A Government within a Government.
The Saybrook Platform subdivides into a Confession of Faith, the Heads of Agreement, and the Fifteen Articles.
The Confession of Faith is merely a recommendation of the Savoy Confession as reaffirmed by the Synod of Boston or the Reforming Synod of 1680.
The Heads of Agreement are but a repetition of the articles that, under the same title, were passed in London, in 1691, by fourteen delegates from the Presbyterian and English Congregational churches. Both parties to the Agreement had hoped thereby to establish more firmly their churches and to give them the strength and dignity of a strongly united body. The Heads of Agreement were drafted by three men, Increase Mather, the Massachusetts colonial agent to England, Matthew Mead, a Congregationalist, and John Hone, a Presbyterian, who in his earlier years and by training was a Congregationalist. Naturally, between the influence of the framers and the necessity for including the two religious bodies, this platform inclined towards Congregationalism, but equal necessity led it away from the freedom of the Cambridge Platform, after which it was patterned.
In the Heads of Agreement, the composition of the church is defined according to Congregational standards, as is also the election of its officers. The definition of the powers of the church is not strictly Congregational, because initiative action and governing powers are intrusted to the eldership, while, to the brethren, there is given only the privilege of assenting to such measures as the elders may place before them. The membership in the church, as defined, is semi-Congregational; i. e., in order to become members, persons must be "grounded in the Fundamental Doctrines of religion" and lead moral lives, but they are eligible to communion only after the declaration of their desire "to walk together according to Gospel Rule." Concerning this declaration the statement is made that "different degrees of Expliciteness shall in no way hinder such Churches from owning each other as Instituted Churches." Furthermore, no one should be pressed to declare the time and manner of his conversion as proof of his fitness to be received as a communicant. Such an account would, however, be welcome. With reference to parochial bounds, introduced into the primitive Congregationalism of New England, but always existing in the English Presbyterian system, the Heads of Agreement declare them to be "not of Divine Right" but—
for common Edification that church members should live near one another, nor ought they to forsake their church for another without its consent and recommendation.
In respect to the ministry, the Heads of Agreement affirm that it should be learned and competent and approved; that ordinarily, pastors should be considered as ministers only while they continue in office over the church that elected them to its ministry; that ordinarily, in their choosing and calling, advice should be sought from neighboring churches, and that they should be ordained with the aid of neighboring pastors. In the matter of installation into a new office of an elder, previously ordained, churches are to exercise the right of individual judgment and of preference as to reordination. This same right of preference is to be exercised in deciding whether or not a church should support a ruling elder. The Heads of Agreement assert that in the intercommunion of churches there is to be no subordination among them, and that there ought to be frequent friendly consultations between their "Officers." There are to be "Occasional Meetings of Ministers" of several churches to consult and advise upon "weighty and difficult cases," and to whose judgments, "particular Churches, their respective Elders and Members, ought to have a reverential regard, and not dissent therefrom, without apparent grounds from the word of God." The Heads of Agreement command churches to yield obedience and support to the civil authority and to be ready at all times to give the magistrates an account of their affairs.
The Heads of Agreement were the most liberal part of the Saybrook Platform, and were not considered sufficiently authoritative. Accordingly,—
for the Better Regulation of the Administration of Chh Discipline in Relation to all Cases Ecclesiastical both in Particular Chhs and In Councils to the full Determining and Executing of the Rules in all such cases,[57]—
were added certain resolutions, known as the "Fifteen Articles." They are in reality the Platform, for all that goes before them is but a reaffirmation of principles already accepted, and the new thing in the document, the advance in ecclesiasticism, is the increased authority permitted and, later, enforced by these Fifteen Articles.