What Problem Did the Half-way Covenant Try to Address?

Historical form of church membership in American Christianity

The Half-Way Covenant was a form of partial church building membership adopted past the Congregational churches of colonial New England in the 1660s. The Puritan-controlled Congregational churches required evidence of a personal conversion experience before granting church membership and the right to have one's children baptized. Conversion experiences were less common amid 2d-generation colonists, and this became an issue when these unconverted adults had children of their ain who were ineligible for baptism.

The Half-Way Covenant was proposed every bit a solution to this problem. Information technology allowed baptized but unconverted parents to present their ain children for baptism; notwithstanding, they were denied the other privileges of church membership. The Half-Way Covenant was endorsed past an associates of ministers in 1657 and a church synod in 1662. Nevertheless, it was highly controversial among Congregationalists with many conservatives being afraid it would pb to lower standards within the church. A number of Congregational churches split over the consequence.

The Half-Manner Covenant's adoption has been interpreted by some historians every bit signaling the decline of New England Puritanism and the platonic of the church as a body of exclusively converted believers. For other historians, it signaled a move abroad from sectarianism. The Half-Fashion Covenant also opened the door to further divisions amidst Congregationalists concerning the nature of the sacraments and the necessity of conversion. Liberal Congregational churches extended church building membership to all professing Christians, and in time many of these churches became Unitarian. The revivalism unleashed by the First Not bad Enkindling was in role a reaction confronting the One-half-Fashion Covenant.

Name [edit]

The term Halfway Covenant was a derogatory characterization practical by opponents of the exercise. The term used by supporters at the fourth dimension was "large Congregationalism".^[1]

Background [edit]

Beginning in the 1620s and 1630s, colonial New England was settled by Puritans who believed that they were obligated to build a holy society in covenant with God. The covenant was the foundation for Puritan convictions apropos personal conservancy, the church, social cohesion and political authority.^[2] The first colonists organized themselves into Congregational churches by means of church building covenants. Co-ordinate to the Puritan vision, every church fellow member should be a "visible saint", someone who non simply demonstrated an agreement of Christian doctrine and was costless of social scandal but who also could claim a witting conversion experience. This experience indicated to Puritans that a person had been regenerated and was, therefore, one of the elect destined for salvation.^[3] To ensure only regenerated persons entered the church, prospective members were required to provide their personal conversion narratives to be judged by the congregation. If accepted, they could assert the church covenant and receive the privileges of membership,^[4] which included participating in the Lord's Supper and having their children baptized.^[5]

The sharing of conversion narratives prior to access was first skilful at the Kickoff Church in Boston in 1634 during a religious revival in which an unusually big number of converts joined the church. Before being admitted into the church, the converts engaged in a Puritan practise of lay sermonizing or prophesying in which they recounted to the congregation the procedure by which they became convinced of their ballot. This practice spread to other churches and by 1640 had go a requirement throughout New England. With this new dominion, the Puritans believed they had come up closer to making the visible church a more accurate reflection of the invisible church.^[6]

Every bit Calvinists, Congregationalists did not believe the sacraments had any power to produce conversion or determine one's spiritual state. The sacraments were seals of the covenant meant to confirm one in their election, which was already predestined by God.^[three] While children could not be presumed to be regenerated, information technology was believed that children of church building members were already included in the church covenant on the basis of their parent's membership and had the right to receive the initial sacrament of baptism. When these baptized children became adults, information technology was expected that they too would experience conversion and be admitted into full communion with the right to participate in the Lord's Supper.^[7]

Past the 1650s and 1660s, the baptized children of this first generation had become adults themselves and were first to have children; however, many within this 2d generation had not experienced conversion. As a consequence, their children were denied infant baptism and entry into the covenant.^[5] As this group increased, Congregationalists grew concerned that the church's influence over society would weaken unless these unconverted adults and their children were kept in the church.^[8] It seemed that the Puritan ideal of a pure church of authentic converts was clashing with the equally important platonic of a society united in covenant with God.^[9]

Proposal [edit]

Charles Chauncy, clergyman and president of Harvard from 1654–1672, was an outspoken opponent of the Half-Manner Covenant.

