felt as a grievance to be thus shut out from the body politic; but some were sincerely complaining of the spiritual privation of being excluded, themselves and their families, from the sacraments; on the other hand, the churches themselves felt weakened by the exclusion of many who could hardly be pronounced less fit for church fellowship than those who were within the pale.

"And yet it does not appear that there was any intent on the part of the Founders to draw lines excluding from the church any sincere disciple of Jesus Christ. The idea of establishing sectarian churches for a certain style of Christian from which other sorts of Christians should be excluded belongs to a later age, and would have been abhorrent to the first generation. They sincerely meant that all the faithful Christians of each town should be the church of that town, exercising all the functions of a church free of interference from without; but in seeking this worthy object they fell into two grave mistakes. 1. In their righteous reaction from the miserable corruption of the English parish churches they went to the opposite extreme, not only putting out the demonstrably unworthy, but keeping out those whose worthiness was not satisfactorily demonstrated.'

Very unwillingly did the early Puritans take any steps which made the relation of their churches sectarian; and this was one reason for their aversion to the making of creeds.

The faith of these early Congregationalists they regarded themselves as holding in common with the Reformed churches of the whole world. Their polity was their own. They might readily have said,

"Let us write the Polity of the Congregational Churches, and we care not who shall write their Creeds."

IV.

THE BURIAL HILL CONFESSION

The Michigan City Convention of 1846 and the Albany Convention of 1852 mark the renaissance of Congregationalism. The former expressed the new life of the west, and the latter was the first national Congregational gathering held outside of New England. The divergent polities of Massachusetts, with its more rigid independency, and Connecticut with its consociation system which had lent itself to the Plan of Union, flowed together with fresh tributaries from the west and northwest into a river like that of the Garden of Eden, and the confluent stream was that of a new and truly nationalized Congregationalism. The abandonment of the Plan of Union marked the rise of a new denominational consciousness, and gave to the west a new place in the Councils of the denomination. The approach of the close of the Civil War indicated the rise of new home missionary prospects and problems, and a new opportunity to make the denomination a national power.

The Convention of the Congregational Churches of the northwest, whose chief function is the election of directors of Chicago Theological Seminary, was in session in Chicago on April 27, 1864, when Rev. Truman M. Post, a delegate from St. Louis, introduced a resolution that in view of the results of the war "the crisis demands general consultation, co-operation, and concert among our churches, and to these ends, requires extensive correspondence among ecclesiastical associations, or the assembling of a National Congregational Convention." The Illinois General Association, in session at Quincy, May 27, 1864, took official action, inviting other state bodies to unite in promoting "a National Convention." Dur

ing that summer and autumn the state organizations of Indianna, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, Masaschusetts, New York, and Minnesota ratified the plan in the order named. On November 16, 1864, the joint committee representing the state bodies met in Broadway Tabernacle, New York, and arranged for the call of "a National Council to be assembled in Boston on the second Wednesday of June, 1865. A committee of three was appointed to report to the Council "a statement of Congregational church polity," the committee consisting of Rev. Messers. Leonard Bacon, A. H. Quint, and H. M. Storrs. Another committee was appointed to consider "the expediency of setting forth a declaration of faith, as held in common by the Congregational churches." This committee consisted of Rev. Dr. J. P. Thompson, Prof. G. P. Fisher, and Prof. E. A. Lawrence.

The National Council of 1865 was in every respect a notable gathering, and it is the only one of our great national assemblies of whose discussions we have a stenographic report. The body convened in the Old South of June 14, and two days later the Committee on Confession made its report. They stated that "they could not regard it as their function to prepare a confession of faith to be imposed by act of this or any other body upon the churches of the Congregational order." They quoted from the Saybrook platform regarding the Scriptures as the only rule of religion, and stated that while the faith of the Congregational churches was essentially Calvinistic, and hence in general accord with the confessions of Westminister and Savoy, there existed what Cotton Mather happily called "variety in unity," which the committee did not wish to disturb by a formulation of doctrines; but rather deemed it better to characterize in a comprehensive way the faith of the churches "for the substance thereof" in the ancient confessions of 1648 and 1680. They did, however, submit a certain recital of Congregational principles, and closed

with a statement which rather closely approximated a confession of faith, though carefully avoiding the form of such confession.

