8. That no churches or church officers whatever have any power over any other church or officers, to control or impose upon them; but are all equal in their rights and privileges, and ought to be independent in the exercise and enjoyment of them.

9. As to church administrations, they held that baptism is a seal of the covenant of grace, and should be dispensed only to visible believers, with their unadult children, and this in primitive purity, as in the times of Christ and his apostles, without the sign of the cross or any other invented ceremony; that the Lord's Supper should be received as it was at first, even in Christ's immediate presence, in the table posture; that the elders should not be restrained from praying in public as well as private, according to the various occasions continually offering from the word of Providence, and no set form should be imposed on any; that excommunication should be wholly spiritual, a mere rejecting the scandalous from the communion of the church in he holy sacraments and those other spiritual privileges which are peculiar to the faithful, and that the church or its officers have no authority to inflict any penalties of a temporal nature.

10. As for holy days, they were very strict for the observation of the Lord's day, in a pious memorial of the incarnation, birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and benefits of Christ; as also solemn fastings and thanksgivings, as the state of Providence requires; but all other times not prescribed in Scripture, they utterly relinquished. And as, in general, they could not conceive any thing a part of Christ's religion which he has not required, they therefore renounced all human right of inventing, and much less of imposing it upon others.

These were the main principles of that scriptural and religious liberty, for which this people suffered in England, fled to Holland, traversed the ocean, and sought a dangerous retreat in this remote and savage desert of North America, that here they might fully enjoy them, and leave them to their last posterity."- Prince, 176–

179.

This summary is far from being a complete account of Mr. Robinson's views of the proper order of the church. We have looked into his works, just now printed, but a small part of which had probably been read by Mr. Prince, and state several particulars in detail.

POWER OF THE CHURCH AND OF THE ELDERS.

This subject is interesting as matter of ecclesiastical history, as exhibiting the views of this, in some sense, "the Father" of our order, and because some still hold that the whole power of the bench of elders has devolved upon the pastor.

Robinson says, "The Papists place the ruling power in the Pope, the Episcopalians in the bishop, the Puritan [Presbyterian] in the Presbytery-we put it in the body of the congregation, the multitude, called the church. We profess the elders to be the ordinary governors in the church, only we may not acknowledge them to be "lords over God's heritage,"—controlling all, and to be controlled by none. The eldership, like other ordinances, is given for the service of the church, and the elders the servants of the church. It is one thing to govern the church, and another thing to be the church. The people's obedience to the elders consists in receiving their instructions, admonitions, exhortations, and consolations, and the elder's government, not in erecting any tribunal seat, or throne of judgment, but in exhorting, teaching, improving, and comforting them by the word of God."— Works, ii. 7-144.

"In admitting members on their professions, and censuring incorrigible offenders, we leave the execution of these things to the elders, but deny plainly that it can be done without the people's privity and consent. It appertains to the elders to govern the people in their voting, and to the church freely to vote in the elections and judgment of the church; the external government is to be administered by the elders."- Works, iii. 37-43.

"In all the acts of the church the brethren join with the elders, and are one and the same body."— Works, ii. 449.

Hanbury says, Robinson holds that the "elders rule by consent of the church. They are set over them for their guidance, as the steward over the house, or watchman over the city."

"A company of faithful people, in the covenant of the Gospel, is a church, though without officers; and this church hath an interest in all the holy things of God within itself, without any foreign assistance, and any private brother in such a church may do a necessary work of an officer. Where there are already officers, by and to which others

*So called by Neal and Buck.

are called, there the officers are to ordain the latter." 240.

Works, ii. According to the Cambridge Platform, the church chooses and deposes its own officers, ministers as well as others, and when convenient, neighbor churches are to be advised with. (See chap. 8.) This agrees with the expressed views of Robinson. But sec. 11 provides that "in an organic church and right administration, all acts proceed after the manner of a mixed administration, so as no act can be consummated or perfected without the consent of both." (The body of the church and the elders.)

This last, provision has been the subject of much discussion and some litigation. The appropriate power of the elders was strongly agitated in the exiled churches in Holland, in Robinson's time, and became the cause of the separation of Johnson and Ainsworth, two distinguished pastors. Robinson and his church were consulted on the subject, and thus advised: "If it please the Lord so far to enlarge your hearts on both sides, brethren, as that this middle way be had, namely, that the matter of offence be first brought for order, preparation, and prevention of unnecessary trouble, unto the elders, as the church governors, (though it is like we, for our parts, shall not so practice in this particular,) and after, if things be not ended, to the church of elders and brethren, there to be judged, until it please the God of wisdom and Father of lights to manifest otherwise for our joint accord—it would make for the glory of God." The advice did not prevail, and Ainsworth and his friends gathered a new church which held to the views of Robinson. — Han. i. 343. Johnson† held to the authoritative power of the elders, but the others held that they could do no valid act without the consent of the church, and when matters were before the church, they voted with the brethren, and had no official privilege. It was objected by his antagonist that this was a democracy (a form of government very objectionable in those times), to which Mr. Robinson replied that it might be considered as an aristocracy, as the elders, by their age and gravity and official station, would be likely to have the respect and assent of the church. -See Hist. Cong. 337.

