PREFACE.

THIS little volume has been written with reference to the youthful and growing Congregation of which it is the Author's happiness to be the Pastor. If it should please God to make it serviceable to them, my end is answered and my labor abundantly repaid: if its usefulness should be extended beyond them, I shall have the greater cause to be thankful.

The title will remind the reader of some other books, from abler pens than mine. I allude to the "Church Member's Guide," by Mr. James, the "Church Manual," by Mr. Bacon, and the "Tribute to the Memory of the Pilgrims," by Dr. Hawes,-books with which I hope the reader is too well acquainted to make it necessary for me to speak of their excellence and worth. The topics, however, of this volume, are, for the most part, distinct from the matter of those. Our several roads may lie within sight of each other, but are seldom coincident. If mine lie in a more humble region than those, if it lead through a tract more monotonous and less productive of emotion, it is also less frequented and beaten, and on that account may contribute something to the profiting of the traveler, if not to his amusement.

It will be noticed that a number of the subjects discussed or touched upon in the following pages, are matters which fall

among the controversies of the times. I have taken them up as they came in my way, and endeavored to dispose of them agreeably to the dictates of the Bible and common sense, not expecting to meet the views of everybody. It is impossible to be universally orthodox in an age when almost every subject, doctrinal or practical, is matter of excited altercation,-when with many, truth itself is ultraism, while with others, sobriety of judgment is too lukewarm a quality, and "meek-eyed" charity too smooth of tongue, to suit their inflammable zeal.

Without attempting to write, in a formal way, on our ecclesiastical polity, I have wished to promote among our people a more general acquaintance with that subject. I do not suppose that Church order is the most important thing in religion. But neither is it the least important. It certainly is not unimportant. Churches were instituted by Christ for particular purposes; to wit, the edification of the members, and the efficient propagation of religion in the world; and it is obvious that the manner of their constitution, that is, their polity, must have much to do with their adaptedness to the ends in view; and of course, that it can never be otherwise than an important subject to be studied and known. One could not wish, indeed, to see it exalted into that undue consequence, relatively considered, which was assigned to it in the discussions of by-gone centuries, much less to resuscitate the spirit of those discussions; but neither is it well that it be wholly neglected.

Besides the intrinsic and proper importance of the subject, it is desirable to know something about it, to be able to estimate

the comparative claims of the different existing systems. We still hear of the lineage and validity of this order and that,--for though discussion has in a great measure ceased, as to this particular field, pretension has not, and it needs some intelligence to settle us.

As to the Congregational system, its claims to a scriptural antiquity, and its practical utility, will be best understood, and most truly, and I trust most highly appreciated, by those who have studied it most. If it be as "primitive" as the Scriptures, and was familiar to Paul, it is doubtless primitive enough, and quite tolerably "apostolic," the claims notwithstanding, of primogeniture by others.

Be this as it may, I cannot but think we are suffering it to fall into too much neglect among us. Our fathers sought truth on this subject with the same conscientiousness and care, as they sought the mind of Christ on other subjects. They sought it at the expense of persecution and exile; and having, with unwearied pains, found it, they rejoiced in it. It was to them "like unto a treasure hid in a field; the which, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." In that age of ecclesiastical confusion, and of turning back towards popery, they professed that "they looked upon the discovery and settlement of the Congregational way, as the boon, the gratuity, the largess of divine bounty, which the Lord graciously bestowed on his people that followed him into the wilderness." But we, their descendants, so far from entering into their studies, are almost

content to be ignorant of the very results of them, furnished to our hands. Is it not true,—and if it be true, is there not utterly a fault among us,-that not a few of our ministers do not inform themselves even, much less acquaint their people, thoroughly, with the principles and grounds of our ecclesiastical system? And does it not hence arise, that our people are often too little intelligent in this matter properly to discharge the duties which our system requires of them as members; and too little established in their views to be not soon unsettled and drawn away to churches of a different order, whose polity they find to be more insisted on, and whose claims they are not qualified to canvass? Ought we not, as a part of our duty to our churches, and especially when large accessions are made to them of the subjects of our revivals, to instruct them, not only in the doctrines and moral duties of their religion, but in the polity also, under which it is their duty and privilege to act?

"The Principles and Practice of the Congregational Churches," become the more important in view of the place which these churches occupy, and doubtless are destined to occupy, in relation to the great cause of Christ on earth. It is not to be supposed, indeed, that the world is to be converted by means of any one denomination of Christians. All shall be privileged

But if we consider the

to share in that glorious achievement. history of these New England churches, with their numerous and increasing offspring in the west-if we consider the way in which God has led them from the beginning, who "sifted three

kingdoms that he might plant the American wilderness with the finest of the wheat,"-if we consider their principles and spirit, their institutions, their intelligence, their presses, their zeal for moral reform, enlightened, principled, and constant; and their liberal devotedness to the work of missions and other objects of universal philanthropy; we cannot but suppose that they are to have a very prominent agency in the renovation of the world. It is therefore important that every member of their communion, should be prepared with every sort of instruction and qualification for the fulfilment of so high a destiny.

If this humble volume contribute at all to such a result,-if it cause so much as one church, or member, of so important a communion, to be better informed, or more judicious—if it cast a little salt into so great a fountain,-it will not be valueless, nor the labor of it lost.