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VOLUNTARY SAINTS: ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALISM AND THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE, 1825-1962 Kenneth Gordon Brownell A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 1982 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3706 This item is protected by original copyright "VOLUNTARY SAINTS: ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALISM AND THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE, 1825 - 1862" by Kenneth Gordon Brownell Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of St. Andrews 1982 ABSTR.A.CT This thesis is a study of the theory' and practice of the voluntary principle in :English Congregationalism between 1825 and 1862. The voluntary pri..llciple came to be se~1} in this period as of the essense of Congregationalism ~lld its Congregational ist ad.~erents sought to achieve :l.ts consist~llt practice in every aspect of denomina tional life. Chapter 1 describes the breakdo~~ of the old 'catholic' consensus L~ British evangelicalism. 13-.1 the mid-1820s the cooperation born of revival was be;ng sorely tested on a number of fronts. Politics was certainly important, but there was also grovdng denominational self-interest. T.bis was particularly the case in home and foreign missions and Congregationalists, perhaps the most 'catholic' of bodies, were under press1lre from within and without to pursue a more partisan policy. Ol:.t 01' these practical concerns emerged, as chapta' 2 points out, a more clearly articulated theory 01' voluntary churchmanship. Of course voluntarism had been a principle of Congrega tional Indepe..'"lc1ancy since the 17th century, but some adjustment 1-taS needed to the new circumst~llces of the 19th century. Congregationalist and other DissentiI'.g apol ogists honed and refined the pri..llciple ~lld gave it a sha..~ness and comprehensiveness ith~dnever had before. Even such a 'catholic' Noncon:for~~st as u~~n Angel James saw the need to instruct :bis congregation in its Dissenting principles. He and many others provided the theoretical r:;'Gl:C3 for the practical exercise of the voluntary principle. With chapters 3 and. 4 I tu.."""Il to th.e internal consolidation of the Congregational commll.llity. The Congregational Union (chapter 3) provided an agency for deno~ational activity and a focal point for an otherw"ise hj.ghly decentr;>]'; zed community. L'"l our period the union was only moderately successful in realizing its objectives, but it pro-nded a forum for discussion eyen if it showed the li''l'.itations of Congregational volunt.arism. By the late 1850s the union ..- as seriously tp.reatened by its too many commitments, local indifference and internal strife. Perhaps more successful was the Dissenting and denomina.tional press (ch-apter 4) in consolidat;ng the COID..lJlUluty. \ Congregationalists were active in bot!!. the ,.n.der assenting press as well as their own denominationa.l press. The voluntary pri.."l.ciple was seen to be of great importance in the areas of errucation and chapel buildL~g. It was in both these areas that Congregationalism was most seriously challenged by the Est.ablishment and it was here that the voluntary principle was most evidently curtailed. The education battle (chapter 5) was a valiant one, but it was doomed from the start. The Congregationalist system simply could not susta:L"1 a viable alternative to the state-supported syste."lt. Chapel building (Chapter 6) was more successful, but its success was itself a recognition of the liw~ted resources of the Congregational co~~unity and therefore of the voluntary prjnciple. i CON TEN T S Page Preface ii Abbreviations iii Introduction 1 Chapter I DOCTRINE AND DISCORD: THE DECLINE OF THE OLD CONSENSUS 11 Chapter II DOCTRINE AND DISCORD: THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE AND THE CONGREGATIONAL WAY 82 Chapter III CONSOLIDATION: THE FORMATION OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION 149 Chapter IV CONSOLIDATION: CONGREGATIONALIS~i AND THE PERIODICAL PRESS 211 Chapter V CONTAlmiENT: CONGREGATIONALI SM AND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 246 Chapter VI CONTAINMENT: CONGREGATIONALISM AND CHAPEL BUILDING 298 Conclusion 336 Bibliography 344 ii PREFACE The purpose and scope of this thesis will be described in the Introduction. I would like here simply to acknowledge my indebtedness to several institutions and people. My interest in British Nonconformity was nurtured while an undergraduate and I am thankful for the opportunities afforded me to pursue that interest as a postgraduate. In particular, I am grateful to my parents for their support and continual patience and to the Inter-collegiate Studies Institute of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania for electing me to a Richard M. Weaver Fellowship. Numerous people helped me along the way and I would like to thank especially Dr. Sheridan Gilley, Dr. David Hempton, Dr. David Bebbington and the Rev. Dr. Clyde Ervine for helping me to sharpen my ideas when I was beginning my research. Of course an immense debt is owed to various libraries and their long-suffering staffs. The majority of my research was done at the Congregational Library, London, Dr. Williams's Library, London and the University Library, St. Andrews. I am also thankful for the facilities and aid offered by the libraries of Cambridge and London Universities, Homerton College, Cambridge, the Institute of Historical Research, London, the School of African