her shores, no gorgeous standards emblazoned with emblems of earthly state, amid the pomp of military pageantry and the din of martial music. It was with bended knee, and with cheerful, though trembling song, that they consecrated this earth and these heavens to the honor of the Son of God, as it might be seen in churches ordered by his will. In forming them, their pattern was no ill-assorted patch work of the gaudy but soiled remnants of apostate Rome-nor was it the fantastic product of the brain of some wild enthusiast. It was by the open Bible that they laid the foundations of our polity. It was after the pattern showed them in the mount, that they measured and wrought each one of its separate

stones.

The issue corresponded to their faith. The Head of the church smiled upon churches freed from the lust of power and framed in primitive simplicity. As the popu lation increased, new churches were planted. Soon the fame of these churches for intelligence and or der; for peace and spiritual fruitfulness; was borne across the At lantic, and New England church

es

were founded in the mother land.

We are not aware that the Congregational churches of New England were ever more truly prosperous, than they are at the present moment. We doubt whether there was ever a time, when they were more sound in the faith, more faithful in discipline, or more abundant in good works. Never were they so richly blessed of God in the power and frequency of the visita tions of the Divine Spirit.

Their position at present however is somewhat peculiar. Their duties to themselves and to others, as arising from these circumstances, seem to us also to be peculiar and to require a faithful consideration. To this position, as indicating what Vol. I.

72

these duties are, we would invite the attention of our readers.

The great questions of the times are these: "Where is the church ?" "What ought the church to be ?" Church polity is a leading study of the times. One would think that the perfection of the church in this respect, was essential to its health and salvation. Every theorist of course has notions of his own-and is as ready to defend them, as the Abbe Sieyes was in his day to furnish a constitution to order, or our own unfledged politicians have ever been to tinker the currency.

We are not surprised to notice in a certain class of men, a disposition to speak of the defects of our own system, and to remark freely upon these evils and the results to which they are tending. Some do this, who prefer Congregationalism to every other polity, and for this very reason, would correct its few deficiencies, and give it all the completeness of which it is capable. Others there are, who seem not to be at home in its simple structure, and long for a more splendid establish

ment.

This sensitiveness to the defects of our own ecclesiastical system, and this readiness freely to talk of them, we believe to be peculiar to ourselves. We glory in it as the evidence of a love of truth stronger than our love of sect. The Presbyterian, especially, if he is of the more rigid sort, is so accustomed to appeal to The Book, that he is insensibly led by his habitual deference to its prescriptions, to regard it as the end of all wisdom. The Methodist regards no system as worthy to be thought of, compared with that Discipline, in which John Wesley so shrewdly reconciled the most absolute clerical despotism, with the intensest popular activity. The Episcopalian considers no excellence so surpassing as his excellent liturgy and government-that petrified specimen of the English

mind in its transition from Rome to to Christ. The Congregationalist, alone, is not insensible to the defects of his own system, both actual and possible-and what is more worthy of notice, is free to confess them.

But what are these defects to which some among us are some. what morbidly sensitive? Why we have no creed as a standard of orthodoxy-we have no usages es tablished by authority, as a pledge to decency and order. Our system is loose and disjointed. It involves the radical principle, that a com. pany of Christians may choose and ordain their own officers, and yet be a church of Christ. It makes each church to be a separate and individual existence, and thus tramples on that unity for which the Redeemer prayed and his apostles labored.

These complaints are no new thing under the sun. They are as old as the very beginnings of the Congregational system. The great and good men who were amazed by the audacity of its novel principles, saw in them only the elements of weakness and disorder, and predicted for the churches based upon them, a speedy and contemptible dissolution. So has it been from then till now, and yet for more than two centuries has this system held its vigorous and healthful existence, and been a fountain of life in the universal churches.

To all these objections there is one triumphant answer. The system has been tested by time. The defects complained of, are defects in its theory-not its practical workings. These evils against which there is outcry, are anticipated evils, not actual and present defects. They are such as possibly may arise, and against which we have no provision, in a nicely balanced paper-system-no checks and balances to make the machine go right of itself.

