Life and Times of Cotton Mather. A. P. Marvin, D. D. Life of Jonathan Edwards. Dwight. Life of Jonathan Edwards. Allen. Life of Jonathan Mayhew. Bradford. John Adams. An Address. Hon. Mellen Chamberlain. Life of Samuel Hopkins. Edwards A. Park, D. D. A Half Century of the Unitarian Controversy. George E. Ellis, D. D. Pages from the Ecclesiastical History of New England. Bishop Burgess. Historical Magazine. Article by Gillett. ography). The Panoplist. The Massachusetts Missionary Magazine. The Quarterly Register. The Spirit of the Pilgrims. (With Bibli Outlines of Congregational History. Rev. G. Huntington. History of Harvard College. Josiah Quincy. History of Andover Seminary. Leonard Woods, D. D. Histories of Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Amherst, Oberlin and other Colleges. Missions. Several Volumes by Rufus Anderson, D. D. Lives of Truman Post, D. D., C. L. Goodell, D. D., and several other biographies of Congregational leaders. The Congregational Quarterly, 1859-1878, containing many valuable articles. Presbyterians. George P. Hays, D. D. Proceedings of the General Convention at Albany, 1852. Minutes of National Councils, State Associations and Conferences. Report of International Congregational Council, London, 1891. Bound Volumes of the Home Missionary, Missionary Herald, and other denominational periodicals. BOWDOIN COLLEGE, Brunswick, Me., PAGE 161 MARIETTA COLLEGE, MARIETTA, O., CARLETON COLLEGE, NORTHFIELD, MINN., MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, MIDDLEBURY, VT., OBERLIN COLLEGE, OBERLIN, O., 461 175 471 440 354 131 480 421 495 MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, SOUTH HADLEY, MASS., 384 352 JOHN ROBINSON MEMORIAL TABLET (THE), MEETING-HOUSE OF UNION PARK CHURCH, CHICAGO, ILL., OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE, BOSTON, MASS., PARK STREET MEETING-HOUSE, BOSTON, MASS., . ST. HELEN'S, AUSTERFIELD, ENGLAND, 361 339 183 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. JES CHAPTER I. APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. ESUS CHRIST in His ministry on the earth did not directly organize the visible church. But the principles of His teaching imperatively resulted in the establishment of church order. He chose and appointed twelve disciples to be with Him, and He invited all who would accept His teaching and do His will to follow Him. He taught them simple and great principles, and showed them by His example how to realize these principles in their lives. He declared that He came into the world to establish a kingdom which should continue forever; that the way to enter into it was to repent of sin and to accept Him as Saviour and Lord. He taught that everyone who loved Him would obey His words, and that into every obedient soul God would by His Spirit enter to abide and rule there. He laid down the law of the kingdom as supreme love to God and love to one's neighbor as to himself. He taught that the kingdom began in renewed lives, and that it was to manifest itself in the gathering together of renewed persons in the fellowship of spiritual love and obedience to Him; and He promised to be present in every such company of His disciples. Such an association of believers naturally became a Christian church. Christ showed His disciples how the kingdom was to grow-by the Father's providential care over them, by their fellowship with Him and with one another in prayer and service, and by the work in and through them of the Holy Spirit whom He promised to send to them. He told them that He was to give Himself to die as a ransom for many, for the remission of their sins; that He would rise from the dead, the Redeemer and the Judge of mankind, and that the issues of the judgment would be eternal life and eternal punishment. These are Christ's doctrines, and these doctrines the churches of Christ believe and proclaim to the world as the gospel. Only twice, so far as His words are recorded, did Christ mention the church by name. When He first revealed to His disciples that he was looking forward to his sufferings and death at the hands of His own nation He led them to confess whom they believed Him to be; and when Peter, speaking for them all, declared, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jesus said that this was not merely a human opinion nor a fact based on human knowledge only, but that it was a revelation from His Father; and He added: "And I also say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." Here He declared the basis on which His church is founded, and the means by which it spreads through the world. The church of Christ is neither built upon a man nor upon a creed, but upon living disciples of Christ confessing |