he calls Brownists,' as to own them for our

'fathers,' yet neither do we put so much dishonor upon them as to 'heap coals of contumely' upon their heads: we look not on them with contempt, but compassion."* Mr. Cotton concurred in sentiment with the excellent John Robinson, who, in his parting instructions to that part of his flock which was about to proceed from Leyden to the Plymouth rock, recommended them to use "all means to avoid and shake off the name of Brownist, being a mere nickname, and brand, to make religion odious, and the professors of it, to the Christian world." Our fathers held indeed, that every congregation is completely independent of all others as to jurisdiction and authoritative control; but not as to other forms of connection arising from common interests and reciprocal affections. They carefully cherished an intercourse of mutual respect, and confidence, and love, an interchange of counsels, and aids, and fraternal offices; which they styled "the communion of churches." The judicious and moderate opinions of our fathers are well expressed by Thomas Shepard :-"We utterly dislike such Independency as that which is maintained

* Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, p. 9, 10. Young's Chronicles, p. 397.

by contempt, or careless neglect, of sister churches. We utterly dislike such dependency of churches upon others, as is built upon usurpations and spoils of particular churches."*

The Puritans loved church unity;-not a mere nominal and formal union, where there is neither life nor similarity; a union well compared by Leighton to that of sticks and stones when frozen together; a union consisting in a bare outward uniformity, under which is concealed the bitterest scorn and hate. They prized "the unity of the faith," and sought to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace:" and this was nearly all they deemed important.

Great efforts have been made to effect a uniformity of government and worship, which should bring all christendom into one ecclesiastical establishment, with unvarying modes and forms. There are men whose notion of the church is like a system of gas-pipes in a great city, branching in all directions, yet meeting at last in one main trunk, which is regarded with senseless awe, and mystic veneration as "the great centre of visible unity." Very different is the Gospel view, which shows every par

* Treatise of Liturgies, &c., p. 114. 1653.

VOL. I. 13

ticular church to be built directly on Christ as the foundation, and to be no otherwise connected with other churches, except as through him who is as the common foundation of them all. So too each believer, by himself, is a branch of the true vine, deriving life and nourishment, not mediately through ramified boughs of dependence and long limbs of distant succession; but immediately from Christ himself, in whom all the branches grow, who is the only vital bond of union between them. All real Christian union circulates through him from church to church, and from heart to heart. This hallowed bond is not an indefinitely extended chain of which only the head-link fastens directly upon the mediatorial throne. Every believer is himself in Christ. The disciples are one in him, and only in him. To all of them his Spirit is imparted directly from himself; and this unites them by pervading them all.

A Catholic Christian union already exists, so far as the different denominations rest upon the true foundation. An old divine has said, "I have seen a field here, and another there, stand thick with corn. An hedge or two has parted them. At the proper season, the reapers entered. Soon the earth was disburthened, and the grain was conveyed to the destined place;

where, blended together in the barn, or in the stack, it could not be known that a hedge once separated this corn from that. Thus it is with the church. Here it grows, as it were, in different fields, severed, it may be, by various hedges. By and by, when the harvest is come, all God's wheat shall be gathered into the garner, without one single mark to distinguish that once they differed in the outward circumstantials of modes and forms."

The "high-church" temper does not accord with the genius of Congregationalism. We are not of those who are never sure that they are actually in the temple, until they find themselves perched upon its topmost pinnacle. Such as these, Dean Kennet speaks of, as having lost their Christianity in the name of the church. Luther describes them as 66 attributing more power to the church which is begotten and born, than to the Word which hath begotten, conceived, and borne the church." Of such men, John Cotton used to say, “They are all church, and no Christ."

SECTION II.

NATURE AND POWERS OF THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE.

The fathers of New England held that the officers of the church are of two sorts. One of these is variously spoken of as pastors, teachers, elders, presbyters, bishops, overseers, and other names indicative of the nature of their calling, and its duties. These all stand upon an equality as regards rank and authority. There is no difference among them, except such as make any man to differ from his political equals, arising from diversity of talents, attainments, or moral worth. Hence the office holds out no temptation to those ambitious aspirants, whose whole desire is to reach some station superior to that of their fellows. There is no contending which shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, so long as there is no such condition acknowledged there. Each looks his brother in the eye, without receiving from him the glance of arrogance, or casting upon him that of uneasy inferiority. The primitive parochial bishops of the old "standing order" in Massachusetts, look with pity on those dissenting presbyters, who sink the dignity of their