U»-;

T

l

Hew

S

ami F

BY REV. J. L. JENKINS, D. D.

The New England Forefathers' Idea.

A
SERMON
PREACHED IN
THE FIRST CHURCH,
PITTSHELD, MASSACHUSETTS,

Sunday, December 20th, 1891.

BY REV. J. L. JENKINS, D. D.

PITTSFIELD, MASS.
PUESS OF THE SUN PRINTING COMPANY.

" The false brethren privily brought in, who
came in privily to spy out our liberty which
we have in Christ Jesus, that they might
bring us into bondage." Gal. 2:4.
Liberty is here presented in danger. What was be
ing spied out, St. Paul names, our liberty, and he de
scribes it : Our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus.
The description magnifies it. If the liberty was pos
sessed in common with Christ Jesus, or was secured
by Him, it was a superior liberty. This eminent
liberty was in danger. The danger is revealed in the
method and purpose of the assault. The method was
furtive, insidious ; the adverb, privily, twice used, is
a proof. Those making the assault upon liberty were
privily brought in ; " were foisted in among us," ac
cording to Alford. Gaining admittance in under
handed ways, they did their underhanded work. Spy
ing privily in underhanded ways. The agents in the
work of destroying liberty were false men. Let such
methods be used in any attack and there is danger.
The purpose of the assault upon liberty indicates
the extreme danger it was in. The purpose being not
only to destroy it, but to replace it with bondage.
The matter over which this battle against and for

liberty was fought was in itself of small importance,
compliance or non-compliance with a ceremony.
There is in the text what has been expanded into
volumes, and what is a grand feature in the history of
mankind. There is a well known and excellent book with the
title, " The Story of Liberty," tracing liberty's expe
riences since the days of the English King John.
There are solid histories depicting the growth of
liberty among men ; valuable studies on the rise of
Free Political Institutions; invaluable works of many
kinds devoted to the Progress of Freedom, in which
are related its struggles, defeats, successes, and that
which is thus voluminously treated is a chief fact, in
the experience of mankind. The substance of what
is contained in all the literature named is given in
clear, strong outline in the text. It, in connection
with a sentence from the verse following, tells the fate
of liberty among men ; tells how it is assailed, and how
it is defended :
I. Efforts to take away liberty are characterized by
cunning, craft, stealth. Negroes in Africa have from
time immemorial been made slaves, and the immemo
rial practice has been to tempt them from home by
false promises, to deceive them. Men are brought
privily among them and effect their purpose in con
cealed, disguised ways. Force follows intrigue. The

method is the same with peoples who, being free, have
had freedom taken from them. Spies among them
note indifference, relinquishment of rights; this tem
per is encouraged, and when the opportune moment
comes, the people are easily enslaved. Tyrants en
slave more by their arts than by their power. False
men, acting privily, playing the spy; it is by such
means that liberty is assailed.
II. Efforts in the defence of liberty are made over
some unimportant matter and by a few determined
men. Men go on paying taxes to oppressive rulers till
the attempt is made to extort a few pence more, then
resistance is made. The English under King John had
furnished him vast sums of money ; he wanted a little
more ; they would not give it, and forced from him
the pledge that no taxes should ever be imposed with
out the consent of those paying them. It was not a
great matter that caused the separation of the Colonies
from England; only a matter of a few pence. So
runs the history of liberty.
St. Paul made his stand for liberty upon a most un
important matter. He would not consent that Titus,
being a Greek, should conform to a Hebrew usage.
He would not do as the Hebrews did. He who be
came all things to all men, would not in this case
follow his own counsel. He was in line with all the

