Congregationalism—What is it?
By Editor
THERE is no other church in the United States which is undergoing such rapid disintegrating process as the Congregationalist. It is almost impossible now to tell what is the faith of the great Congregational body, if indeed it have any peculiarly distinctive faith. We have been aware for some time that a minister could stand well-accredited in that church with any faith he might choose to hold, and almost without any faith at all. The recent wide departure from the old standards, by the First Congregational Church of San Francisco, has been the means of directing much attention to this subject. A clergyman of that denomination writes from San Francisco to the New York Independent, from whose letter we make extracts as follows:— “We have a theological sensation here just now. The First Congregational Church of this city—the first and the largest and richest on the coast, as well; the one so long and ably presided over by Dr. Stone, of Park Street, Boston, and world-wide fame—has taken a new departure. It is ‘a’ if not ‘the’ representative church of its denomination in these parts. It has recently taken to itself, after a long wooing, Rev. C. D. Barrows, of Lowell, Mass., as pastor. It has settled him by advice of a huge council from many States. The church has always had a thoroughly Calvinistic Orthodox Creed, almost identical with that given by Dr. Dexter, in his hand-book of Congregationalism.” “Among the noticed items of a change of base is the following:— “(5.) Even more startling is the fact that this creed, without a doctrine of sin, should also have deliberately eliminated the doctrine of the Atonement. Both word and thing are gone. There is nothing left here but a mere reconciliation, made for all men.” It is far from doing justice to the absence of an Atonement, in “word and thing,” to say “there is nothing left here but a mere reconciliation, made for all men,” for if the Scriptures recognize the possibility of reconciliation for a sinner without a sacrifice to the broken law, we have read the Bible quite amiss. Speaking of the breadth of the new creed the writer says:— “There is nothing in these new creeds that would keep out of this Congregational Church or its diaconate or ministry any average Unitarian, or Universalist, or Rationalist. Rev. Mr. Hamilton, who lately died in his pulpit in Oakland (deposed from the Presbyterian ministry for heresy), and who avowed himself to the writer, a ‘Christian Rationalist’ and a ‘spiritual pantheist,’ said to him, also, that he could accept this creed.” And he further proceeds to predict some of the consequences likely to grow out of this growing defection in the ranks of Congregationalism:— “It has long been a current slur in some circles that the Congregational body is not soundly Calvinistic. The writer, trained a Congregationalist and for years in its ministry, has always repelled that slur as a slander. He remembers Prof. Park’s declaration, at the Boston Council, in 1865, that ‘every man who knew enough to read the New Testament in Greek was a Calvinist.’ Is it true that there is to be such a departure as this from the faith in Congregationalism at large? If so, then beware of a plowshare through the whole body. Is there an element of any considerable importance in the body which is ready, after having won the contest with Unitarianism and Universalism, to go over to the defeated side? Does Congregationalism hanker after another schism, like that which swept over into Unitarianism and Harvard College and the greater part of the church property of Eastern Massachusetts? What, in that case will become of its benevolent and charitable and missionary and educational trusts and organizations? Are we on the point of another great theological conflict, like that of those days, rending churches, severing families, and perverting sacred fiduciary trusts? If this new departure of the First Church here be what it is heralded, then all this is coming.” But the writer makes too much of this case. He treats it as if it were quite exceptional—far in advance as a departure from the old faith. It may be this so far as the action of an entire church—and a large and influential one—is concerned, but as far as evident defection from the old landmarks is concerned, it can be found all over the land, affecting every part of the great Congregational body. The following from the Detroit, Mich., News, gives pointed evidence on the same subject:— “The Rev. Mr. Merriman, formerly President of Ripon College, ‘one of the ablest and most scholarly ministers in the Congregational ranks,’ was recently examined by a tribunal of his church, preliminary to his installation as pastor of the Congregational Church at Somerville, Mass. It turned out that as regarding hell he was a Universalist, and in respect to purgatory he was a good Roman Catholic. That is to say, he refused to believe in eternal punishment, and substituted a condition of probation after death, in which the soul would be purged from its impurities preparatory to entering Heaven, which probation he thought might be mitigated by the prayers of Christians still in the flesh. The doctrine of prayers for the dead was the particular popish bete noir of the early Puritan—indeed, of the Puritan of twenty years ago—but its acceptance by Mr. Merriman did not prevent his installation as the pastor of Somerville. What is Congregationalism, anyhow? It authorizes Beecher to set aside half the Bible and lets Mr. Merriman abolish hell and set up purgatory. Isn’t it wide enough to let in Mr. Ingersoll?” The interest attaching to this subject is wider than the bounds of the Congregational Church. It is a sign of the times. It is not possible that there should be so wide-spread departure from the accepted faith in so great a denomination, and its influence be confined to that denomination. It shows itself more readily there because that church is more lenient with dissenters than any other. We hardly think there is another church in the land, having a reputation as “orthodox,” which would install a minister over a church in an important locality, whose creed was a mixture of Universalism and Roman Catholicism. To this it has been coming for some time. A body which could tolerate the ranting vagaries of such men as H. W. Beecher can very consistently tolerate anything professing to be religion, however far it may be removed from genuine Christianity. But the Methodist Church is tainted through and through with that which would have been considered rank heresy by Wesley and Fletcher, and their associates. Great and important changes have taken place in that church in the last half century. We are far from insisting that no changes should be made; oftentimes they are right, and necessary to the healthy growth of a religious body. There may be progress in religious knowledge as well as in any other. But when changes do become necessary, when they are made, we hold that it is just and right to announce them. Then they may be vindicated, and all may see their reasonableness. Only in this manner can “the unity of the faith” be preserved. And only in this manner can healthy changes be made. If suffered to grow “gradually and silently,” as Dr. Scott says the practice of Sun-day-keeping came into the church, the change is quite as apt to be wrong as right; perhaps more so, because it is not attended with that open investigation which is the surest means of separating the chaff of mere opinion from the solid grains of truth. But change, the work of disintegration, is going on in all the churches. They read their creeds and subscribe to them, but they do not preach them fully, and only hold to them with an abundance of “mental reservations.” We presume the time was when this Jesuitical casuistry was confined to the Church of Rome; but it is not so now. Inasmuch as it is an injustice to one’s self and to the public to profess that which is not fully believed, we regret the present state of things. But as far as it indicates a breaking away from that slavery which has been suffered to hold in its chains the minds and consciences of so many of our fellow-men, it is not to be regretted. That this restlessness, so extensively manifested, will work ruin to many, cannot be doubted. But it has already gone too far to be restrained. To a few—a choice few—it will bring religious freedom; a firmer faith in “the Bible alone;” and a higher standard of, and experience in, Christian life. With the mass it will result in that which is called “freedom of thought,” “liberalism,” “advanced Christianity,” but which is no less than reckless individualism, growing into actual freedom from restraint, or lawlessness. By reason of these the way of truth is evil spoken of; 2 Peter 2:1, 2, and by their influence will be augmented the perils of the last days. 2 Tim. 3:1-8.