Every bit early as 1634, the church building in Dorchester, Massachusetts, asked the advice of Boston'due south First Church concerning a church fellow member'south desire to accept his grandchild baptized even though neither of his parents were full members. First Church building recommended that this exist allowed. The consequence was brought up on other occasions from time to time. Thomas Hooker, founder of Connecticut, and John Davenport, a prominent minister and founder of New Haven Colony, believed that only children of full members should be baptized. George Phillips of Watertown, Massachusetts, withal, believed that all descendants of converts belonged within the church.^[ten]

In the 1640s, a protest movement led by Robert Child over complaints that children were being "debarred from the seals of the covenant" led to the Cambridge Synod of 1646, which created the Cambridge Platform outlining Congregational church bailiwick. Initially, the Platform included language declaring that baptism was open up to all descendants of converted church members who "cast not off the covenant of God past some scandalous and obstinate going on in sin". Nevertheless, this argument was not included in the final version of the Platform due to the opposition of of import figures, such every bit Charles Chauncy who would later go president of Harvard College. Samuel Rock and John Cotton supported the more than inclusive view.^[11]

In 1650, Samuel Rock of Hartford, Connecticut, chosen for a synod to settle the effect, and he warned that if this did not occur the Connecticut churches would go along to implement halfway covenant principles. Between 1654 and 1656, the churches at Salem, Dorchester and Ipswich adopted the halfway system.^[12]

The provisions of the Half-Way Covenant were outlined and endorsed by a meeting of ministers initiated by the legislatures of Connecticut and Massachusetts. This ministerial assembly met in Boston on June four, 1657. Plymouth Colony sent no delegates, and New Haven declined to take part, insisting on adhering to the older practise.^[thirteen] The assembly recommended that the children of unconverted baptized adults receive baptism if their parents publicly agreed with Christian doctrine and affirmed the church building covenant in a ceremony known every bit "owning the baptismal covenant" in which "they give up themselves and their children to the Lord, and discipline themselves to the Government of Christ in the Church building". These baptized merely unconverted members were non to exist admitted to the Lord's Supper or vote on church business (such as choosing ministers or disciplining other members) until they had professed conversion.^[14] ^[15]

These recommendations were controversial and met with strong opposition, inducing the Massachusetts General Court to call a synod of ministers and lay delegates to deliberate farther on the question of who should be baptized. Like the 1657 associates, the Synod of 1662 endorsed the Half-Mode Covenant. Among the 70 members of the synod, the strongest advocate for the Half-Way Covenant was Jonathan Mitchell, pastor of Cambridge's Beginning Parish, and the leader of the conservative party, President Chauncey.^[sixteen]

Nether congregationalist polity, the decision to accept or turn down the Half-Manner Covenant belonged to each congregation. Some churches rejected information technology and maintained the original standard into the 1700s. Other churches went across the Half-Manner Covenant, opening baptism to all infants whether or not their parents or grandparents had been baptized.^[17]

Adoption [edit]

Increase Mather initially opposed the Half-Fashion Covenant merely was persuaded to back up it.

While the conservatives were outvoted in the synod, they connected to publicly protest, and both sides engaged in a pamphlet war. Chauncey, Davenport and Increase Mather wrote against the synod, while Mitchell, John Allen and Richard Mather defended it. Somewhen, Increase Mather changed his position and supported the Half-Mode Covenant.^[xviii]

Critics argued that the Half-Fashion Covenant would end commitment to the Puritan ideal of a regenerate church membership, either by permanently dividing members into two classes (those with access to the Lord's Supper and those with only baptism) or past starting the glace slope to giving the unconverted access to the Lord's Supper. Supporters argued that to deny baptism and inclusion in the covenant to the grandchildren of outset generation members was in essence claiming that second-generation parents had forfeited their membership and "discovenanted themselves", despite for the almost role being catechized churchgoers.^[19] Supporters believed the Half-Way Covenant was a "middle manner" betwixt the extremes of either admitting the ungodly into the church or stripping unconverted adults of their membership in the baptismal covenant.^[20] At to the lowest degree in this way, they argued, a larger number of people would be subject to the church'south discipline and authority.^[21]

