USA > Iowa > Dubuque County > Dubuque > Semi-centennial celebration of the First Congregational Church, of Dubuque, Iowa, May 12th and 13th, 1889 > Part 4
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They were beaten with cudgels, shut up with vile and loath- some criminals and, lying in cold, hunger and chains they perished. Some were even hung like the veriest criminals. And they surrendered? Just as Luther surrendered at the Diet of Worms. Such men as these never surrender, when conscious they are in the right. They suffer, they die, but never surrender .; They have too much of the spirit of those Old Testament worthies who obtained a good report through faith. They went to Holland; but their convictions went with them and grew firmer with each departing footstep and each new day of trial and suffering. And when all hope of a return to England, with their convictions, was cut off, though loyal as the most devoted subject of the crown, they faced the dangers of the deep, at that season when those dangers are greatest, in a ship which would now be looked upon as scarcely sea-worthy ; and, when the sun was at the winter's solstice, they set foot upon the virgin soil of the New World, where they intended to organize churches as occasion required, appoint their own officers, and worship God as they pleased.
They had landed upon a soil, from which they could not hope to coax a crop for their support for nearly a year. They had come to an inhospitable climate, and pitched their tents upon the edge of a vast wilderness-a land unknown-in the midst of a strange and savage people who looked upon them as invaders and enemies. If they are to be judged by the age in which they lived, the powers they faced, the position they took, and the self-denial and sacrifices they made to support that position, we are bound to call them heroes and their age heroic. And if, turning to their first heroic effort, we consider their work in the New World, our estimate of these fathers of modern Congregationalism will not be changed. They buried their dead far from home and their native land. They saw the vessel in which they came sail out of sight, and leave them with no hope of escape, no matter how great dan- gers might threaten them. And, with simple faith in God, a
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firm reliance upon his word, and a consciousness of access to Him through Jesus Christ their Lord, they turned to build rude houses to form their shelter, plain sanctuaries for their worship, clear acres where they might raise crops for their support, and to work out some of the grandest problems ever given men to solve.
If we confine our thought to the great achievements of Congregationalism in this country which make their whole age heroic, we will find that they arrange themselves in four distinct groups.
In this enumeration, I pass by the influence of this church upon the family life, its modifying effect upon the polity of those denominations from which it differs, the distinguished persons it has produced, the diffusion of its spirit throughout the land, in order that I may speak of the four grand achieve- ments which must not be omitted. Nor do I claim that other denominations have lent no aid even in these things. But in these Congregationalism has been the controlling power and she may well place them to her credit.
I.
Congregationalism necessitated and provided for a distinct system of education and gave rise to that peculiarly American institution known as the American school, an institution reck- oned to-day as one of the safeguards and main pillars of the Republic.
A denomination which believes as ours does, that every Christian may come to the word of God without the interven- tion of pope, priest or church, and may judge for himself what is the true interpretation of that word and test the preaching and the teaching of pastors and teachers in religious things, is bound to encourage education so that each one may bring to the interpretation of Scripture the results of wide and dis- criminating reading, and of scientific and historical research. Our fathers saw this, they felt it to be the logical outcome of their religious faith; and they boldly met the demand by
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planting the school-house by the side of the sanctuary. This was a new sight in the world, and for many years the people across the sea could not understand it. "Years ago, on one of the islands lying far off from New England shores, in a se- cluded village, by a quiet fireside, a boy was wont to sit in great delight over whatever book he could read about Amer- ca. Two things, however, used to puzzle him. One of them was, how the Americans built their schools, and where they got their money. If by tax, how they got everybody to consent to be taxed; how they selected their teachers; how they so man- aged their school system as to make education free as the air the people breathed and open as the roads they walked upon. Remember these thoughts were born in an atmosphere where the taxed, who, at that time had no representation, were in the great majority, and where a tax bill was an abomination. And remember, too, that it was where the sight of a company of freemen, standing up in a town meeting to impose taxes upon themselves, was not only what had never been beheld, but was a scene that had not come within the horizon of a taxpayer's imagination." But that boy lived to come to America, to unite with an American church, to be educated in an American school, and an American College, and an American seminary; to be a distinguished preacher, an hon- ored professor of systematic theology, and to be the stated preacher in an American university; and the church, college, seminary and university were all the outgrowth of Congrega- tional thought and prayer and self-sacrificing gift. He un- derstands now "America's Interest in American Schools." These schools were not an importation, for no other people have them. They were not the product of the government, for they antedate the government by a hundred years. They were not the product of all the Colonies, for in Virginia, where another type of thought prevailed, Governor Berkeley wrote in 1670 saying: "I thank God there are no free- schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years. God keep us from both!" These
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schools descended from Congregationalism. In New Eng- land, where this polity prevailed, the people were yearly stand- ing up and imposing taxes upon themselves for the support of the common schools. Listen to one of their orders: "In every town the selectmen shall use all diligence to insure that every house-holder teach, by himself or others, his children and apprentices so much learning as shall enable them to read the English tongue and obtain knowledge of the laws. And if for any reason the parent neglect to instruct his off- spring, he shall be subject to a fine, and the children shall be educated under the authorities." Twenty-five years before Governor Berkeley thanked God there were no schools nor printing in Virginia, John Eliot, a Congregationalist, was asking the General Court of Massachusetts to provide for schools. He said "Lord, for schools everywhere among us! That our schools may flourish! That every member of the Assembly may go home and procure a good school to be encouraged in the town where he lives. That before we die we may be so happy as to see a good school in every planta- tion in the country." Two years later it was passed as a Col- onial law: "To the end, that all learning may not be buried in the graves of our fathers, ordered: That every township, after that the Lord hath increased them to fifty householders, shall appoint one to teach all the children to read and write; and where any town shall increase to the number of one hun- dred families, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as to fit them for the university." Provision for education was still further extended by the founding of the academy, which in Amer- ica, "is distinctively of Congregational origin."
