ical Christianity and its claims upon our regard and obedience; bat by bringing to light the manhood and freedom of the Christian people, and the rights and privileges of individual congregations, it marks a real progress in the development of Protestantism, and has leavened other Protestant denominations in America; for here congregations justly claim and exercise a much larger share, and have consequently a much deeper interest in the management of their own affairs than in the State Churches of Europe. The Congregational system implies, of course, the power of self-government and a living faith in Christ, without which it would be no government at all. It moreover requires the cementing power of fellowship. INDEPENDENCY AND FELLOWSHIP. Anglo-American Congregationalism has two tap roots, independency and fellowship, on the basis of the Puritan or Calvinistic faith. It suc ceeds in the measure of its ability to adjust and harmonize them. It is a compromise between pure Independency and Presbyterianism. It must die without freedom, and it can not live without authority. Independency without fellowship is ecclesiastical atomism; fellowship without Independency leads to Presbyterianism or Episcopacy.' It starts from the idea of an apostolic congregation as an organized New England, owing to the enterprising and restless character of its population, extends far beyond its own limits, and is almost omnipresent in the United States. The twenty thousand Puritans who emigrated from England within the course of twenty years, from 1620 to 1640, and received but few accessions until the modern flood of mixed European immigration set in, have grown into a race of several millions, diffused themselves more or less into every State of the Union, and take a leading part in the organization and development of every new State of the great West to the shores of the Pacific. Their principles have acted like leaven upon American society; their influence reaches into all the ramifications of our commerce, manufactures, politics, literature, and religion; there is hardly a Protestant Church or Sabbath-school in the land, from Boston to San Francisco, which does not feel, directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, the intellectual and moral power that constantly ema nates from the classical soil of Puritan Christianity.' 1 Dr. Emmons, one of the leaders of New England Congregationalism, is credited with this memorable dictum: 'Associationism leads to Consociationism; Consociationism leads to Presbyterianism; Presbyterianism leads to Episcopacy; Episcopacy leads to Roman Catholicism; and Roman Catholicism is an ultimate fact' (Prof. Park, in Memoir of Emons, p. 163). But there would be equal force in the opposite reasoning from Independency to anarchy, and from anarchy to dissolution. Independents have a right to protest against tyranny, whether exercised by bishops or presbyters ('priests writ large'); but there are Lord Brethren as well as Lord Bishops, and the tyranny of a congregation over a minister, or of a majority over a minority, is as bad as any other kind of tyranny. and industrious community in Holland and on the borders of Germany (1536). He gave them a strict system of discipline, and endeavored to revive the idea of a pure apostolic congregation consisting of true believers unmixed with the world. He labored in constant peril of life with untiring patience till his death, Jan. 13, 1561. For eighteen years,' he says, with my poor feeble wife and little children, has it behooved me to bear great and various anxieties, sufferings, griefs, afflictions, miseries, and persecutions, and in every place to find a bare existence, in fear and danger of my life. While some preachers are reclining on their soft beds and downy pillows, we oft are hidden in the caves of the earth; while they are celebrating the nuptial or natal days of their children with feasts and pipes, and rejoicing with the timbrel and the harp, we are looking anxiously about, fearing the barking of the dogs, lest persecutors should be suddenly at the door; while they are saluted by all around as doctors, masters, lords, we are compelled to hear ourselves called Anabaptists, ale-house preachers, seducers, heretics, and to be hailed in the devil's name. In a word, while they for their ministry are remunerated with annual stipends and prosperous days, our wages are the fire, the sword, the death." His followers were called Mennonites after his death. They acquired at last toleration, first in Holland from Prince William of Orange, 1572, and full liberty in 1626. They spread to the Palatinate, Switzerland, Eastern Prussia, and by emigration to South Russia, Pennsylvania, and other parts of North America. Quite recently several hundred families left their Russian settlements for America because the privilege of exemption from military service was withdrawn. They are a small, quiet, peaceful, industrious, and moral community, like the Quakers. Their historian, Schyn, labors to show that they have no connection whatever with the fanatical and revolutionary Anabaptists of Münster. The Mennonites were divided during the lifetime of Menno into two parties on questions of discipline: 1, the 'coarse' Mennonites (die Groben), or Waterlanders, who were more numerous, and flourished in Schyn, Plenior Deduct. p. 133 (quoted in Introd. to Baptist Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. lxxxii.). Or Doopsgezinden, i. e., Dippers. In Menno's writings they are called Gemeente Gods, ellendige, weerloze Christenen, broeders, etc., but never Mennonites. See Gieseler, Vol. III. Pt. II. p. 92. the Waterland district of North Holland; 2, the 'refined' Mennonites (die Feinen), who were chiefly Flemings, Frieslanders, and Germans. The latter adhered to the strict discipline of the founder. The Mennonites acknowledge 'the Confession of Waterland,' which was drawn up by two of their preachers, John Ris (Hans de Rys) and Lubbert Gerardi (Gerritsz), in the Dutch language.1 It consists of forty Articles, and teaches, besides the common doctrines of Protestant orthodoxy, the peculiar views of this community. It rejects oaths (Art. XXXVIII., on the ground of Matt. v. 37 and James v. 10), war (XVIII.), and secular office-holding, because it is not commanded by Christ and is inconsistent with true Christian character; but it enjoins obedience to the civil magistrate as a divine appointment wherever it does not contradict the Word of God and interfere with ine dictates of conscience (XXXVII.). The Church consists of the faithful and regenerate men scattered over the earth, under Christ the Lord and King (XXIV.). Infant baptism is rejected as unscriptural (XXXI.); but the Mennonites differ from other Baptists by sprinkling. On the Lord's Supper they agree with Zwingli. They admit hereditary sin, but deny its guilt (Art. IV.). They hold to conditional election and universal redemption. But during the Arminian controversy a portion sided with the strict Calvinists. They reject also law-suits, revenge, every kind of violence, and worldly amusements. In many respects they are the forerunners of the Quakers quite as much as of the English and American Baptists. 