teaching of this or that age of human history.
Let me venture to illustrate the difference between them and
us by reference to one of the great thoughts which modern
science and philosophy are making plain to us — the continuity
of life, the oneness of time and eternity.
The ancient creeds of Christian history put up a fence be
tween them, at the point which we call death. They treat
human life as the ordinary novelist treats it, except that he
terminates the story a little earlier. The novel leaves its hero
and heroine on their wedding day, as if there could be nothing
afterwards worth the telling. The creeds and symbols of the
last century made life on earth the whole of life as regards the
accomplishment of its appointed mission ; and that mission was
mainly to secure for itself a second life of everlasting happi
ness. The life beyond was looked to and hoped for, as one not
of achievement, but of enjoyment. The life now was but a
weary struggle with self and sin, only made tolerable by the
prize of a future reward in the kingdom of heaven that was to
come. True, our Lord had said to his disciples plainly that the
kingdom of heaven was within them ; true, he had taught
them to pray that this kingdom might soon come to rule in
every heart on earth as it is in heaven. But the old ideas of
paganism, and the half-revealed truths of the Jewish church,
made it hard to accept what they were thus told. It has taken
nineteen centuries of Christian light to give it real entrance
into Christian hearts. We are but just beginning to believe
that heaven is not a place of repose, but an opportunity for
higher activity ; that we may begin its work and its real life
here, and do begin it in our first true hearted Christian service,
whatever it may be.
To the man who possesses this great truth and lets himself

be uplifted by it, the taste of the fruit that grows on the tree
of life is not postponed to some dim future.
Our Lord, in his last prayer before his betrayal, said that
he had authority to give eternal life to all his followers, to
"all flesh" whom God had given him. "But this," he added,
" is the eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only
true God, and him whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ."*
Eternal life is being lived now. It is that life that befits
eternity — life in the eternal — that life wherever and whenever
it is being spent, which is in harmony with the life of God, as
revealed to us through the life of the Saviour of men.
On this earth it is difficult indeed to attain even that degree
of nearness to Him, which is all that our limitations of ability
and circumstance make possible ; but we are judged and
helped according to those limitations. The child lives as true
a life as the man. The life after death will be illumined by
quicker perceptions, intenser powers, wider knowledge, a closer
walk with God ; but it will be the same life, though then to
bear " immortal fruit,
In such great offices as suit
The full-grown energies of Heaven."
I wish that this conception of the meaning and dignity of
life had already a wider acceptance. But the historic churches
do not find it formulated in their creeds. They may struggle,
as Maurice did, to read a new meaning into them undreamt of
by the original writers, which will bring it out. But how
much easier is it for one of us to receive itj not because some
one else has believed it in former days, but because we believe
it now !
I have dwelt upon this particular doctrine at more length
than I otherwise should, because I believe it to be, in a pe
culiar sense, one of the inspirations of modern Congregation
alism. We have no ecclesiastical superior, be he pope, bishop, or
confession of faith, to forbid or deter us from accepting it iii its
fullest meaning. The leading thinkers in our pulpits have
accepted it. It has taken strong hold on many minds in all our
* John xvii. 3.

10
congregations. It gives a new dignity and worth to mortal
life ; a new and lofty motive for Christian service : a hope
that as such service on earth is in the direction of helping the
weak towards strength and knowledge, such it may also be,
when the limitations of mortality are thrown aside.
But this mobility of our denomination in regard to its doc
trinal beliefs, requires at our hands another quality in special
prominence — Christian charity. I mean charity of judgment,
mutual forbearance, respect for others' motives, brotherly affec
tion. The truth has made us free. It has made all of us free,
one as free as another. Differences of apprehension must
therefore inevitably arise between us, and we need in a pecu
liar sense to follow St. Peter's precept and add to brotherly
kindness a real feeling of love.*
No great body of Christians^of course, can exist and flourish
in which there are not differences of opinion and belief. As
there will be parties in every State, so will there be schools in
every church. There must be High Church Episcopalians, and
Low Church Episcopalians, Ultramontane Eoman Catholics,
and Liberal Catholics, Old School Presbyterians, and New
School Presbyterians, Close Communion Baptists, and Open
Communion Baptists. Mankind is divided into those who are
naturally inclined to hold fast to the old, and those who are
naturally inclined to reach forward towards the new. One
part clings to authority; the other is jealous of it; one is
always appealing to precedent, the other to reason.
Between these two parties in government, by whatever name
they may be called, the State chooses, and is ruled by one or
the other. The Liberals have their day, and the Conservatives
theirs. Gladstone goes out and Churchill comes in.
Between these same two schools of thought in most churches,
there is some acknowledged authority to decide ;— a General
Assembly, a House of Bishops, a Convention, a Synod, a Classis,
an Ecumenical Council, a Pope.
Congregationalism stands almost alone in opposition to this
theory of ecclesiastical government. She founds her being on
the right of independent thought and action. She recognizes
* " h ii ry ^iTiaSehjila rrjv hyairnv." 2 Pet. i. 7.