Congregationalism has always attached great importance to an educated ministry. This was the natural sequence of their polity. While Congregationalism believes that the humblest disciple has as immediate access to God as the most distinguished minister, it also holds that the mind as well as the heart of men is an instrument for the acquisition of relig-
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ious knowledge; and that the better the reasoning soul is trained, the more likely will it be to discover and know the truth. There must then be not only the common school, the grammar school, and the academy; but also the college and the seminary. And both of these, in America, were intro- duced by Congregationalism. There is scarcely anything in the annals of education more touching than the efforts made by Congregationalists for the establishment of their colleges. After this manner the foundation of Harvard College was laid. "The magistrates led the way by a subscription among themselves of {200 for the library; the comparatively wealthy followed with gifts of £20 and £30. The needy multitude succeeded, like the widow of old, casting their mites in the treasury. A number of sheep was bequeathed by one man ; a quantity of cotton cloth worth nine shillings was presented by another ; a pewter flagon worth ten shillings by another ; a fruit dish, a sugar spoon, a silver tipt jug, one great set, and one smaller trencher set, by others."
Ten years ago, Dr. G. F. Magoun of this state cited forty principal colleges, "eight in New England, twenty-four in the West, seven in the South and six in foreign lands, which owe their existence wholly or chiefly to Congregationalists."
So we see that the various grades and kinds of intellectual discipline, the common school, the academy, the college, the seminary, the university, and I might add the school in the house where, according to the declared policy of the Synod of Dort, the youth were to be trained by their parents ; the "dame school" taught by women of Christian experience and members of Congregational churches, in which efforts were made to supplement the deficiencies of family training; pri- vate instruction in fitting young men for college, which was so uniformly given by the Congregational ministry, all show that there is a broad and deep foundation in history for the claim so often made, that "popular education in this country was substantially of Congregational origin." To supplement all these the religious newspaper was established, and in this,
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also, the Congregationalists led the way by establishing the Boston Recorder.
II.
Congregationalism next appeared as the heroic champion and the dominant power in favor of civil liberty and good government. We have just celebrated. with becoming pomp, the centennial of the inauguration of our first President. The government over which he presided was the necessary result of the war of the Revolution. When did that war begin? Where did it begin? Who began it? History, taking notice of results rather than processes, tells us it began at Lexington, Mass., April 19, 1775. John Adams said, referring to an argument made by James Otis in the Old Town House of Boston, in 1761, against the "Writs of Assist- ance:" "James Otis breathed into this nation the breath of life. Then and there the child Independence was born. In fifteen years, that is, in 1776, it had grown to manhood and de- clared itself free." But Robert Treat Paine, the great law- yer and statesman, one of the signers of the Declaration, called the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, a Congregational minister, " The father of civil and religious liberty in Massa- chusetts and America." Read Thornton's Pulpit of the American Revolution and you will see that a full quarter of a century before those guns were fired in the streets of Lexing- ton, and eleven years before Otis launched his fiery argument against the Royal Court in Boston, this intrepid preacher, only twenty-nine years of age, from his pulpit of the West Church in that old city called "The Hub," preached a ser- mon known as "The Morning Gun of the Revolution." His sermon was read by all the people. Some praised the fearless preacher, others blamed; but all read what he had said. Remember, this bold young minister was subject to the English crown, for this was not then an independent nation. And yet he had the courage to say, knowing full well that his meaning would be understood, "When once
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magistrates act contrary to their office, and the end of their institution, when they rob and ruin the public instead of being guardians of its peace and welfare, they immediately cease to be the ordinance and ministers of God, and no more deserve that glorious character than common pirates and highwaymen."