and Oriental Studies, London, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland and the United Reformed Church of England and Wales, as well as to the Evangelical Library, London and the London City Mission, London and the Dorset Congregational Union, Boscombe. For help and support of a very different order I owe more than I can express to my wife. She has learned to live with my inordinate interest in almost anything that has to do with Protestant Nonconformity. I trust that this thesis in some small way will reward her patience. iii ABBREVIATIONS B.A.S.C.A.: British Anti-State Church Association B.F.B.S.: British and Foreign Bible Society B.F.S.S.: British and Foreign School Society C.B.E.: Congregational Board of Education C.I. & C.M.: London Christian Instructor and Congregational Magazine C.I.S.: Christian Instruction Society C.L.MSs.: Congregational Library Manuscripts ~ Congregational Magazine Colonial M.S.: Colonial ~issionary Society C.P.M.: Christian's Penny Magazine and Peo~le's Friend C.U.E.W.: Congregational Union of England and Wales C.Y.B.: Congregational Year Book Documents Relatin~: Documents Relating to the Formation of the Congregational Union of England and Wales D. W. L.: Dr. Wi lliams~s Library E.M.: Evangelical Magazine E.R.: Eclectic Review H.C.MSs.: Homerton College Manuscripts H.M.M.: Home Missionary Magazine H.M.S.: Home Missionary Society I.E.S.: Irish Evangelical Society J.Eccl.H.: Journal of Ecclesiastical History L.C.M.: London City Mission L.M.S.: London Missionary Society N.: Nonconformist N.C.L.C.: New College London Collection N.C.L.C., B.P.: New College London Collection, Blackburn Papers P.: Patriot R.T.S.: Religious Tract Society S.S.U.: Sunday School Union T.C.H.S.: Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society V.I.A.: Village Itineracy Association V.S.A.: Voluntary School Association 1 niT RODUCTI ON This thesis is an atteqlt to investigate the borderland between the internal religious life of one dissenting community, Congregationalism, and its external political and social life. Many years prior to the period covered in this thesis Robert Browne referred to his fellow dissenters as the 'willing sorte', by which he meant that they were voluntary members of free Christian communities who refused to bow before the coercive powers of any religious establishment. For Congregationalists the voluntary principle came into sharpest focus in the autonomy of the local church, or as John Robinson put it in 1616 in a petition to James I, 'the right of spiritual administration and government in itself and over itself by the common and free consent of the people, independently and immediately under Christ'. My purpose is to show something of the way in which this principle was reaffirmed and practised by Congregationalists in mid-19th century England. Relatively little attention has been paid to the way in which Congregationalists practised their voluntary cburchmanship in the wider context of society and politics. Denominational historians have either tended to be inward-looking and domestic in their treatment or have stopped short of investigating the full social significance of the institutions and movements they were writing about. Examples of the former category would be an older history such as John Waddington's Congregational History or a work of the present century such as Albert Peel's These Hundred Years, a History of the Congregational Union of England and Wales 1831-1931. Peel's work is the standard history of the union, but it unfortunately suffers from being pedestrian, unimaginati ve and lacking in almost all references to his sources. In the latter category would be R.W. Dale's monumental History of English Congregationalism (1884) which was the product of a lively and reflective mind passionately committed to voluntary independancy. 2 In his other works Dale saw both the significance of the decline of the pan-evangelicalism of the early 19th century and the rise of a more decided churchmanship.l R. Tudur-Jones's more recent Congregationalism in England (1961) attempted to break out of the mould of many church histories, but the scope of his work precluded closer examination of the practice of voluntarism. F.R. Salter's article 'Congregationalism in the Hungry Forties' (1955)2was particularly perceptive and beamed some light into the world of Congregational historiography. Salter recognized the importance of the voluntary principle in integrating the diverse activities of the Congregational community in the face of multiple challenges to its mission. Following the insights of Elie Halevy Salter elucidated the particular institutional tension within Congregationalism between the independence of the local churches and the common interests of the whole body, not least as they related to the wider society outside. Congregationalists felt this tension acutely in the 19th century as they sought to vindicate themselves as a voluntary community by establishing their own alternative organizations to those of the Establishment and as they sought to tackle the political obstacles that lay in the way to the full realization of their principles. In this light the agonized debates in the Congregational Union assemblies and the long string of articles and books on church polity take on a deeper significance than being merely a prolonged discussion of fami ly affairs. Perhaps more than they were willing to admit (though Anglican critics were always ready to point this out) the Congregational cOllllltlllity was engaged in an exercise of adjusting the classical doctrine of the church that they had inherited from their Puritan forbears to the new circumstances of 19th century Britain. 