Posted on 06/19/2007 10:23:59 AM PDT by xzins
Does your church have a congregational government? If local members make its decisions rather than an outside bishop or presbytery, then your form of church government is congregational. It is one of the most common ways that Protestants govern their churches throughout the world today.
When did congregationalism begin? There are several suggestions. Some writers say the earliest churches planted by the apostles were run by local congregations. However, most historians look at it as arising within a tide of democratic ideals in the sixteenth century which it fed and to which it contributed. They often point to this day, June 19, 1567 as a red letter day in its origin.
This was the day that Richard Fitz and several others were arrested in Plumber's Hall, London. To understand why, we need to remind ourselves of conditions of that day. Many Englishmen and women were unhappy with the Church of England. According to some it went too far in reform. According to others, not far enough. Some of this last group called for purifying the church. They were called Puritans. Others wished to separate themselves entirely from the Church of England. They became known as Separatists.
Around 1550 small, secret congregations of Separatists sprang up. One was led by Richard Fitz and John Robinson (who later played a key role as leader of the Pilgrim Fathers who came to America). Their movements are hard to trace.
The Separatists really surfaced when they established what they called a "Privye" or private church, one that would not answer to English bishops or to Rome or any other religious authority. In short, it would be governed by its own pastor and members. This put them on a collision course with the queen who was head of the Church of England and personally liked the color, splendor and ritual of worship that the Puritans and Separatists detested.
One particular band of Separatists, reported as a hundred strong, rented Plumber's Hall to celebrate a wedding. Before the nuptials were fairly under way, the sheriff broke up the meeting.
He and his men arrested Richard Fitz, a deacon and others. Many of these Plumber's Hall Separatists spent time in prison for illegal religious activities. We know from a petition later put forth by the Separatists that Fitz and several others paid for their religious views with their lives.
Bibliography:
Dale, R. W. History of English Congregationalism. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1907; especially pp. 92 - 95. Dexter, Henry Martyn. The Congregationalism of the Last 300 Years as Seen in its Literature. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970; p. 114 - 115. Gregg, Frank Moody. The Founding of a Nation; the story of the Pilgrim fathers, their voyage on the Mayflower, their early struggles, hardships and dangers, and the beginnings of American democracy, as told in the journals of Francis Beaumont, cavalier. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1915. Source of the image. Jones, R. Tudur. Congregationalism in England, 1662 - 1962. London: Independent Press, 1962; p. 14. Various internet sites.
ping
I always thought Privye” was an Ohio bathroom/outhouse. Must be my Massachusetts education.
I didn’t know Massachusetts had education.
I recognized the name of John Robinson, but never heard of Fitz. Are any of the other names connected to the Plumber’s Hall Separatists known, like through arrest records?
“I didn’t know Massachusetts had education.”
It doesn’t, that’s why we moved to Connecticut. My understanding of “Privye” was one of the last vestiges of that crummy education. I’m free now, except for the Red Sox.
So they were Baptists.
There's no freedom like Cubs freedom.
We've been liberated from all that "wait til next year" malarkey.
We have no expectations. No future. No hope.
Privye in the New American Update Ye Olde English Dictionary is spelled:
port-o-let
Not necessarily. Some “independents” were paedo-baptists.
This article seems to confuse the Congregationalists (Puritans) and Separatists in England, which were two distinct groups.
Fitz was the leader of the Separatists group which seemed to be more influenced by the continental Anabaptists than were the Calvinist Puritans.
The Congregationalists never really intended to separate themselves from the established church, but to significantly reform it. Congregationalists were paedo-baptists (see The Savoy Declaration).
What they meant by purifying the church was pure doctrine and pure church government, cleared of Romish exaggerations and distortions. Puritans at that time were often fashionable, up-to-date intellectuals, the progressives of that time. Their aversion was "bishops, not beer." Puritans were not the thin-lipped prigs we moderns tend to imagine.
When I first read Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" in an English literature class, I was puzzled by the poem. Marvell was a Puritan, but the poem didn't fit my ideas about a Puritan. It took many years for me to reform my ideas about the Puritans. For a modern, I think that may be one of the most important reformations of thinking to make.
Never a bad thing when flatlanders have little to be too smug about...
Even when they’re the pits?
field expedient trench
When I was a kid we used to go out of our way to go to the campgrounds that still had pits, cuz they ususally had fewer tourists. Pit pumping day was always a big event for us kids, cuz there were guys in hipboots that actually went down there, guys who made the garbage men look like woosies. Don’t see any kids following garbage men anymore. Wonder when that stopped being an attraction.
:>)
Probably too many greenhouse gases.....
Certainly one of the reasons I headed west.
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