And further on in his sermon he said: "A people really oppressed in a great degree by their sovereign, cannot well be insensible; and such a people, if I may allude to an ancient fable, have like the hesperian fruit, a dragon for their protector and guardian. Nor would they have any reason to mourn if some Hercules should appear to dispatch him.
"For a nation to thus arise unanimously and resist their prince, even to dethroning him, is not criminal, but a reason- able way of indicating their liberties and just rights. It is making use of the means, and the only means, which God has put into their power for mutual and self defence. And it would be highly criminal in them not to make use of these means. It would be stupid tameness and unaccountable folly for whole nations to suffer one unreasonable, ambitious and cruel man, to wanton and riot in their misery. And in such a case, it would, of the two, be more rational to suppose that they who did not resist would receive to themselves dam na- tion."
But the impulse to resist unjust and tyrannical power, did hot originate with the young preacher of the Revolution- ary period. It arose with the rediscovery of Congregation- alism. It was brought over with the Pilgrim Fathers in the cabin of the Mayflower. And it grew and kept on growing when they cried and when they laughed, while they lived and after they died, and it blossomed out under the heroic preaching of ministers of the Gospel believing in Congrega- ional principles before the war of the Revolution.
In looking back to those eventful years of the War for In- dependence, years of heroism, suffering and of faith, we see in the foreground, the towering forms of Washington and his
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generals with their half-disciplined, starving and almost defeated armies. But behind these under arms, were other forms, moving under the insurrection of great thoughts. "They were scholars, orators, statesmen, seers, in whose souls the Revolution was an accomplished fact before one gun had been fired or one sword drawn. Deeper still into the retreating canvass we look, and behind these great polit ical leaders, as they were behind generals and half-starved armies, are other forms, with faces attenuated to a higher spirituality, to a finer scholarship, and to a more sacred pas- sion." Who are these men? They are ministers of the Gospel, men who had faith in the divinity of the principles of Congregationalism, who had been trained in these princi- ples, trained under them and who knew how and when to resist the powers which unrighteously assumed to be. "Be- fore Adams or Hancock or Franklin or Jefferson had uttered their denunciation of British tyranny, before even the possi- bility of resistance to arbitrary power had been thought of by them, before they had even dreamed of independence and a union of the Colonies in a great nationality, these men, in the inspiration of a gospel which is that of liberty, a gospel which had taught them to value man, had been laying bare the falsity of royal assumptions, expounding the principles of good government and of manhood in the state, and schooling legislators, judges and people to an understanding of those civil rights which are the offspring of religious freedom. And, as events thickened, in advance of all others, they were even narrowing the issue between the Colonies and the home government, concentrating more and more the aroused indig- nation of an oppressed people into the idea of resistance, and pointing out to the sagacious statesmen of the day the prin- ciple and method of a vital union and co-operation among the Colonies." These Congregational ministers, who by their very obscurity make more prominent all the others, not because they were ministers, but because they were Congre- gationalists, are the authors of our liberties and the real
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fathers of the American Republic. And when the smoke of battle cleared away, the Angel of Peace spread her white wings over the land purchased by self-denial and sacrifice, made holy by the baptism of blood and consecrated to Al- mighty God; then Congregationalism taught statesmen how to organize and constitute the new government which had been born into the world. It is a matter of historical record that Thomas Jefferson modeled the government of the states after the Congregational Church polity.
III.
The next grand and heroic achievement in the order of time which is to be set down to the credit of Congregational- ism is its contribution to the theological science of the world.
The constitution of the Congregational Church leaves it freer than any other church to make investigation in regard to religious matters, and to take advantage of the results of that investigation. This church came to America with an ideal, an inspiration, and a method all impelling it to progress in theological investigation. With reverence for the past only because it is true and not at all because it is ancient, this Church has the courage to set its face towards the east and look for the day-dawn and the sunlight of truth.
If others think this is our weakness and danger, because it opens the way for heresy and schism, and point to the new departure and the Unitarian defection to justify their thought, we may remind them that a closer organization and a firmer adherence to the creeds of the fathers is by no means a guar- anty against defection and error. At the meeting of the New Jersey Association recently held, it was said that, "Strongly centralized systems cannot be relied upon to conserve the truth, as, in case error once creeps in, they become mighty agencies in the wrong direction." When John Robinson bewailed the state and condition of the reformed churches which had come to a period in religion, and would go no further than the instrument of their reformation, he said :
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" The Lutherans could not be drawn to go beyond wha Luther said ; for whatever part of God's will he had furthe imparted and revealed to Calvin, they will rather die thai embrace it. And so also you see the Calvinists, they stich where he left them, a misery much to be lamented; for though they were precious, shining lights in their day, yet God hatl not revealed his whole will to them; and were they now living they would be as ready and willing to embrace further ligh as that they had received." But come to a period as the Lutherans would, and stick as the Calvinists will, that doe: not insure their continued soundness. The Lutherans anc the Calvinists on the continent of Europe went over to ration alism in a body; sound doctrine declined under Presbyterian- ism in Scotland and the English church has suffered numer ous lapses. And furthermore it should be remembered that, "The father of Unitarianism in this country, was the rector of the first Episcopal church that was ever founded in New England, who in 1785, succeeded in transforming his church into the first Unitarian church in America, while that church which in 1803 ordained Channing, the acknowledged leader of the liberal party (so called) in the Unitarian controversy, was the first Scotch-Irish Presbyterian church ever founded in the State."