By the 1660s, churches in Connecticut were divided between those who utilized the Half-Way Covenant, those who completely rejected information technology and those who immune anyone to exist a full fellow member.^[22] With the colony's clergy divided over the issue, the Connecticut legislature decided in 1669 that it would tolerate both inclusive and sectional baptism practices. It also permitted churches divided over the issue to carve up.^[23] Several churches dissever over the One-half-Mode Covenant's adoption, including churches at Hartford, Windsor and Stratford. One minister, Abraham Pierson of Branford, led his congregation to New Bailiwick of jersey to escape its influence.^[24]

The churches of Massachusetts were slower to accept inclusive baptism policies.^[22] Lay church building members were divided with some supporting the new measures and others strongly opposing. The outcome was schism as congregations divided over implementing the synod's recommendations.^[20] A prominent case was the division of Boston'south First Church building after the decease of its pastor John Wilson, a Half-Way supporter, in 1667. Davenport was called past the congregation as its new pastor, and this was followed by the withdrawal of 28 disgruntled members who formed 3rd Church (meliorate known every bit Old South Church). For 14 years, in that location was no communion between the two churches, and the conflict afflicted the rest of Massachusetts' Congregational churches. Those who were against the One-half-Way Covenant favored First Church and those who approved favored Tertiary Church.^[25]

Until 1676, opponents of the Half-Way Covenant in Massachusetts were successful at preventing its adoption in all major churches. That year marked the starting time of a long series of crises in Massachusetts, outset with King Phillip's War (1675–1678) and catastrophe with the Salem Witch Trials (1693). Many Puritans believed God was punishing the colony for declining to bring more people into the covenant. By the end of the 17th century, iv out of every five Congregational churches in Massachusetts had adopted the Half-Manner Covenant, with some also extending access to the Lord's Supper.^[26]

As the Half-Way Covenant became widely adopted, information technology became typical for a New England congregation to have a group of regular churchgoers who were considered Christians by their behavior merely who never professed conversion. Oftentimes, these half-way members outnumbered full members. I Massachusetts guess from 1708 stated the ratio was four one-half-style members to each total member.^[27]

Abandonment [edit]

The Half-Way Covenant connected to exist practiced by three-fourths of New England's churches into the 1700s, only opposition continued from those wanting a return to the strict access standards equally well as those who wanted the removal of all barriers to church membership.^[28] Northampton pastor Solomon Stoddard (1643–1729) attacked both the One-half-Way practise and the more exclusive access policy, writing that the doctrine of local church building covenants "is wholly unscriptural, [it] is the reason that many among us are close out of the church, to whom church privileges exercise belong."^[29] Stoddard still believed that New England was a Christian nation and that it had a national covenant with God. The being of such a covenant, however, required all citizens to partake of the Lord'southward Supper. Open communion was justified because Stoddard believed the sacrament was a "converting ordinance" that prepared people for conversion.^[30] Stoddardeanism was an attempt to reach people with the gospel more effectively, just it did so, according to historian Marking Noll, by "abandoning the covenant equally a unifying rationale".^[31]

Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom writes that during the First Keen Awakening (1734–1745), "The platonic of a regenerate [church] membership was renewed, while Stoddardeanism and the Half-Way Covenant were called into question."^[32] Jonathan Edwards, Stoddard's grandson, was influential in undermining both Stoddardeanism and the Half-Way Covenant, but he also attacked the very thought of a national covenant. Edwards believed there was but ane covenant between God and human—the covenant of grace. This covenant was an internal covenant, taking place in the heart. Infant baptism and the Lord's Supper were covenant privileges available only to "visible and professing saints."^[33] Opponents of the Awakening saw Edwards' views as a threat to family well-being and the social order, which they believed were promoted by the Half-Way system.^[34]

The Neat Awakening left behind several religious factions in New England, and all of them had different views on the covenant. In this environment, the Half-Manner organisation ceased to function as a source of religious and social cohesion. The New Low-cal followers of Edwards would continue to insist that the church building be a body of regenerate saints.^[35] The liberal, Arminian Congregationalists who dominated the churches in Boston and on the Eastward Declension rejected the necessity of any specific conversion experience and would come to believe that the Lord'south Supper was a memorial rather than a means of grace or a converting ordinance. Every bit a outcome, they believed that distinguishing between total members and half-way members was "undemocratic, illiberal, and anachronistic".^[36] These liberal currents would eventually lead to beliefs in Unitarianism and universal salvation and the creation of a distinct American Unitarian denomination in the 19th century.^[37]