great defenders of liberty, making his stand on a small
matter. He had his associates in his defence of liberty.
Here our New Testament record accords with the
world's records, wherein early resistance to tyranny is
made by a few, a mere handful of men. Read the
text thoughtfully and you read a true account of the
experience of liberty among men, — "The false breth
ren privily brought in, who came in privily, (sideways,
according to another rendering) to spy out our liberty
whicli we have in Christ Jesus, that they, might bring
us into bondage, to whom we (Barnabas, Titus and
myself) gave place in the way of subjection, no, not
for an hour."
Lo'oking at the bare fact, what less to be expected
than the taking away of liberty from men. "We say
there is nothing dearer. It wars against man's innate
self-regard, his innate sense of personal dignity, to be
a slave. The choice of unperverted humanity is
liberty. How strange, how contrary to reasonable ex
pectations, the dark, sad fact that men have been so
long, so generally enslaved ; have consented to be in
bondage ! Men count it to the discredit of Christian
ity that its progress has been so slow. Is liberty to be
less esteemed because it has won its way among men
tediously, painfully ? In accounting for liberty's slow
spread, it is not enough to state the methods and

agents used in opposing it. "We must make large al
lowance for carelessness and indifference which supply
favoring conditions for false men, for spies to work
in. Authentic history is little else than the record of
the loss of liberty and of efforts to recover it.
Christian history is in this respect like general his
tory. The primitive, apostolic Christians had freedom
among themselves. They were self -governed. Each
Christian congregation managed its own affairs, elected
its own officers, chose its own ministers. Under this
practice there was great prosperity, but in two cen
turies the practice was generally abandoned. Powers
possessed and exercised by local churches were trans
ferred to officers outside the churches. All churches
in a particular district were under the rule of one man,
a Bishop. Liberty was lost. Possibly greater effi
ciency may have been secured, but it was at a most
serious sacrifice. This loss of liberty came about in
the ordinary way. Ambitious men arose, eager for
place and power, who advanced their designs craftily,
privily, taking advantage of ordinary indifference.
Another change came. The liberty of these rulers in
the church was itself lost. One of them, favored by
position and resources, helped on by lack of vigilance
in others, rose to supremacy, and the Bishop of Pome
was Bishop of all Bishops.

8
This is what befell liberty among a single class of
people, Christians. They had it; they lost it; they
were in bondage, we may say, for fifteen hundred
years. In 1606, in the little town of Scrooby, in the north
of England, in the manor house of the Archbishop of
York, then tenanted by William Brewster, a little
handful of North England men, William Bradford,
George Morton, Francis Jessop, Richard Jackson,
Kobert Rochester, and their humble associates, joined
themselves, as the Lord's free people, by a covenant of
the Lord, into a church estate, in the fellowship of the
Gospel, to walk in all His ways, made known or to be
made known unto them, according to their best en
deavors whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord
assisting them. After making this record the histor
ian adds, " This church thus formed, without any ex
ternal helps, was not only a true church, but we may
almost claim, though small and in outward seeming
so feeble and unprophetic of great results, was the
truest church at that moment existing on the earth ;
having more of Christ's authority than any other, and
concentrating within itself, since the germs of Ameri
can Christianity and American missions and even of
American freedom were in it, more irresistible and
more benignant might than any other." So it has again
and again come true that God hath chosen the foolish

9
things of the world to confound the wise. ''God hath
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
mighty, and base things of the world and things which
are despised hath God chosen; yea, and the things
which are not to *bring to naught the things that are
that no flesh should glory in His presence." And more
can be said of this church which was in the house of
William Brewster. This church and the one organ
ized in London, in 1592, were the only self-governed
churches then in existence; quite possibly the only
self-governed associations of any kind then in exis
tence. Its few lowly members waged their battle for
the right of self-government, not for themselves only,
but for all men. It is a constant distinction of those
who battle for liberty that they battle for the race.
Mr. Fiske well reminds us that the men who wrested
Magna Charta from King John, in 1215, and those
who fought with Cromwell, did valiant and priceless
work for mankind, helping it on towards the liberty
which is its right. This reference to Mr. Fiske tempts
me to quote what he says of Calvin : " It would be
hard to over rate the debt which mankind owes to
Calvin. The spiritual father of Coligny, of William
the Silent and of Cromwell, must occupy a foremost
rank among the champions of modern democracy.
Perhaps not one of the mediaeval popes was more
despotic in temper than Calvin, but it is not less true