But where is the system which works better than this? Where the polity which better answers the ends which church polity has a right to accomplish? Where in the wide world, is the faith of the gospel more pure, or the piety of the gos pel more fruitful, than in these churches? Where are the clergy held in higher honor, and their office in greater respect? Where is the unity of the spirit more faithfully kept in the bonds of peace? Where does the individual Chris tian more truly feel that he is a member of the universal church, and that the member of a sister church is in fact united in the same fellowship with himself? Whereas he goes here and there through the community of churches, does he feel, that in every church he shall find a home, and be received by its members with the warm wel come of a brother? The practical workings of any system, upon a fair trial, we can not but consider a sufficient test of its excellence. In vain do we search the world over to find more perfectly realized, the ideal of what churches ought to be, than in these New England churches-as they have been and now are. When then we are told that our churches are without order-we plainly reply, it is false, so false, that in point of fact, there is no where such real order as with us. When it is said our system is loose and disjointed, we answer, it proves not so. No churches, no ministers, are held more tightly together; move more in concert, or bring into the field of action a phalanx more precise in its movements, or more effective in its aggressions.

But to these defects more par ticularly. "We have no creed, or confession of faith, which we receive as a standard." And what if we have no such creed? Do we need one? Is it not known, what we preach, and what we believe? Is it not also known, that in the

main, our churches and ministers believe and preach the same thing? Is the gospel so indefinite and obscure a thing, that living men can not read what it is in the English Bible, and so give or withhold their fellowship, as this gospel is professed or denied? "But heresy will by and by creep in." As if the next generation were to have neither intellects nor souls of their own, which, enlightened by the spirit of God, could be trusted to be vigilant for themselves. As if the present generation were to assume the care of orthodoxy for all coming time. Heresy will creep in, if you trust the defense of the faith to a dead statement of Christian truth, rather than to the zeal and vigilance of living teachers. Such statements, without this vigilance, guard from no evil, while they tempt the heretic to a perjured conscience, and the true to a false reliance, in their efficacy to guard against error. As summaries of Christian truth, they are not to be despised, but as defenses of the faith they are not to be relied upon. "But we have no established usages." It is true, we have no Directory for public worship and no order of Common Prayer from which we may not deviate. Nor have we a rigid form, prescribed by authority for the organization of a church, or the ordination of a minister of Christ. We have usages however, consecrated by time, and commending themselves to all, by their appropriate and significant simplicity.

"But they are not printed in a book, and enforced by authority." What if they are not-they can not be thus enforced, and yet be consistent with our distinctive principles. In this however, there is nothing peculiar or alarming. There is nothing peculiar. The customs of the common law-the forms of legal procedure, the rules of admission to the legal and medi

cal professions-are regulated not so much by statute as by actual practice. The law of evidence, by which life, and property, and person, are protected or forfeited to law, is an unwritten thing. There is nothing alarming. We need not fear that those who follow us will lose their memory, or their common sense. It is not certain, that they will forget what has been the usage of the churches-or, in a paroxysm of folly, will rush from its sober ways into some fanatical disorder. We know that there are those, who are strangely fond of a perfect system of truth and order, that shall be printed in a book, and who, because a system is thus printed, will receive it if it be not so very perfect. There is a charm to such minds in dead machinery. They delight to imagine it in easy and beauteous motion. If it does not so move in fact, it ought to, and they trust that by and by, it actually will. If there is friction in the wheels, and every wheel brings so much added friction, there is no friction in the idea of the perfect church. If to avoid friction the machinery is kept still, or but barely moves, they have only to imagine how well it is fitted to move, and it rejoices their hearts to think of their most excellent church. Others there are, who wish a system most exact and rigid, that by ecclesiastical rules they may accomplish purposes which they can not compass by logic or piety— and by the spell of adherence to rules, may supply that magic power to the wand which was once so potent in clerical hands. Hinc illæ lacrymæ. If it be so, then we have good reason, instead of desiring regulations more minute and specific, to render thanks that we have none at all.

"But our system allows the validity of lay-ordination in cases of possible exigency." So does Richard Hooker-the often quoted de

fender of the Elizabethan or English church-and so does every other man, who is not ready to swallow any absurd conclusion from the divine right of the ministry.

"But it holds the doctrine, that it is the church which constitutes a man its pastor by its electing voice." And what republican is there who should object to this doctrine ? Nay, what American is there who owes to this doctrine first asserted for the church, all the blessings which it gives his country, now that it is adopted in the state, should not blush for his ignorance and ingratitude? Well is it, that it holds these principles. They are its glory, because they are just and if they had been earlier asserted, they might have proved health and salvation to the dying church. To hold the opposite, is to make the priesthood to be the church, and to give to the body of the faithful, when the church has become corrupt, no hope of deliverance, except from the source whence hope has forever fled. It is to fasten upon the diseased body, which, if left to itself, might gather the struggling energies of returning life, a carcass of death, and thus to poison and stifle its remaining vitality. He however who, from this admitted principle, infers that, as a matter of fact, our churches do not consult and respect their ministry, and give them all reasonable influence and control, argues from the theory of our system, but not from its actual workings. He argues just as all monarchical Europe does, from what they suppose must be the case in respect to democratic America. To convict him of a false conclusion, the very rocks of New Eng. land are ready to cry out.