3 1 Schyn gives a Latin translation, in his Historia Mennonitarum, pp. 172–220, under the title, Præcipuorum Christianæ fidei Articulorum brevis Confessio adornata a Joanne Risio et Lubberto Gerardi. He calls it also Mennonitarum Confessio, or Formula Consensus inter Waterlandos. He says the confessions of the other branches of the Mennonites agree with it in all fundamental articles. Winer (Compar. Darstellung, etc., pp. 24, 25), gives a list of Mennonite Confessions and Catechisms. * One branch of them, the Collegiants or Rhynsburgers, held, however, to the necessity of immersion. They have but recently become extinct, having had among them some men of distinction. 3 Art. VII. derives sin exclusively from the will of man, and teaches that God predestinated and created all men for salvation (omnes decrevit et creavit ad salutem), that he provided the remedy for all, that Christ died for all, and saves all who believe and persevere. Confessions of Faith and other Public Documents illustrative of the History of the Baptist Churches of THOS. CROSBY: The History of the English Baptists, from the Reformation to the Beginning of the Reign ISAAC BACKUS (d. 1806): History of New England, with especial Reference to the Baptists. In 3 vols. A FRANCIS WAYLAND: Notes on the Principles and Practices of the Baptist Churches. New York (Sheldon, SEWALL S. CUTTING: Historical Vindications; .. with Appendices containing Historical Notes and Con- J. M. CRAMP: Baptist History, from the Foundation of the Christian Church to the Close of the Eighteenth J. JACKSON GOADBY: Bye-Paths in Baptist History: A Collection of Interesting, Instructive, and Curious The Baptists and the National Centennial: A Record of Christian Work, 1776-1876. Edited by LEMUEL WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS: Lectures on Baptist History. Philadelphia, 1877. The English and American Baptists have inherited some of the principles without the eccentricities and excesses of the Continental Anabaptists and Mennonites. They are radical but not revolutionary in politics and religion, and as sober, orderly, peaceful, zealous, and devoted as any other class of Christians. They rose simultaneously in England and America during the Puritan conflict, and have become, next to the Methodists, the strongest denomination in the United States. The great body of Baptists are called REGULAR or PARTICULAR or CALVINISTIC BAPTISTS, in distinction from the smaller body of General or Arminian or Free-Will Baptists. They are Calvinists in doctrine and Independents in Church polity, but differ from both in their views on the subjects and mode of baptism. They teach that believers only ought to be baptized, that is, dipped or immersed, on a voluntary confession of their faith. They reject infant baptism as an unscript 'Their older scholars claim an origin earlier than the Continental or the English Reformation, going back to the Waldenses and Albigenses, and to the Lollard movement following, in Britain, the labors of Wycliff. The tradition of the Holland Mennonites gave them a Waldensian ancestry, But these points are disputed, and no historical connection can be traced. ural innovation and profanation of the sacrament, since an infant can not hear the gospel, nor repent and make a profession of faith. They believe, however, in the salvation of all children dying before the age of responsibility. Baptism in their system has no regenerative and saving efficacy: it is simply an outward sign of grace already be stowed, a public profession of faith in Christ to the world, and an entrance into the privileges and duties of church membership.' They also opposed from the start national church establishments, and the union of Church and State, which one of their greatest writers (Robert Hall) calls 'little more than a compact between the priest and the magistrate to betray the liberties of mankind, both civil and relig ious.' They advocate voluntaryism, and make the doctrine of religious freedom, as an inherent and universal right of man, a part of their creed. THE BAPTISTS IN ENGLAND. In England the Baptists were for a long time treated with extreme severity on account of their supposed connection with the fanatical fraction of the German and Dutch Anabaptists. A number of them who had fled from Holland were condemned to death or exiled (1535 and 1539). Latimer speaks, in a sermon before Edward VI., of Anabaptists who were burned to death under Henry VIII., in divers towns, and met their fate 'cheerfully and without any fear.' Under Edward VI. they became numerous in the south of England, especially in Kent and Essex. Two were burned-a Dutchman, named George van Pare, and an English woman, Joan Boucher, usually called Joan of Kent. These were the only executions for heresy during his reign. The young king reluctantly and with tears yielded to Cranmer, who urged on him from the Mosaic law the duty of punishing blas phemy and fundamental heresy. Joan of Kent, besides rejecting infant baptism, was charged with holding the doctrine of some German and Dutch Anabaptists, that Christ's sinless humanity was not taken 'from the substance of the Virgin Mary,' who was a sinner, but was immediately created by God. She resisted every effort of Cranmer to change her views, and preferred martyrdom (May 2, 1550). Several of the Forty-two Edwardine Articles were directed against the Anabaptists. 1 The Campbellites, or Disciples, differ from the other Baptists by identifying baptismal immersion with regeneration, or teaching a concurrence of both acts. |