10
that the promulgation of his theology was one of the
longest steps that mankind has taken toward personal
freedom." What the just, historical student says of
the promulgation of Calvin's theology, may with equal
justice be said of the gathering of the church in the
house of William Brewster, in 1606, it was one of the
longest steps mankind has taken towards personal free
dom. Being thus, it is worthy of remembrance; it
merits from us the tribute of grateful recognition.
The church in the house of William Brewster har
assed by fines and imprisonment in England, went to
Holland, where it sojourned twelve years, and Decem
ber 21st, 1620, two hundred and seventy-one years ago
to-morrow, was on Plymouth Rock, the first church
in Massachusetts, the first church in New England,
and, for nine years, the only Protestant church in this
Western Hemisphere, excepting, perhaps, the remains
of an Episcopal church at Jamestown, Yirginia.
The men making this first church in New England
did not so much possess an idea, as were possessed by
one. It was not theological. They had no contention
with the theology accepted in the church of England,
proposed no departure from it. The idea in them was
sociological, political. It was more definite than this
even. It was an idea as to the seat of power, as to the
source of legitimate authority, both in church and
state. It were a long story to trace the rise and the

11
final acceptance by the men of Scrooby of the idea
that power resides with the people, but this particular
idea, at that time most novel and dangerous, did force
itself both upon and into them, and for it they took
joyfully the spoiling of their goods and all manner of
harsh and wrong treatment, and for the chance to be
true to it came hither and landed on Plymouth Rock
two hundred and seventy-one years ago, bringing as
their most cherished possession — only an idea.
" They worked," says Mr. Fiske, " to bring about a
reform in the church in such wise that the members
of a congregation should have more voice than
formerly in the church government, and that the
minister of each congregation should be more inde
pendent than formerly of the bishop and civil govern
ment.'" Possessed with the idea that the right to
govern a church was with the members of the church,
it was a short, necessary step to the position that the
right to govern a community was with the community
itself. Hence that memorable gathering in the cabin
of the Mayflower, November 11th, 1620, when forty-
two men, of all social grades, signed a covenant and
combined themselves into a Civil Body Politic. Here
was recognized, in a civilized, organized community,
as an accepted fact, the competency of men to govern
themselves and the right of every man to a share in
the government. Here the idea of the Scrooby church

12
was planted in the field of civil life. And here it has
borne abundant and excellent fruit. It was the fruit
ful idea from which has come our present civil order.
It was a little leaven, indeed, but its power has been
richly diffused, till this great Republic of more than
sixty millions, with territory bounded by two oceans,
stands among earth's nations committed to the high,
serious idea that men are beings capable of governing
themselves. Thus the idea of the Scrooby church has
fared in politics, in the state ; how has it been in the
church ? I do not care much for numbers, still we may
expect the Scrooby idea will not wholly fail in the do
main in which it rose, and yet all history warrants us
in expecting reforms and changes in the church to be
slow. Let it be remembered that the Scrooby idea was
not theological, and so may be associated with various
theological beliefs. Keeping this in mind, Dr. Dexter,
some years ago, gathered statistics with this result, —
" Instead of being, as has been often alleged, a merely
provincial and peculiarly New England idea, this sys
tem of Congregational government of Christian
churches is substantially held and practiced by more
then one-half of the entire professing Christianity of
the land."
Liberty to manage their own affairs in church and
state was the Scrooby idea which was transplanted
here two hundred and seventy-one years ago. If we

13
value an idea because of the struggles and cost through
which it won recognition, because of the benefits it
has conferred, what idea should be more precious to
us than the idea which gathered the church in the
house of William Brewster in Scrooby, and which
brought that same church over dangerous seas to New
England and which has since filled the Northern Con
tinent so largely with its blessed influence. What is
so good shares the fate of all that is good; it is
in constant danger. We count ourselves secure in
possession of the right to manage our own affairs. We
are not secure in it, testifies impartial history. To
Mr. Jefferson is attributed the saying, quoted with ap
proval by Mr. Fiske, "Of the two opposite perils
which have perpetually threatened the welfare of
political society, anarchy on the one hand, and loss of
self-government on the other, the latter is really the
more to be dreaded because its beginnings are so terri
bly insidious." Ah, yes! the American philsophical
statesman is one with the Christian apostle, liberty is
assaulted privily. The most dangerous assaults are
the most insidious. We have no reason at all to sit
down and conceive ourselves secure in our liberty.
There are reasons why we should feel insecure. Once
in New England men were fined who did not dis
charge public duties. The man who does not do his
duty as a citizen imperils the State, its liberty. When

