Christian Sects in the Nineteenth Century

by Caroline Frances Cornwallis

5. As to the whole system of discipline, Ecclesiastical Courts, &c.

6. As to certain points of Calvinistic theology.

The Independents differ from the Presbyterians chiefly in three points, namely:

1. As to ordination, and the liberty of preaching.

2. As to the political form and constitution of church government, and the conditions of church communion.

3. As to the grounds and limits of religious liberty.

“Ordination alone,” say the Independents, “without the precedent consent of the Church by those who formerly have been advanced by virtue of that power they have received by their ordination, doth not constitute any person a church officer, or communicate office power unto him.” The Presbyterians on the other hand deny that the mere invitation and choice of the people could confer the pastoral office, or that it was even a pre-requisite. The Independents seem to have identified the ministerial function with the pastoral office; and argued that it was absurd to ordain an officer without a province to exercise the office in. Their opponents viewed the Christian ministry more as an order invested with certain inherent powers; a faculty or profession endowed with peculiar privileges, the admission into which required to be jealously guarded; and this power and authority they conceive could be transmitted by those of the order. All approved candidates for the ministerial office among the Presbyterians, are ordained without reference to any local change; among the Independents no probationer is ordained till he has been appointed to the pastoral office. The first Independent or Congregational Church in England was established by a Mr. Jacob, a.d. 1616, though it is asserted that a Mr. Robinson was the founder of this sect, of which Dr. John Owen, Dr. Isaac Watts, Dr. Doddridge, and Job Orton were members.

The following extracts are from the discourses of Robert Hall, who, though a Baptist, dissented from most of his brethren on the subject of strict communion. He was a preacher both of Baptist and Independent congregations, but he did not hesitate to avow that “he had more fellowship of feeling for an Independent or a Presbyterian than for a close communion Baptist.” His system of theological tenets was on the model of what has come to be denominated “Moderate Calvinism.” With regard to the distinctive Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination, “I cannot,” says his biographer, “answer for the precise terms in which he would have stated it, but I presume he would have accepted those employed by the Church of England. In preaching he very rarely made any express reference to that doctrine.”

“Jesus Christ did not come, let it be remembered, to establish a mere external morality, that his followers might be screened from human laws and human justice, for human laws will take care of this. The holy institution of Christianity has a nobler object, that of purifying our hearts and regulating our behaviour by the love of God. In the most practical accounts of the proceedings of the last day given in the Scriptures, the excellency which is represented as being a criterion and distinguishing feature of the disciple of Christ, and which He will acknowledge, is: Christian benevolence—love to man manifested in the relief of the poor. The Apostle St. John has given us a most sublime description of the love of God, when he says, ‘God is love;’ love is not so much an attribute of His nature as His very essence; the spirit of Himself. Christian benevolence is not only the ‘image of God,’ but is peculiarly an imitation of Christ.” “I do not ask, my brethren, what particular virtue you have, but how much are you under the influence of Him? for just so much virtue we have, as we have of His spirit and character.” “Our Saviour places the acceptance of men, not upon their dispositions, but upon their actions; upon what they have done, not upon what they have merely believed or felt, or in any undefined state of mind.”—“I am persuaded that the cause of the ruin of professing Christians does not arise so much from a mistake of the doctrines of Christianity as from a low idea of Christian morals; in abstaining from certain crimes and disorders through fear of the loss of character and of punishment, without reflecting on the spirit of that holy religion which we profess.”—“Christ went about doing good, not as an occasional exercise, but as his employment; it was the one thing which he did. Though possessed of infinite power, he never employed it in resenting or retaliating an injury. He was pre-eminently devout. His was an active life; it was not the life of a solitary monk. That devotion which terminates in itself is a luxury which sometimes perverts the principles of benevolence to a pernicious purpose. Let us rather recede from being called Christians than forget the great symbol of our profession, love to one another.”