11
the necessity of divergence. She provides councils, but they are
to advise, not to order.
The denomination that concedes such independence to its
several churches and to every member of them, must be, more
than any other, ruled by this spirit of affectionate regard and
general good will.
Our brother may be wiser, or he may be weaker than we.
In either case we owe him respect and love. He may put
forth a doctrine as to God's ways to man that is new to us, or
even to the world. The presumptions are, therefore, against
its truth ; but this does not deprive him of the right of a
respectful hearing. It may be our duty to resist it, but we
must do so in all kindness and candor.
The one test by which it is to be tried is the Holy Scrip
tures. These are open to each of us. We may understand
them differently, but he has as good a right to argue for his
new interpretation of them, as I have to maintain the old. In
deed, he has the best right, for his suggesting any new reading
of them is a contribution to human knowledge of divine things,
which shows on his part thought, investigation, and probably,
if he be a minister, a high sense of duty.
I say if he be a minister, for it costs little to a layman to
have the courage of his convictions, in matters like these.
Everybody is pleased when a layman has the interest or takes
the trouble to read the Bible in order to study out for himself,
in any careful way, what it really teaches. But for a minister
to do this, and then, should he come to any new conclusions,
to avow and publish them is to startle his friends and give an
opportunity to his enemies.
And the Congregationalist who puts himself in this position,
fights without the common shield of theological controversial
ists. If a priest of the Church of England proposes some new
view of truth, he is safe so long as it involves nothing incon
sistent with her Thirty-nine Articles. Maurice could safely
appeal to these, when dismissed from the chair of Divinity at
King's College, because the trustees thought he had departed
from the Orthodox faith. Speaking for the whole clergy, he
could rightfully say, "I am bound to pass by with indifference
the mere dicta of individuals, however respectable, on such a

12
subject. The Church of England has not made us subject to
their judgment. By giving us fixed standards of doctrine, she
has done what in her lies to protect us against them."*
We Congregationalists have no such argument with which
to silence personal attacks. It therefore becomes us to be
doubly careful in making or encouraging them. And there is,
I am sure, among us from year to year, a wider spirit of tolera
tion and charitable judgment. There must be if we are to re
main a living and growing body.
One of the churches represented in this Club struck out of
its articles of faith, a few years since, all reference to the future
state. Such an act would have horrified our forefathers in
early New England, but it provokes little comment now. We
recognize it as the free right of each of our churches to make
and unmake its articles of faith, according to its best light and
its best judgment. If it finds a prediction of everlasting suffer
ing for all men who die without owning Jesus Christ for their
Lord, shock tender hearts that are sorrowing for their dead, or
seem incredible to any who look to God as the Almighty Cre
ator and father of all, who would not that any should perish, it
does well to strike it out. If it is true, it will be none the less
so, because it is no longer to be found in that creed ; if false,
or doubtful, it were a sin to retain it there. And whether true
or false, that church was at perfect liberty to say that it was
not so fundamental a doctrine of Christianity that it was bound
to require all who came to join its ranks to profess their assent
to it.
The modern Congregational conception of the eternal life,
to which I have alluded, is not accepted by all of us. It has
spread rapidly, but far from universally. I do not blame
Congregationalists who find themselves unable to receive this
word, in view of the possibilities which it presents of heaven
sent rescue to those who die on earth, as it seems to us, at
enmity with God. I do not blame those to whom the few
scriptural references to preaching to the spirits that are in
prison,f to the forgiveness in the world to come of every sin
but one,^: and to the coming of Christ to save the world,
seem to mean little, in view of His repeated pictures of a day
* Life of Maurice, Vol. 2, p. 225. \ 1 Pet. 3:19. X Matt. 12:31, 32.