1. See R. W. Dale's The Evangelical Revival and other Sermons (London 1880); Manual of Congregational Church Order (London 1884, 8th edn. 1898); The Old Evangelicalism and the New (London 1889). 2. F.R. Salter, 'Congregationalism in the Hungry Forties', T.C.H.S., XVII (1955). 3 The evangelical revival, political and ecclesiastical reform, the growth of the towns and cities, the industrial revolution and much else all made up a world in which Congregationalists had to come to terms with their own expansion, home and foreign missions, elementary education and competition from other communities in a pluralistic society. To meet these challenges it was necessary to consolidate their strength and perpetuate and build up their institutions. All the while the voluntary principle was being refined and stretched to the limit both as an apologetic weapon and as a practical tool. It is not surprising that there was a loosening of the ties with the older pan-evangelicalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries along with the reassertion of the distinctives of Congregationalism. This was a fairly widespread process that was regretted by some but was perhaps the natural response of the various evangelical groups in wanting to capitalize on what they had gained during the period of expansion. Home missions was of course the most vulnerable area since there the question of polity was of paramount importance. But in fact almost every area where evangelicals had traditionally cooperated was affected. It was not, however, simply a matter of a practical recognition of denominational realities, but by the l830s also a question of the voluntary versus the establishment principles. Dissenters felt keenly the oppression of the Established Church through the legal disabilities and Anglicans felt the challenge of Dissenters in political agitation that threatened their privileges. Evangelicals of both parties were torn in their loyalty to a common gospel and their fidelity to their ecclesiastical principles. By the l850s the heat of controversy had subsided and there was a new coalescence of evangelicals, but the new unity was as mach a reaction to Romanism, ritualism and incipient liberalism as a reaffirmation of a common faith. In the ueantime Congregationalists had built up their denominational organization upon the foundations of the old pan~vangelicalism. Many Congreg ationalists s~ the union of 1832 as a repudiation of their evangelical catholicity, but others recognized it as the only way to maintain that catholicity OIl realistic terms in a world that was not always to their liking. 4 Overshadowing almost everything that the Congregational community tmdertook was the Church of England. Not only was the Church of England the dominant religious body, but as the established church it called the ttme to which the Dissen ters danced. As much as they would have liked to have practised their voltmtarism in a manner similar to their Puritan cousins in America, English Congregationalists were hemmed in on all sides by the Establishment and its active support by the state. As such Con gregationalists partook of a certain defensiveness that manifested itself in the polemical character of voluntarist writings and the call for a more dis tinct, if not strident, churchman ship • Do whatever they would Con gregationalists saw themselves in relation to their dissent from and nonconformi ty to the Anglican church. Yet one marked feature of our period, and a contributory factor to the strength of the voltmtary cause, was the renewed integrity of Congregationalism as a polity. The attempts to forge links with continental Reformed communities, with the American churches and the interest in the colonial mission where almost all were on an equal footing did much to boost the denomination's self-esteem. In spite of the handicaps Congregationalists seemed to speak, particularly in the late l830s and l840s, as if the future was theirs. Indeed, much of early Victorian Congregationalism can be best tmderst'Ood in terms of its attempts to put its voluntarism into practice - whether in home missions or in political agitation - in a society that was no longer conducive to an old-fashioned religious establishment. Thomas Binney articulated this attitude clearly in his address from the chair of the Congregational Union in that fateful year in European politics of 1848. Seeing the question of the separation of church and state at the heart of the events on the continent, Binney declared, 'Revolutions are con vulsing the world and they are doing so partly through the medium of ideas consecrated by us'. As Chris tians they were to preach the gospe 1, !i!.., but as Dissenters they had 'a peculiar calling and special work, to testify against certain errors and institutions; and it must be confessed, that if our ideas be right, or, whether right or wrong, if they should • • . ld b 1· ,3 p red01D1n ate , our DIl.SS10ll ••• wou seem to e revo ut1onary. 3. C.Y.B. (1848), p.S.

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way and I would like to thank especially Dr. Sheridan Gilley, Dr. David. Hempton, Dr. B.F.B.S.: British and Foreign Bible Society. B.F.S.S.: British and to publish the Apocrypha, to have prayer at general meetings and to . organizing meeting in May 1796 was in agreement with the prevalent catholi
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