The law of Congregational usage

Front matter

V-

4.°-^

BOOKS ON CHURCH POLITY

Preface

It is now a full half century since Dr. Henry M. Dexter published his "Congregationalism: What It Is; Whence It Is; How It Works." During these fifty years several briefer works and one large volume on our polity have appeared, but nothing that takes the place of that notable treatise, now long since out of print. If any other anniversary than the semi-centennial of Dr. Dexter's great book were needed to suggest the fitness of a modern work on the subject, such an event could easily be found in the swift approach of the Ter-centennary of the Landing of the Pilgrims.

Many changes have occurred in our polity in the last fifty years. Other changes, doubtless, will occur in the years to come. Ours is a growing polity, and the time will never come when it can be treated as a completed study. But the notable changes wrought by the National Council in 1913, and the general plans for the missionary organizations adopted in 191 5, register the logical consummation of some movements that have been in evolution among us, and enable us to know in part and to prophesy in part. Our denominational development may be considered as having arrived at a degree of completeness so far as these recent changes are concerned. There is not likely to be a better time than now for the consideration of our progress as a denomination in the matter of government and administration.

Five years ago the author issued his pocket Congregational Manual, now in its seventh edition. The present work is not designed in any way to make that book less necessary or useful than it has proved to be. Very few paragraphs are identical in the two books. The present large volume leaves three of the four divisions of the Manual untouched — those on Parliamentary Law, Documentary Forms, and Orders of Service. This book is in viii THE LAW OF CONGREGATIONAL USAGE

some sort an enlargement of the remaining section of the Manual, that on Congregational Theory and Practice. In this regard it sustains to the author's Pocket Manual essentially the same relation that Dexter's "Congregationalism" and Ross's "Church-Kingdom" sustained to their respective Handbooks.

Yet this is not all the author has endeavored to accomplish in the present work. Ever since the publication of his Pocket Manual he has cherished the hope and purpose of writing a book which might show not only what Congregational Polity is, but also how it has come to be what it is. Some of our denominational methods can be rightly evaluated only in the light of their development. Some of our present customs may not be permanent; and if we do not return by the way whence we have come, a knowledge of that way may at least assist us in our progress toward a more stable method.

This book is not a history of Congregationalism, nor even a history of Congregational Polity. But it seeks to set forth current Congregational usage with a sufficient historic background to afford a basis of judgment concerning its progress. To this end, the principal topics discussed contain not only the author's own judgment of current usage, but also quotations from eminent authorities, both of the present and the past. In many instances these quotations express the same general view as that of the author, and tend to establish a consensus of opinion. In other instances they are quoted as showing how customs have changed or are in process of changing. It is earnestly hoped, and fully expected, that no careless reader will regard the author as undervaluing the contributions which earlier writers have made to Congregational Polity because in some instances he records a different method than that which they recorded. As they set forth faithfully the theory and practice of their own day, so the author endeavors to do in his day. As not everything recorded by them proved permanent, so not every method or custom herein recorded

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will be permanent. It is enough if each in his own day perform a needful service.

A word may be said as to the literary form in which the subject matter is presented. Each topic is introduced in a question. This method is chosen partly because of the advantage of a direct approach to the topics considered, and partly because many of these topics came to the author in this form, and are therefore actual questions that have risen in the experience of pastors and churches, some of them not answered adequately in books hitherto available. While the author has not been unmindful of the possible disadvantage of following this method throughout, and might have preferred in the case of some of the topics to have employed another form, it has seemed well to follow a uniform style with respect to the introduction of the subjects. In the later editions of Dr. Dexter's notable work appeared an appendix containing a list of questions which had been propounded to him in the years of his useful service to the churches, and these with the answers form an exceedingly valuable part of his book, as all who have used it are aware. Recent years have given rise to many questions, and perhaps there is no principal topic in Congregational usage which has not been presented to the author at one time or another. In the five years since the Pocket Manual was issued, he has been called into counsel in the matter of the organization of churches, and of the reorganization of district associations, state conferences, and the National Council. This service, as it has been as varied as it well could be, and it is hoped that the author has been able to put into this book some principles which he has learned out of a somewhat wide experience, and which will prove of real value to others.

A large portion of this book consists of actual questions that have been asked by ministers and churches, and the actual answers that have been given them. The people who asked the questions did not know that they were contributing to the making of a book, and were less careful to x THE LAW OF CONGREGATIONAL USAGE

divide their questions from all others that might have been asked than they were to get the information which might meet their immediate requirements. In the editing of the material, an effort has been made to eliminate needless duplication; but I have still preferred to treat each case with adequate fullness, even at the risk of incidental repetition, than to bring the subject matter into too severe bondage to precise logical division. As a consequence, there are not many cross-references in this book, a feature which I hope will be counted a sufficient virtue to excuse whatever duplication of material may appear.