-

As Rev. John Cotton was one of the best writers on church polity, and as he has been supposed to differ with Robinson on this subject, it may be best to give his views pretty fully; and certainly he did

*See Works, iii. 462.

† Ibid. 441.

differ with him in 1636, when he wrote his letter to Lord Say and Seal. — Hutch, i. App. It seems his Lordship had written to him his fears of this democracy. But says Cotton, "Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government for church or commonwealth. Though it be a status popularis, where they choose their own governors, yet "the government is not a democracy, if not administered by the people, but by the governors; if many, an aristocracy, which even Mr. Robinson admits." (But Mr. Robinson's is an admission only of the word, not the thing. Supra.) IIe probably wrote "The Keys" not long after, although the book was not printed till 1644, by reason of the difficulty of a license. Baillie, a presbyterian minister, answered "The Keys," and says, "If you call yourself a Congregationalist, because you give jurisdiction and censure to every particular congregation, though this was the wag of Robinson and Ainsworth, you revoke all this, putting into the hands of the eldership the whole jurisdiction. The style, Congregational,' seems not rightly appropriated to them who have destroyed the Congregational way and turned it into presbyterial."— Han. iii. 416.

Baillie read "The Keys" as others have read them, and as Mr. Cotton's editors (Goodwin and Nye, then standard-bearers for independency in England), read the same book-making the church a real aristocracy. In their preface to "The Keys," they disagree with him, and give an extended account of their own views, which do not much vary from Robinson's. They thus write: "The right disposal of power in the church may be in due and proportional allotment and dispersion, though not in the same measure and degree, into divers hands, according to the several concernments and interests the church may have, rather than entire and sole trust committed to any one man, or any one sort or kind of men or officers." This is rather enigmatical; but see what follows: "The power of this censure of excommunication is inseparably linked by Christ unto a particular congregation, as the people's natural privilege thereof, so as no assembly or company of elders should assume it to themselves, or sever the power thereof from them." They compare the elders to a judge, who pronounces the sentence after the jury have found the accused guilty. But in 1645 was printed Mr. Cotton's "Way of the Churches," and here he coincides entirely with Mr. Robinson, and also adopts the sentiments and even language of the editors of the Keys. His reasons for allowing the church so much power are founded on Matth. 18: 17. "We cannot find throughout the New Testament that the word church is taken otherwise than for the society and congregation of the

faithful, unless it be once, where it is taken for a civil assembly, but never for a bishop, counsel, or archdeacon, nor for an assembly of presbyters; the consistory is a word unheard of there, nor are any complaints directed thither, unless to prepare them for the hearing or judgment of the church. Nor are any censures of the church committed to presbyters alone, to be administered by them, though they are to be administered by them in the presence and by the consent of the church. When a whole multitude is associated in a body, any offence may be orderly and ordinarily told unto them by a complaint. The promise of binding in heaven what the church bindeth on earth, pertaineth to the ratifying of the censure by the whole church mentioned in the verse before. He appeals also to the practice at Corinth, 1 Cor. 4: 5."

"The church are governed by the elders so long as they rule well. But in case they err or commit offence, they shall be governed by the whole church. The power of the keys was given to Peter, not as an apostle, or as an elder, but as a professed believer, in the name of a believer, whereupon the binding and loosing, which is the power of the keys, is attributed to the whole church."

"When the censure is said to be by common consent, we mean that we do not carry matters either by the overruling power of the presbytery or the consent of the major part of the church, but by the general and joint consent of all the members of the church, as becometh the Church of God."— Way of the Church, in Han. ii. 560-572. It has been said that Mr. Cotton's sentiments are probably not fairly given in this "Way, etc." and that his friends in England to whom the publication was intrusted, changed his phraseology. But the book was very sharply answered and criticized by a writer, " Vindiæ clavium," (pp. 90; London, 1645,) and Mr. Cotton was therein pointedly charged with having changed his sentiments in respect to the power of the elders, and that his editors, in the prefatory epistle, approve of it, and now begin to applaud themselves as jumping in judgment with the author."

Mr. Cotton replies (Way of the Churches cleared) in 1648, p. 74, London, and in this he does not complain that the "Way, etc." expresses any thing contrary to his opinions, but on the contrary defends and justifies the whole; does not admit that it is inconsistent with "the Keys;" agrees with St. Augustine that "Peter received the keys in the name of the church;" and moreover adds, "it is no matter of calumny, if, in some later tractate, I should retract or express more commodiously what I wrote in a former less safely."— Man. ii. 280-284.