Call and settlement of a pastor-order of proceeding-the contracting parties. Support of the pastor-the grounds of that duty-inferences. Different modes of providing for parish expenses-taxation-rent of pews-subscrip- tion-funds-Sabbath collections. Meeting houses and RELATIONS AND INTERCOURSE OF CHURCHES Dismission of members from one church to another. Coun- cils-occasions on which they are called-mutual and ex-parte consociations-powers of councils. Associa- Ir every man should know something of the history of his own religious communion, it is especially desirable that such a history as that of the founders of the Churches of New England should, by every means, be kept alive in the minds of their posterity. The character of our Pilgrim Fathers, the causes and objects of their removal hither, the hardships they suffered-more for the sake of us their children, than for their own,-have a most sacred claim upon our memory. It is a history which every son of New England should value as his birth-right. "No sober New Englander (says Dr. Dwight) can read the history of his country, without rejoicing that God has caused him to spring from the loins of such ancestors, and given him his birth in a country whose public concerns were entrusted to their management:" and it may be added, that no New Englander who is willingly ignorant of that history is worthy of his origin; or capable of appreciating, or competent to defend, the inestimable inheritance which has descended to him. "I shall count my country lost, (says Cotton Mather) in the loss of the primitive principles, and the primitive practices, upon which it was at first. established:" that loss, however, will ensue, and New England will cease to be New England, when her degenerate children, (if that should ever be,) shall be generally ignorant of her history, or cease to revere the memory of her founders. It is not, however, the design, nor is it within the compass, of this volume, to give such a history. A few things only can be noticed, as introductory to the matters which are to follow. The The Congregational polity, at least in some of its leading features, began early to be discussed, among the schemes which occupied the Reformers of the sixteenth century; but did not assume a visible and permanent existence till about 1600. exiled church at Leyden, under the care of the celebrated Robinson, which afterwards removed to Plymouth, in New England, is regarded as the mother of the Congregational sisterhood, and its pastor, as the founder, or rather restorer, of the Congregational plan. We of course believe that this scheme of church order is essentially that of the first christian churches, and that our Savior and the apostles were its authors. The Leyden church was gathered in England in 1602. Being harrassed by an intolerant establishment, they removed, a few years after, to Holland, and thence, in 1620, to Plymouth; where the first detach |