I have not labored to make this book large, but to keep it within reasonable limits of size. I realized at the outset that the volume would be large, and must be large ; there is no call for another small book on this topic. It is large; but there lie before me two piles of manuscript, one of that which goes into the book, and the other of what I had gathered for it but have been able to eliminate, and the pile that is not to be printed is larger than the other. Doubtless I should have done better had I interchanged some of the material in the two piles ; but I have done my work under the pressure of many burdens, pastoral, editorial and professorial, and if I had waited and sorted till the work should have been perfect, it could never have appeared in print, and meantime would have been growing till the reading world of church polity could not have contained the books that might have been made of the material.

Let me call attention to the indexes, for on them I have spent much labor, and I wish the reader to avail himself of its results. This book is primarily a text-book, covering the whole field of the theory and practice of self-governing churches. But it is also a work of reference, intended for the man who wants information on a single point, and wants it quickly. For his sake I have made a table of contents containing not only the chapter-headings, but the full list, with folio numbers, of the questions treated under each general caption. This in itself will be, I hope, a quick guide

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XI to the material of the book. As for that material itself, it is virtually a catechism, with practical questions, and direct answers, followed in some instances by quotations of authorities, quickly distinguished from the body of the text by a difference in type. There is also a full alphabetical index of subjects, more minute than the table of contents. I have added also a bibliography and a list of authors cited, and under the latter have given, not only the pages on which quotations from those respective authors may be found, but the matter treated in each separate quotation; so that if a reader remembers to have seen in this book an important quotation from an eminent authority, and that author has been quoted twenty times, the reader will not be compelled, as I sometimes have been in the use of other books, to make nineteen futile explorations before finding what he wants.

The Bibliography and List of Authors Quoted do not agree. There are authors whose books I have had occasion to refer to somewhat frequently but from which I have made no quotations; and there are authors who have no proper place in the bibliography of this subject who nevertheless have afforded an important quotation on some particular topic under discussion.

The reader will discover that in the latter part of the book I have given more space to the treatment of certain questions than the proportion which might have been indicated by the first part. The reason is that these more recent developments of our polity have little or no place in earlier books, and have seemed to merit some discussion and historical development. I have been less concerned with questions of proportion and consistency of method than with the attempt to give to those who are to use this book the information which they require. In matters long established among us, some things can be taken for granted ; but in matters recently adopted, or still in their experimental stages, more of explanation, and even in some cases of discussion, appears to me desirable.

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I have had free access to the Library of Chicago Theological Seminary, and during my summer vacation to the Congregational Library in Boston. During the National Council in New Haven last month, I was able to steal a few precious hours from the meetings and to spend them among the books in Dr. Dexter's incomparable collection in the Library of Yale University. The time, painfully short, enabled me to verify some quotations from early authorities and to add a few others from superlatively rare books. For special courtesies shown me in these libraries, my hearty thanks are extended. But the conditions under which I have done my work have made it necessary that I should depend for the most part upon my own books.

It is quite needless to acknowledge here the indebtedness of the author to those who have gone before him. That indebtedness will appear on almost every page. The method of the book is one that permits a partial acknowledgment under almost every topic ; but the direct quotations credited to their proper authorities do not fully measure the debt. Perhaps those who have contributed the most toward the making of this book, and who deserve the foremost word of thanks, are the hundreds of correspondents in every part of the country who have asked these questions.

One name, however, may and should be mentioned, that of Rev. John P. Sanderson, D. D., who twice read the manuscript, and whose counsel has been of much service to the author, as it will be to his readers.

The learned Increase Mather closed the introduction to his "Disquisition on Ecclesiastical Councils" with the reflection that "In those Regions of Light and Love which are Above, there is more knowledge gained in one Day than can be obtained in an whole Age of Reading and Hard Study," and expressed the hope that, having now rendered this service to the churches, he might soon be there, and learn more about many things beside church polity. Dr. Mather was seventy-eight when he wrote his notable work, and could well expect that this might be his last work. I

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am hoping to live long enough to learn much more than I now know. But I can quote with hearty concurrence the paragraph next to that which closes his introduction :

"In the subsequent Disquisition the reader will not find anything of Satyr, or indecent Reflection on the Brethren whose notions are not the same as mine. I have endeavored to confirm what I assert with Scripture, and with Arguments, and the Authority of Eminent Divines, both Ancient and Modern."

It has now and then occurred to me, while preparing this volume, that there might be some readers to whom this book would seem dangerous on account of its occasional departures from the earlier type of Congregationalism so admirably set forth by Dexter and others. To these let me say that the system contained in this volume is no newer and no more dangerous than that of Dr. Dexter was fifty years ago. Indeed, I cannot better close this preface than by quoting the paragraph with which he himself closed the preface to his Handbook.

"Without doubt some person will allege this as a new endeavor to 'control' the churches. Such an allegation will be as true — and as false — as previous intimations of the same sort have been. He who waits to be insured that his good will not be evil spoken of before doing any, will earn neither thanks for today, nor remembrance from tomorrow."

• WILLIAM E. BARTON.

November i, 1915.