Other denominations have had their illustrious theologians; but none excel that list of brilliant, keen-eyed, active, earnest profound scholars to which the Congregationalists point with becoming denominational pride. Bellamy, Bushnell, Dwight, Emmons, Finney and Taylor do honor to our Church. But, rising above each of these and more majestic than any figure in any denomination in this country, is the form of the Elder Edwards, distinguished at home and abroad as a profound philosopher and an able interpreter of the sacred Scriptures. He is described as a reasoner, subtle in his distinctions, log- ical in his inferences, abundant in his imaginative resources, above all fervid in his spirituality and bold in his appeals to conscience. While in the schools he stood unmatched for
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his skill in controversy, in the pulpit he combined the saintli- ness of Fenelon with the intrepidity of Savonarola. The the- ological discussion into which he threw himself with all the ardor of his most sacred convictions was a war and not a bat- tle. But when peace was declared, it was found that there was an Ewardean Theology, having for its main support the Scriptures most intelligently interpreted, consistant with rea- son and with philosophy. This theology has gone through all the land and into all the churches. It is not necessary to claim that this theology which was known as the New England Theology, which has been developed and taught by Prof. Park worthiest to be Edwards' successor, is the final expression of religious doctrine. We should be unwise to call it "The uni- verse of theological thinking, or even sun, moon and plane- tary system" but such as it is, it introduced into theology a method and a freedom which have been duly felt in Chris- tendom and without which theology might, at this moment, be far in the rear as compared with other sciences, if, indeed, it did not hang as a millstone upon the enlightened thinking of the Christian world.
The illustrious men of other denominations in this country have been content to follow in the footsteps of their prede- cessors, while to Congregationalism alone belongs the credit of going beyond former explorers into the new regions of truth and making a real and distinct contribution to the world's fund of theological thinking. It is not because God is sparing of gifts to men, but because Congregationalism sur- passed all other polities in its encouragement of gifts and its stimulus to investigation. Edwards and Park could accom- plish more in the Church of the Pilgrims which came fresh from the benediction of John Robinson, expecting and rejoic- ing in the expectation that "The Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy word." That Church came to the New World to think for itself, and to interpret the sacred Scriptures for itself. It believed and still believes in meeting all questions in the open arena of learning and
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philosophy. It believes in weapons and an armour suited to the times; in discussing questions in the light and all the light of passing generations; in conserving all that is true and for- saking all that is found to be false no matter how hoary it may be with age. It dreads "the dry rot of a dead orthodoxy," and " the watery weakness of a sentimental pietism," vastly more than the possible mistakes of patient and devout inves- tigation.
IV.
But great as the three grand achievements of Congregation- alism are which I have mentioned, and heroic as the efforts by which they have been wrought, we must give the crown, latest won and yet to be brightened to the denomination for its efforts to promote revivals of religion and to carry the Gospel to the destitute.
It is true that from the time the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth comparatively little was done for the rapid and wide propagation of the Gospel, until the early part of the present century.
First because the Christian world had not yet re-discovered its obligation to the heathen; secondly because the world was not open to receive the Gospel; and thirdly because those early settlers had so many other things to occupy their atten- tion, tax their energies and demand their support. They had their homes to build, the land to subdue, difficulties with the home government to adjust, a great war for freedom to carry on and a new government to establish.
But, notwithstanding these things, it must be admitted that Congregationalists came to this country with the missionary spirit and under missionary orders. Bradford says, in enum- erating the reasons for their coming : "Lastly, (and which was not the least) a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation or at least to make some way thereunto for the propagating and advancing the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in these remote parts of the world."
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When Higginson bade farewell to England he said : "We go to practice the positive part of church reformation and to propagate the gospel." And they soon began to carry out this intention. Thomas Mayhew commenced labor with the Martha's Vineyard Indians, in 1642, Thomas Bourne with the Mashpee Indians, and John Eliot with those on Nonantum Hill, in 1646. And here in the wilds of America those men stimulated that missionary zeal which has since then been shown by many societies which have taken up and carried on the work all round the world.
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