members" of the Association, and with a refusal to grant letters to any holding such sentiments.

Meanwhile, towards the close of the year 1841, a new association, "The Manhattan," had been constituted, which was received into fellowship by the General Association. This body was orthodox, according to the New England standards, and comprised several worthy ministers of the Gospel in the city of New-York and its vicinity,-some who had not been connected with the New-York Association, and others who had become dissatisfied with the course of that body in the matters referred to above; but as few of these ministers occupied conspicuous posts among the churches, and as no public manifesto of theological sentiments was ever put forth by the body, its character and position were generally misunderstood, and it fell into undeserved reproach and neglect among other ecclesiastical bodies in New-York, and even among the Congregationalists of New England.

But a new era for Congregationalism in New-York now be gan. The success of the Broadway Tabernacle Church had established beyond contradiction the fact that Congregationalism could flourish upon this soil. The years 1844-'47,witnessed the organization of several Congregational churches in New-York and Brooklyn, in which were included many of the wealthy, liberal and energetic friends of Christ in the two cities, and also the erection of several commodious, tasteful, and even costly houses for Christian worship according to the Congregational order. In these circumstances, it was deemed expedient by the pastors of these churches, after consultation with the brethren of the Manhattan Association, to organize an association which should be a fair exponent of the character, the strength and the principles of the Congregational denomination in New York.

Accordingly, a convention of Congregational ministers was called for this purpose at the Broadway Tabernacle, June, 1846, which having resolved that it was expedient to organize a new association, appointed a committee to draft a Constitution to be submitted at an adjourned meeting.

At that meeting, March 16, 1847, a new association was

formed under the name of the CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NEW-YORK AND BROOKLYN. Its. present membership appears on page 170 of this volume. Its Articles of Faith are those of the General Association of New York, of which the following is a copy :

CONFESSION OF FAITH.

ARTICLE I. There is only one living and true God, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth; subsisting in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the same in essence, and equal in every divine perfection.

ART. II. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God, and are the only perfect rule of faith and practice.

ART. III. God hath foreordained and worketh all things according to his eternal purpose, and the counsel of his own will.

ART. IV. God executes his purposes in the work of Creation and Providence, in such a way as to secure his own glory, and the highest good of the moral system, and yet in perfect consistency with the free moral agency of his intelligent creatures.

ART. V. Our first parents were created holy, and by voluntary transgression became sinners, justly exposed to eternal punishment.

ART. VI. In consequence of the transgression of our first parents, all their posterity became sinners, and are, in their natural, unregenerated state, totally sinful, and by the law of God condemned to eternal death.

ART. VII. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God and man in one person, has, by his sufferings and death, made a complete atonement for all mankind, and thereby laid a foundation for the offer of a free and full pardon, which is made indiscriminately to all, on the condition of repentance for sin, and faith in Christ.

ART. VIII. Mankind in their natural state universally reject the offers of salvation, performing nothing acceptable to God until renewed by the special influences of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, in order to salvation, must be born again.

ART. IX. God has, in the Covenant of Redemption, given to Christ, a part of mankind, who were from all eternity predestinated to be holy, and to be heirs of eternal glory; and by the agency of the Holy Spirit renews them, after his own moral image, and causes them to persevere in holy obedience unto the end.

ART. X. The Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead on the third day, and ever liveth to make intercession for his people, governing all things for their good; and by virtue of his atonement, as the only meritorious cause, procures their justification, adoption, and final salvation.

ART. XI. A church is a congregation of Christians, professing faith in Christ, and obedience to him, and joined in covenant for ordinary communion in the Ordinances of the Gospel; invested with power to choose its own officers, to admit members, and to exercise government and discipline according to the rules of the Gospel.

ART. XII. Christ has appointed two sacraments to be observed in the churchBaptism and the Lord's Supper; the latter to be administered to professed belieyers in Christ who give credible evidence of piety; the former to them and their children.

ART. XIII. The first day of the week is the Christian Sabbath, and is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, even from such worldly employments as are lawful on other days, and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in necessary works of mercy.

ART. XIV. The souls of believers are, at their death, made perfectly holy, and immediately taken to glory. At the end of the world there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a final judgment of all mankind, when the Saints shall be publicly acquitted by Christ the Judge, and admitted to endless life and glory and those who have continued in their sins shall be doomed to endless punishment.

1

PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS

OF

CONGREGATIONALISM.*

THAT the germ of Congregationalism is found in the New Test ament, can be believed, without supposing that this particular system of church polity, or any other, was fully developed in all its parts during the lifetime of the apostles; without even supposing that this, or any other, was intended to be made a distinct subject of divine legislation. It should be sufficient authority for any ecclesiastical usage, if the principles of the gospel, carried into consistent practice amid all the circumstances which Providence has arranged, shall naturally and necessarily bring in that usage. Hence the manner in which Congregationalism took its rise in New England, renders it sufficiently divine.

Its beginnings are thus set forth by Dr. Cotton Mather in his historical notes on the Cambridge Platform. "The churches of New England, enjoying so much rest and growth as they had now seen for some sevens of years, it was, upon many accounts, necessary for them to make such a declaration of the church order, wherein the good hand of God had moulded them, as might convey and secure the like order unto the following generations. Next unto the Bible, which was the professed, perpetual, and only directory of these churches, they had no platform of church government more exact than their famous John Cotton's well known book of 'The Keyes.'

*This paper was prepared by Dr. J. S. Clark, and published in the "Christian Obser vatory," for Aug., 1847. Its value, as a historical document, seems to demand a wider circulation and a more permanent form-we give it, therefore, with one or two trifling alterations; a paragraph is also added, to bring it down to the present time, so far as it relates to Massachusetts.

This language is intelligible; and the idea, beautiful. A company of conscientious Christians, fleeing from an oppressive hierarchy because it hinders the development of pure Christianity, making the wilderness their home because it affords them "freedom to worship God," selecting their own religious teachers by popular vote, and these teachers taking the Bible as their "professed, perpetual, and only directory" in the administration of their affairs, commence their career in this secluded spot, far from all other restraint than that which Christ, their acknowledged Sovereign, imposes. In these untrammelled circumstances, each body of believers assumes its own independent form; a form, which, owing to similarity of sentiment and condition, will be very likely to have a sameness in its essential features, with considerable variety in its minor details. At length, in 1648, they come together, not to enact a code of ecclesiastical laws, not even to construct an original system of church polity; but simply to compare notes and usages, and commit to writing that system which had already sprung into use among them. And thus make "a declaration of the Church order wherein the good hand of God hath moulded them."

The declaration thus made was the Cambridge Platform, which has ever since been regarded as the ground-plan of New England Congregationalism. And when it is considered that this system of ecclesi. astical polity was not concocted by any one man, nor body of men, but is simply a transcript of the usages, "a declaration of the church order," which sprang up spontaneously among an intelligent, devout, and conscientious fraternity of churches, who had as yet no denominational preferences to consult, who went to the Scripture for all their rules, even in the minutest affairs of life, it will be seen in what high sense it claims to be divinely authorized, and on what strong grounds it rests that claim. Coming up in this way, it gives incomparably better evidence of its being from God, than if it had been devised and decreed by the wisest council of bishops that Christendom ever saw.

The whole number of churches in Massachusetts at the time this Synod met at Cambridge, in 1648, was thirty-nine. If to these be added four others gathered in Connecticut, three in New Hampshire, and one Baptist church in Rhode Island, we have the entire ecclesiastical map of New England, twenty-seven years after the landing at Plymouth, and seventeen after the settlement at Boston. It exhibits forty-six Congregational churches, gathered from a population of something less than thirty thousand, or one distinct church organ