CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 



none of which contained very many members, and 

 six Sandemanian churches in England. They 

 deem it unlawful to join in prayer with any one 

 who is not a brother or sister in Christ, they 

 observe the Lord's Supper weekly, maintain love- 

 feasts, and, in general, hold by the most literal 

 interpretation of Scripture rules. 



BEREANS. 



The Bereans were so named from the promi- 

 nence given by them to the Bible alone in 

 religious matters, in allusion to Acts xvii. II. The 

 founder of the Bereans was the Rev. John Barclay, 

 a native of Perthshire (1734-1798). The sect is 

 now almost extinct. 



INDEPENDENTS. 



The Independents or Congregationalists, as a 

 distinctive denomination, were founded in Eng- 

 land by Robert Brown about the year 1583. 

 Their distinguishing tenets relate to church 

 government, on which they are opposed both to 

 the Presbyterian and Episcopalian forms, and 

 may be regarded as standing at the farthest 

 remove consistent with corporate existence from 

 that system of organisation which has found its 

 fullest embodiment in Romanism. The essential 

 element of Congregationalism is, that any com- 

 munity or congregation of Christians has a right 

 to the regulation of its own ecclesiastical discipline 

 and form of worship, independent of any other 

 community ; each congregation forming in itself 

 a Church, a word which, it is held by Independ- 

 ents, is always employed in the Bible to signify 

 either a single congregation or its place of meet- 

 ing, the aggregate of Christian communities 

 being, according to them, denoted by the plural 

 'churches.' They require not only intellectual 

 assent to the historical narrative of Christianity, 

 but personal religion in those who are admitted 

 to a congregation. Any man whom a congrega- 

 tion may think qualified to edify them is eligible 

 for the ministry. Ordination, which is consid- 

 ered merely an affair of order, is performed by 

 the ministers of neighbouring churches. Inde- 

 pendents hold that the Church is a purely spiritual 

 institution, and has no head but Christ. Forming 

 a minority of 5 out of the 70 or 80 members who 

 composed the Westminster Assembly, the Inde- 

 pendents, who were backed by the influence of 

 Cromwell, held a great meeting in 1658, at which 

 a declaration was drawn up precisely the same as 

 that of the Westminster Assembly, except that 

 the chapter in favour of the Presbyterian form 

 of church government was omitted, and another 

 substituted in favour of Congregationalism. Along 

 with other Nonconformists, the Independents 

 suffered greatly by the passing of the Act of 

 Uniformity in 1662. The Revolution and the Act 

 of Toleration (1689) brought them relief. Attempts 

 at union between them and the Presbyterians 

 followed, and in 1691 heads of agreement were 

 drawn up. At length, in 1730, Presbyterians, 

 Baptists, and Independents were united under 

 the name of the Three Denominations, which 

 held conferences, ultimately disturbed by the with- 

 drawal of the Presbyterians. Considerable acces- 

 sions were made to the Independents through the 

 religious movements determined by the Wesleys 



and Whitefield ; it now forms, next to the 

 Wesleyan Methodists, the largest dissenting body 

 in England, and it is also numerous in America. 

 Besides the illustrious Protector, the Independents 

 can boast of such names as Owen, Pye Smith, 

 John Angell James, and Raffles. 



Independency established itself in Scotland to- 

 wards the close of last century, under the influence 

 of Haldane, who, along with Aikman, made a 

 preaching tour as far north as the Orkney Islands. 

 j Other itinerant preachers followed ; and between 

 I 1798 and 1807, 85 churches were formed, and 

 i pastors ordained. A controversy on the elder's 

 I office seriously impeded and weakened the Con- 

 i gregational cause for a time, but the formation, in 

 j 1811, of the Glasgow Theological Academy (now 

 i removed to Edinburgh) did much to restore its 

 j vigour. 



In America, the progress of the Independent 

 body founded at Plymouth, New England, by 

 John Robinson in 1620 was temporarily marked 

 by the spread of Antinomian and Unitarian 

 doctrines. Antinomianism was condemned by a 

 i synod convened in New England. In 1785, a 

 separation took place between the Unitarian and 

 Trinitarian Congregationalists. Harvard College 

 is Unitarian. ' Congregationalism,' according to 

 Dr Schaff, 'is the ruling sect of the six north- 

 eastern states.' 



The Independents require no subscription to any 

 human standard of doctrine, and yet there exists, 

 on the whole, very considerable harmony in their 

 teaching, which is in the main orthodox and Cal- 

 vinistic. It might, at first sight, appear likely that 

 the perfect independence of each congregation 

 would render their working together harmoniously 

 a matter of great difficulty ; but experience has 

 shewn the contrary. No great secessions have at 

 any time taken place from their ranks, and there 

 is a striking agreement between their modern 

 faith and principles and those which were recog- 

 nised at the first rise of their system. The ' Con- 

 gregational Union of England and Wales' was 

 formed in 1831, and consists of a Conference of 

 delegates, lay and clerical, from the various 

 churches, who assemble twice a year for consulta- 

 tion upon general Church affairs, and to unite in 

 such combined exertions as will not interfere with 

 their principles. It is distinctively provided, how- 

 ever, in the constitution of this Conference, that 

 it shall never become a court of appeal. In some 

 parts of America, the Independents have per- 

 manent assemblies, termed ' advisory bodies,' for 

 the purpose of taking into consideration, and 

 giving counsel on, cases of difficulty submitted to 

 them. The question of the desirableness of a 

 greater approximation to the Presbyterian system 

 was brought before the English Conference a few 

 years ago, but without any positive result in that 

 direction. 



The Congregational Union numbers 78 associa- 

 tions at home and in the colonies, with 3609 

 churches, and 2716 ministers and missionaries. 

 It has been estimated that there are 7 million 

 Congregationalists in all English-speaking com- 

 munities. 



METHODISTS. 



Originally applied by a student of Christ-Church 

 to the brothers Wesley, and several other young 

 men, then members of the different colleges of 



409 



