No deacons, having authority together with the minister, existed in Presbyterian Churches, and the control of affairs rested chiefly, if not entirely, with one presiding person, except where there might be a plurality of pastors. The question of individual admission to fellowship was decided by the wisdom and the care of the presbyter or bishop, not by the deliberation or vote of the Church; and the decision and administration of discipline would naturally fall into the same hands as those which had opened the door of entrance to the enjoyment of ecclesiastical privileges. One of the last things which the Presbyterians accomplished, in reference to their separate and permanent existence as a religious body, appears, indeed, one of the first things essential to that existence. The ordination of others to succeed in the ministry must be reckoned a primary measure, requisite for the existence of Nonconformist Churches; yet it seems not to have been until the year 1672, that any Presbyterian orders were conferred after the Restoration. The first solemn act of this description, with which I am acquainted, was performed in Manchester, at a house in Deans’-gate, by five presbyters; and it is worthy of notice that those so ordained were not novitiates, but persons who had been engaged for several years in preaching the Gospel.[232] Subsequently, several instances of ordination occur, but the ceremony continued, up to the time of the Revolution, to be observed in private. As in the days of the Commonwealth, so still, a careful examination of the candidates preceded the service: Latin themes, and theological debates in the same language were required, and after a confession of faith had been made by the young minister, there followed the imposition of hands, and a solemn ordination-prayer, the right hand of fellowship being afterwards given to him in token of his admission to the ministerial brotherhood.[233]
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
The form of Church government, approved at Westminster, 1645, had declared that “it is agreeable to the Word of God, and very expedient, that such as are to be ordained ministers, be designed to some particular Church, or other ministerial charge;”[234] but from this rule the Presbyterians deviated after the Restoration, perhaps not so much from any change in judgment, as from a change in circumstances—scattered flocks and unsettled times rendering a general provision for perpetuating the ministry alone convenient or practicable.
In these ways innovations arose upon the old Presbyterian system, but a more important change occurred in the gradual leavening of the whole body with a more tolerant spirit. Presbyterians had persecuted “the sects,” or had connived at their persecution, but now, often having to share with them in the endurance of sorrow, they came to regard them with brotherly kindness and charity. The principle of religious liberty had once filled them with alarm, their own freedom for a long while could not satisfy their wishes, but they now came to see, that their return to the Establishment being precluded by insurmountable barriers, they must make common cause with those who were in a like position with themselves, and the liberty which they had learned to value, they must also learn to concede. The discipline of circumstances has played no small part in the education of mankind. Great principles have, indeed, on rare occasions, flashed on minds of the highest order with a kind of inspiration; but, in the cases of most men, the knowledge of truths lying below the surface, has but slowly arisen, and gradually dawned. Now and then some momentous doctrine has been struck out as by fire—resembling the fusile process, when a bronze statue is cast, and at once it comes from the mould complete—but commonly the acquisition of important principles may be compared to the hewing of marble, and the carving of oak, by a patient, laborious, and oft-repeated application of the chisel.
The history of Congregationalism after the Restoration is a history of development. Between Presbyterianism and an Establishment there are strong affinities; but there are insuperable difficulties connected with the maintenance of Congregational order in a parish, and the only real kind of Congregational Church, formed by any incumbent under the Commonwealth, had to be practically severed from the legal position which he held as a parochial clergyman. When, therefore, upon the fall of Cromwell’s Broad Church, the bark of Congregationalism was cut completely adrift from its State moorings, it was, so far as intervals of peace would allow, left to make its way, under God’s blessing, by the efforts of the rowers whom it carried on board.
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
Independents and Baptists are included under the general denomination of Congregationalists. Independents retired into obscurity for a while after the Restoration. The doors of buildings where they had been wont to assemble were nailed up; the pastors were driven out; flocks were scattered; the administration of ordinances could not take place; and meetings could not be held, as the still existing records of communities, which had been prosperous under the Commonwealth, bear ample witness. There is reason to believe that the Independents had diminished in number. The Court influence in their favour, which they enjoyed so long as the Protector, Oliver, lived, would die when he died; and those who had joined their company, so long as the sun shone on their side of the street, and who had walked with them in silver slippers, would forsake their old companions, and go another way when the path was overshadowed, and the silver slippers were changed for spiked sandals. The political antecedents of the Independents as a party, their allegiance to Oliver Cromwell, the sympathy of many of them in Republican ideas, and their supposed complicity in the execution of Charles I., combined to make them exceedingly unpopular with the Royalists, whilst their democratic notions of Church government appeared most offensive to Episcopalians; consequently, to maintain a position under so much odium, and to withstand the steady fire of persecution, required a degree of faith, and a measure of decision, not very common in this world, where the love of ease and the sacrifice of principle too frequently set the fashion.
The principles of Congregationalism, however, proved their vitality, and although assemblies of Church-members were unfrequent, or were altogether discontinued for a while, the identity of Churches was preserved, and whenever an opportunity presented itself, the scattered ones gladly re-united in the pleasant fellowship after which they yearned.
Congregational principles had received a definite expression in the Savoy Declaration. The Independents had petitioned Oliver Cromwell for permission to hold a synod, which he had reluctantly conceded. After his death, they assembled on the 29th of September, and having conferred together, reached certain theological and ecclesiastical conclusions, which they published to the world.[235] To their confession, which is substantially the same as the Westminster Confession of Faith, they added a clear outline of ecclesiastical order; and, whereas the covenants or mutual agreements into which Congregationalists had entered at the formation of their Churches, in the time of the Civil Wars, generally contained some references to further light breaking in upon them from God’s Word, we discover, in the Savoy Declaration, no language whatever of that kind, and it seems to be assumed in the document that Congregationalism, as to the knowledge of its principles, had by that period attained to something like completeness.
The following were fundamental propositions.