14
men are so engrossed in their own business that they
cannot serve the state, when sad indifference- and neg
lect prevail, then false men come in privily and work
their mischief and ruin. Never was there greater
need than now that intelligent, moral meri be public
spirited, ready to serve the public at some cost, for
only by sacrifice and vigilance is public liberty pre
served. An idea must be incarnated before it can have great
power in the world. It must have a body. The
Scrooby idea embodied itself in the Scrooby church.
The Scrooby idea came here embodied in a church.
The idea must still have a body, and this it has in
every church instituted after the Scrooby pattern.
What is distinctive about a Congregational church is
not its theology nor its form of worship, but its mode
of Government ; its insistence that each local company
of Christian believers is capable of managing its own
affairs without outside aid. This idea makes a church
a Congregational church. I do not like very well the
names given churches. I prefer this church should be
called The First Church of Christ in Pittsfield, but if
we must have names let us have descriptive names.
Papal, says power in the Pope ; Episcopal, says power
in the Episcopate; Presbyterian, says power in the
Presbytery; Congregational, says power in the Con
gregation. I like what this last name represents.

15
It is not an easy polity to administer, and just here
is the opening for danger to come in. Men do not
like to attend to public affairs. They prefer to com
mit them to others. They renounce responsibility,
cease being vigilant, and the false men come in privily
and ruin. So with the church. What a government
by one man can do is seen in the order, efficiency of
the Papal church. What a government by a few can
do is seen in the Anglican and Methodist churches.
It is always easier to have work done by one or by a
few, rather than by the many. Yes, if all that is de
sired, is to have the work done ; but, if education and
enlargement of the individual are desired, then a
monarchy or an oligarchy fails utterly. No agency
offers comparable to democracy. Men need not fewer,
but more responsibilities. Man's proper place is under
all the responsibilities proper to a man. He is not at
the right school till he is here. The man who sepa
rates himself from family, is not a complete man ; nor
he who disconnects himself from state and church ;
nor he, who, with nominal connection, discharges none
of the duties of the connection. I learned a Latin
proverb years ago, "The worst is the corruption of the
best." The worst church order is the best church
order corrupted. Nothing can be worse than a Con
gregational church left to be managed by a few mem
bers, the majority indifferent, not only is the church

16
weakened, harmed, the members themselves have par
tial education and grow unshapely and small. The
remedy is an intelligent acceptance i of the Scrooby
idea. If you believe power to govern is with the
church itself, then serve the institution which gives
the idea body, and makes it a working force in and
upon the community. I believe in the Scrooby idea
because it educates under responsibilities.
Doing this, the Scrooby idea fosters a spiritual re
ligion. " The strength of the Independents lay in a dis
tinctively spiritual conception of the nature of Relig
ion." " To them private judgment was so sacred and
the spirit of Religion so vital that all forms or organi
zations appeared of necessity to cramp the free action
of the soul and to come fatally between man and
God." ("The Church and The Puritans" Wakeman.)
" Cramp the free action of the soul." Let the soul do
its own work, perform its own worship. Let nothing,
— priest nor ceremony, — come between man and God.
Two hundred and seventy-one years ago to-morrow,
the church of Scrooby planted itself in New England.
We are its true successors. Its life gathers in us. Let
us be careful to diffuse what we have received. Let us
perpetuate that most fruitful idea that men are capable
of managing their own affairs in church and state
without foreign interference. Let us stand fast in the
liberty bequeathed by the fathers and to which Christ
calls men.

s