13
of final judgment, followed by a life eternal, which to the
wicked is unutterable and unalterable woe.
But I venture to say that no Congregationalist has the true
spirit of Congregationalism who does not concede to all his
brethren the fullest right to come to a different conclusion from
himself, as to any of these questions of eschatology, and to
write or preach as they believe about them, within the limits
which good scholarship and careful study seem to them to be
found in the books of the New Testament.
The congregations of Congregationalists do not believe that
the Bible has ever been successfully abridged into any creed or
formula of doctrine. They do not believe it ever will be.
They like the preachers who study it for themselves, and are
able to set out the truth in new lights. Most of all, they be
lieve in a generous charity of criticism, of judgment, of dis
agreement. They will not deem any man whose Christian
character and spirit of devotion to his Master are unchallenged,
to be a juggler of words, or make them palter to a double
sense, because he thinks he can read a new meaning out of old
texts. They will not regard personal attacks upon him, if
he be a minister, which impugn his sincerity, and denounce
him as unfit to fill a Congregational pulpit, as gaining weight
from any source from which they may come, but rather as a
departure from the true principles of liberty, fraternity and
equality on which Congregationalism is built. They will not
fear or see a decline of public morals as a natural consequence
of the preaching of any doctrine as to the method of salvation
through Christ, which a sincere and learned student of the
New Testament may draw from its pages.
We are trying to get at the genius of Congregationalism.
Every religious denomination, I hope, has its good genius :
each certainly has its bad genius. What is ours ?
Congregationalism has no authoritative leader among men.
Tet, most men often crave a leader in all great things, and
there is never a lack of those wbo crave to be leaders. Our
National Council, which of late has met every three years for
the interchange of views and extension of friendships, disclaims
any greater office. We have no bishop, no ruling elder, no

u
synod. Who then is to be the authority to whom to appeal in
differences of opinion, or to settle these differences, though no
appeal be taken ? Who will silence this minister who is re
ported to be preaching German theology instead of the gospel.
" I," says the religious newspaper ; I'll kill Cock Eobin. I will
relieve you of any feeling of uncertainty. I am one of the ac
cepted organs of the denomination. My editor is a doctor of
divinity. My columns are read on Sunday, when most Con
gregationalists read no other paper, and so read me with double
attention. I will declare what views are evangelical, what are
the feelings of the churches, what should be the decision of the
coming council on Brother This, or ought to have been the
decision of the last one on Brother That.
The religious newspaper is a Sunday necessity. It has a
province, and a useful one. But when it attempts to speak for
the churches, it goes beyond it. And in our denomination
more almost than any other, it is too often tempted to speak
for them because there is no other center of direction. But
the most uncharitable exponent of the truth is always an im
personal one. For harsh dealing or false assertion of a bishop,
men know where to lay the blame. But the editorial " we "
has no responsible individual behind it. It has the less need
to measure words, to forbear, to be ruled by charity.
Who is there but has known rivers of bitter waters flow from
the personal attack of a religious newspaper, whether it ap
pear in the editorial column or in the letter of .some " valued
contributor ?" More than anything else, perhaps, such things
divide churches, ruin reputations, drive dissatisfied minds into
other denominations.
The Congregational newspaper, (I had almost said the Con-
gregationalist newspaper), does a good work by its record of
events, in teaching us and our children the duties of life, in
promoting the better understanding of the Bible ; but in so
far any such publications assume to dictate, to speak for the
churches, ex cathedra, to anathematize or excommunicate, they
become the evil genius of our denomination.
It would be, indeed, fatal to our well-being, were there
no checks to any extravagance of theory or statement on the

15
part of our clergy. We have those which have thus far been
found adequate, first, in dealing with such errors through the
individual church, and then in proceedings before our associa
tions, or consociations, or in councils of neighboring churches.
Trial by pamphlet was sometimes substituted for these in the
last century ; trial by sermon or by newspaper has sometimes
been in this ; but neither innovation has been found to promote
the ends of peace or truth.
Congregationalism is democratic in government, and bows to
the decision of the majority in any council fairly composed,
and in which both sides have been fairly heard. They repre
sent the voice of the denomination for that place and time, and
nothing is left for the minority but the grace of silence, and
the right within their own particular churches to stand by
their own particular views.
The advice given last week by the American Board to its
prudential committee as to sending any difficult questions about
the theological soundness of one ready to enter the field of for
eign missions to a council of churches for settlement was wise,
and it was needed. Such councils, we may confidently trust,
will deal fairly and tenderly with honest doubts. They will
breathe the breath of the churches, and not of committee rooms
or editorial offices. They will be half composed of men who
know little of polemical theology, and wholly composed of
men acting in the light of day, under the public eye, sent to
deliberate in the spirit of candid inquiry, and clothed with that
conceded power which seldom fails to carry with it to each a
sense of personal responsibility.
Let us be glad, then, that we are Congregationalists, because
that name stands for independence of action, independence of
thought, independence of belief, as regards all human authority.
Let us be glad, too, that it stands for absolute subjection to
the teachings of the New Testament, as it may be expounded
by the best learning and the most careful investigation of our
times. Let it be our endeavor to keep it always, to the measure
of our powers and opportunities, so ready to learn, so wide in
sympathy, so helpful to men, that it may be and abide part of
that Holy Catholic Church, which knows no ruler but Christ,
no bounds of place, jio bounds of time, no bounds of truth.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 05318 6095

'