THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA. ARTICLE I. ECCLESIASTICAL QUESTIONS IN THE NA- BY THE LATE REV. A. HASTINGS ROSS, D. D., PORT HURON, MICH. THE SOUTHERN QUESTION. IN reviewing certain ecclesiastical questions which have appeared in the National Council of the Congregational churches of the United States, we give the first place to the Southern question, as it is the most vital. There was a sharp contention over it at Worcester, in 1889, and again at Minneapolis, in 1892. How did it happen that in both Councils. principles and practices which should have admitted at once the delegates from certain conferences in Georgia and in Alabama to seats in the Council, were invoked to keep them out? It is worthy of inquiry how a method of procedure in fellowship, foreign in its origin, subversive of our constitutive principle, and therefore revolutionary, obtained such currency in Georgia and Alabama as to hinder union there among our churches, and in the North as to stir two Councils as nothing else had stirred them, except the attempt in the last Council to belittle the question of representation of our churches in their benevolent and missionary societies. VOL. L. NO. 200. Fortunately the outcome of the discussion in each Council was substantially in harmony with our polity. Origin of Congregational Churches in Georgia and Alabama. This inquiry is necessary in order to explain how the Southern question came into the National Council. About the year 1850, the elements of a separation from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, began to take form, largely in consequence of "the degraded station which local ministers were obliged to take and maintain in said church. Although a great deal of the work of the church was done by them, they were neither allowed to exercise any governing function, nor to have any voice in saying who should govern either their converts or themselves. This truth, perhaps, was to a greater extent operative in the production of the Congregational Methodist Church than any other one thing. The great sun and centre of their system was the desire that there should be no artificial, unscriptural, and hurtful distinction among" the ministers of Christ. Two years later, in 1852, the cleavage began, and the Congregational Methodist Church emerged, "whose doctrine [was] exactly Methodistic," but "whose government [was] in accordance with our civil institutions and their own ideas of propriety." This communion, born of the love of Christian liberty, like our own and the "Mission Union" in Sweden, spread into several Southern States, being Methodist in doctrine and Congregational in polity, numbering, in 1881, about twenty thousand members. At a date not far from 1886 a movement of these churches towards union with the Congregational churches began. It was found that the doctrinal basis of the National Council and the creed issued by the 1 1 Origin and Early History of the Congregational Methodist Church, by Rev. S. C. McDaniel, pp. 13, 14. Commission of the Council in 1883 presented no barrier to union, while in polity the two bodies were substantially one. Conference and correspondence helped on the movement, until, in 1888, about fifty Congregational Methodist churches in Georgia, and later some sixty-three in Alabama, sought organic fellowship with the Congregational churches of the country. These churches were composed almost wholly of whites, and were organized into bodies which they called "conferences," which term designates them throughout this article. They naturally sought union with the Congregational churches in Georgia and in Alabama, where the movement began. As soon as the civil war had opened the way, the American Missionary Association, supported almost wholly by the Congregational churches of the Northern States, penetrated the South with its schools and churches, composed largely of emancipated slaves. These churches appeared in our YearBook in 1869,-Georgia with three churches, and Alabama with one. Not until 1880 were these two States represented in our National Council, when Alabama had fifteen Congregational churches, and Georgia twelve. Their delegates were enrolled without debate or question; those from Alabama under the name of “General Conference" in 1880 and 1883, but under the name "Congregational Association" in 1886, 1889, and 1892; those from Georgia under the term "Conference" in 1880, "Congregational Association" in 1883, "General Congregational Association" in 1886, and "Congregational Association" in 1889. We shall call these bodies" associations" in this paper. When the controversy first arose in 1889, the Association of Georgia, composed of the thirteen churches planted and fostered by the American Missionary Association, had a recognized standing in our connection, while the conferences of the Congregational Methodist Church, seeking connection with us, embraced about fifty churches in that State. They came organized as conferences, wishing to retain their organizations. Possible Methods of Union. Two ways of effecting the desired connection seemed possible, and as the Association of Georgia preferred, under advice, one method, and the conferences preferred the other, the contention arose which was carried into the National Council. One way was, that the fifty churches individually or in conferences should join the association of thirteen churches, as the existing State Association already admitted to representation in the National Council. This plan seemed. plausible. But the thirteen churches of the association occupied but parts of eight counties in a State of one hundred and thirty-eight counties; and it looked a little presumptuous for so small a body to claim to be the State Association in the face of fifty churches seeking our fellowship. The other way-the one preferred by the churches coming to us-was, to hold a convention of all the churches in the State, or of the one association and of the several conferences into which the churches were divided, as co-ordinate bodies, and thus by united action constitute a State body, embracing all churches and local bodies on terms of equality. This latter seemed to be the courteous and Christian way, whatever rights the association may have acquired in virtue of its recognition by the National Council. But which of these methods was supported by the principles and usages of our churches? The latter was not only the courteous and Christian, but also and emphatically The Congregational Way. Our polity is singular in holding that every fully constituted congregation of believers is, under Christ, independent of all external authority in matters pertaining to it as a spiritual body. Even the common principle of fel lowship is subject to this constitutive principle, namely, the completeness of each church in itself. Hence associations of such churches can have no other authority than to admit and exclude members in the exercise of the reciprocal rights of fellowship. On the same principle, as one church is in essential character equal to any other church, so one association of such churches is equal to any other association of similar churches. A few churches may not therefore preempt a State by uniting in a prior organization therein, and then compel all other Congregational churches and associations or conferences in that State to unite with them on their own terms in order to a wider fellowship. The churches and associations subsequently formed, by virtue of their independency, possess the same rights, privileges, and freedom as those first organized. This is the logical and the inevitable outcome of their independency. Priority in birth and affiliation gives, on Congregational principles, no rights not enjoyed by the churches later formed. The last born is equal to the first born, in all that makes it a church of Christ. And the same is true of co-ordinate associations or conferences of churches. If priority of origin and representation could give the association first in a State the right to preempt that State, i. e. to be recognized as the State body, then all churches and associations subsequently formed, would need to join it, in order to representation in the National Council as united in a State organization. Then such prior organization by its constitution could, if it would, exclude from membership therein all churches that admitted Free Masons, Odd Fellows, and members of other fraternities to their communion, and so from their full representation in the National Council, as they could not unite with the State body. But, it may be said, that the prior associations of Georgia and Alabama were, in fact, recognized by the National 1 Constitution of the National Council, II. 2. |