"But we destroy the unity of the church, by giving a separate and independent life to the local body." Nay, we uphold that unity by this very thing-but it is a moral and spiritual unity, not an ecclesias

tical and political commonwealth. By this very principle do we secure the church, as far as it may be in this world of ours, against the divisions and strifes that are incident to all societies of imperfect

men.

"But it is a matter of complaint among laymen, that we have no ecclesiastical system; and there are some, who, because we have no book of standards, do not attach themselves to our societies, but unite with the church of the prayerbook." This may be so-but we doubt whether this is the true reason, for there are many other reasons than this why a man in New England may prefer the church of Queen Bess to that of John Robinson. We can see however, that this may be possible with men, whose dissatisfaction on this ground, is fostered by the influence and example of their spiritual guides. But we can not easily see how a New England man, taught by a truly New. England minister, would hold such a sentiment. He would know better, or if he did not, he might easily be taught, that such securities for faith and order are of little worth, and that the evil which they occasion, is too certain to be incurred for the doubtful advantage which they bring. It would seem that the simplicity of our system, its freedom from forms, its easiness of working, and its demand on the living energies of each individual member of the church, might be made, not merely its sufficient apology, but its triumphant vindication. It is easy to see on the other hand, how it may and must happen, that when the minister is continually complaining of the looseness of his church, and is calling for a book of standards, and is manifestly deficient in sympathy with its great and peculiar principles, the members of the church may conclude, that they are in a rickety and falling establishment, and may look about

for the protection of one that is more firmly built.

We complain then of much of this distrust of our system, as without just occasion, as untrue to the first principles of our polity, and forgetful of all the lessons which history inculcates. We complain of it, as most injurious in its consequences-as certain to be the cause of the dissatisfaction which is said to exist. It can not but happen, that what the teacher distrusts, the disciple will disown and deny. The strength of our system is a moral strength. It consists in the confidence of living men in each other, and in the system under which they live. The good sense of thinking men, the experience of the past, the voice of all history, testify in its favor. Where are the men who neglect these advantages, and fail to rally around the remembrances of the past, and the usefulness of the present, the best sympathies of their hearers? Why do they not breathe into their hearers the true New England spirit? Why do not they show the evils that lurk in every other church, and war against its spiritual simplicity and life? We speak thus freely and strongly of this distrust, because we regard it as without just cause— as ungrateful for the best system of church government with which the world has ever been blest, as unmindful of the corruption with which power has ever cursed the church, as untrue to the high trust which God has placed in our hands for the generation which is to come after us, and as suicidal to our present life and hope.

While we are so earnest upon this point, we do not contend, that there are no deficiencies in our churches. We have more than intimated already, that there is a call for improvement, and that such improvement may be attained. It is natural first of all to notice such as concern the ministry. The office

of a religious teacher is recogni zed in the New Testament as essential to the perfection and prosperity of the church, and his qualifications are described with admirable fidelity and truth. He is a man well instructed in the truths which he is to teach, with skill to adapt them to the common mind, and with the earnest desire to accomplish this end. He is also a gentleman, intelligent, courteous and open-hearted, who scorns duplicity and self-seeking, both in handling the word of God and in his intercourse with his fellow-men. But he is not a priest. He is in no sense a mediator between God and man. He consecrates not the baptismal water, which introduces the infant to the church. He makes not the bread of the eucharist, to be the food of the soul, through the virtue that passes from his consecrating hands. He is not studious of the rights which belong to his order in the church. He strains not himself to keep his order or himself in his place, by a forced antagonism against the fancied inroads of his flock.

Whatever improvements are proposed by or for the ministry, should be based upon the apostolic model. They should be made in the direction of the Bible and of common sense, and not in that of the church, after the traditions of men. Now it has happened of late, that an epidemic of high church feeling has invaded various regions of Protestant Christendom. As was to be expected, its attacks have been most violent where the predispo sing causes were the strongest ; but it has not been entirely unfelt even in the healthful atmosphere. of New England. Our Episcopal. brethren are greatly amazed or encouraged, we hardly know which, at the appearance of some symp toms of church feeling in so unexpected a quarter.

The ministry, it is argued, must