FIRST REPORT ON DECLARATION OF FAITH

The committee appointed by the preliminary conference to prepare a Declaration of Faith to be submitted to the Council, respectfully report:

That, in the light of the discussions of that conference upon the expediency of such a Declaration, and also of the general principles of our polity, they could not regard it as their function to prepare a Confession of Faith to be imposed by act of this, or of any other body, upon the churches of the Congregational order. "It was the glory of our fathers, that they heartily professed the only rule of their religion, from the very first, to be the Holy Scriptures;" and particular churches have always exercised their liberty in "confessions drawn up in their own forms." And such has been the accord of these particular confessions, one with another, and with the Scriptures, that we may to-day repeat, with thankfulness, the words of the fathers of the Savoy Confession, two centuries ago: while, "from the first, every, or at least the generality, of our churches have been, in a manner, like so many ships-though holding forth the same general colors-launched singly, and sailing apart and alone in the vast ocean of these tumultuous times, and have been exposed to 'every wind of doctrine,' under no other conduct than the Word and Spirit," .. yet "let all acknowledge that God hath ordered it for his high and greater glory, in that his singular care and power should have so watched over each of these, as that all should be found to have steered their course by the same Chart, and to have been bound for one and the same Port; and that the same holy and blessed Truths of all sorts, which are current and warrantable amongst all the other churches of Christ in the world, are found to be our Lading."

Whatever the diversities of metaphysical theology apparent in these various Confessions, they yet, with singular unanimity, identify the faith of the Congregational churches with the body of Christian doctrine known as Calvinistic; and hence such Confessions as that of the Westminster divines, and that of the Savoy Synod, have been accredited among these churches as general symbols of faith.

It has not appeared to the committee expedient to recommend that this Council should disturb this "variety in unity"-as Cotton Mather happily describes it-by an attempted uniformity of statement in a Confession formulating each doctrine in more recent terms of metaphysical theology. It seemed better to characterize in a comprehensive way the doctrines held in common by our churches, than thus to individualize each in a theological formula. The latter course might rather disturb the unity that now exists amid variety. Moreover, little could be gained in this respect beyond what we already possess in the ancient formulas referred to, which, being

interpreted in the spirit in which they were conceived, answer the end of a substantial unity in doctrine, and have withal the savor of antiquity and the proof of use.

In the language of the Preface to the Savoy Declaration, a Confession is "to be looked upon but as a meet or fit medium or means whereby to express a common faith and salvation, and no way to be made use of as an imposition upon any. Whatever is of force or constraint in matters of this nature, causes them to degenerate from the name and nature of Confessions, and turns them from being Confessions of Faith into exactions and impositions of Faith!" Yet a common Confession serves the important purpose-the "neglect" of which the Savoy fathers sought to remedy-of making manifest our unity in doctrine, and of "holding out common lights to others whereby to know where we are."

With these views, as the result of prolonged and careful deliberation, the committee unanimously recommend that the Council should declare, by reference to historical and venerable symbols, the faith as it has been maintained among the Congregational churches from the beginning; and also that it should set forth a testimony on behalf of these churches, for the Word of Truth now assailed by multiform and dangerous errors; and for this end, they respectfully submit the following

Recital and Declaration.

When the churches of New England assembled in a general Synod at Cambridge in 1648, they declared their assent, “for the substance thereof" to the Westminster Confession of Faith. When again these churches convened in a general Synod at Boston, in 1680, they declared their approval (with slight verbal alterations) of the doctrinal symbol adopted by a Synod of the Congregational churches in England, at London, in 1658, and known as the "Savoy Confession," which in doctrine is almost identical with that of the Westminster Assembly. And yet again, when the churches in Connecticut met in council at Saybrook in 1708, they "owned and consented to" the Savoy Confession as adopted at Boston, and offered this as a public symbol of their faith.

Thus, from the beginning of their history, the Congregational churches in the United States have been allied in doctrine with the Reformed churches of Europe, and especially of Great Britain. The eighth article of the "Heads of Agreement," established by the Congregational and Presbyterian ministers in England in 1692, and adopted at Saybrook in 1708, defines this position in these words: "As to what appertains to soundness of judgment in matters of faith, we esteem it sufficient that a church acknowledge the Scriptures to be the Word of God, the perfect and only rule of faith and practice, and own either the doctrinal part of those commonly called the Articles of the Church of England, or the Confession or Catechisms, shorter or larger, compiled by the Assembly at Westminster, or the Confession agreed on at the Savoy, to be agreeable to the said rule."