Puritan coast theory [edit]

Nineteenth-century Congregationalist ministers Leonard Bacon and Henry Martyn Dexter saw the Half-Mode Covenant's adoption as the beginning of the decline of New England's churches that continued into the 1800s.^[38] Some historians likewise identify the One-half-Way Covenant with Puritan decline or coast. Historian Perry Miller identifies its adoption equally the final step in "the transformation of Congregationalism from a religious Utopia to a legalized order" in which assurance of salvation became essentially a individual matter and the "churches were pledged, in upshot, not to pry into the genuineness of any religious emotions, but to be birthday satisfied with decorous semblances."^[39]

Historian Sydney Ahlstrom writes that the covenant was "itself no proof of declension" just that it "documented the passing of churches composed solely of regenerate 'saints'."^[xl] Historian Francis Bremer writes that it weakened the unity of the Congregational churches and that the biting fighting between ministers over its adoption led to a loss of respect for the Puritan clergy every bit a social form.^[26]

Historian Robert Yard. Pope questioned the "myth of coast", writing that the process labeled reject was, in reality, the "maturation" of the Congregational churches abroad from sectarianism.^[41] Pope and Edmund Morgan found that many church members were very scrupulous in Massachusetts. While second-generation colonists were having conversion experiences similar to those of their parents, the second generation often doubted the validity of their ain experiences. Pope and Morgan conjecture that it was scrupulosity rather than impiety that led to the turn down in church membership.^[22]

Historian Marker Noll writes that by keeping the ascension generation officially within the church the Half-Way Covenant actually preserved New England'southward Puritan society, while also maintaining conversion every bit the standard for full church membership. Due to its widespread adoption, most New Englanders connected to be included inside the covenant bonds linking individuals, churches and society until the First Bang-up Enkindling definitively marked the terminate of the Puritan era.^[42]

Run into also [edit]

Covenant succession

Citations [edit]

^ Winship 2018, p. 192.
^ Noll 2002, p. 39.
^ ^a ^b Scobey 1984, p. 5.
^ Youngs 1998, pp. twoscore–1.
^ ^a ^b Hall 2008, p. 145.
^ Bremer 1995, pp. 106–7.
^ Scobey 1984, p. 6.
^ Dunning 1894, pp. 171–73.
^ Noll 2002, p. twoscore.
^ Dunning 1894, p. 172.
^ Dunning 1894, pp. 173–74.
^ Dunning 1894, p. 176.
^ Dunning 1894, p. 177.
^ Scobey 1984, p. ix.
^ Miller 1933, p. 708.
^ Dunning 1894, p. 179.
^ Youngs 1998, p. 62.
^ Dunning 1894, p. 180.
^ Scobey 1984, p. 7.
^ ^a ^b Hall 2008, p. 146.
^ Scobey 1984, p. eight.
^ ^a ^b ^c Bremer 1995, p. 163.
^ Dunning 1894, p. 188.
^ Ahlstrom 2004, p. 159.
^ Dunning 1894, p. 187.
^ ^a ^b Bremer 1995, p. 165.
^ Hall 2008, p. 148.
^ Noll 2002, p. 43.
^ Noll 2002, p. 41.
^ Ahlstrom 2004, p. 162.
^ Noll 2002, p. 42.
^ Ahlstrom 2004, p. 287.
^ Noll 2002, pp. 45–46.
^ Noll 2002, p. 46.
^ Noll 2002, p. 48.
^ Ahlstrom 2004, p. 391.
^ Ahlstrom 2004, p. 392.
^ Pope 1970, p. 95.
^ Miller 1933, p. 703.
^ Ahlstrom 2004, p. 280.
^ Pope 1970, p. 108.
^ Noll 2002, pp. 40, 44.

References [edit]

Ahlstrom, Sydney East. (2004) [1972]. A Religious History of the American People (2nd ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN0-385-11164-9.
Bremer, Francis J. (1995). The Puritan Experiment: New England Guild from Bradford to Edwards (rev ed.). University Press of New England. ISBN978-0-87451728-6.
Dunning, Albert Eastward. (1894). Congregationalists in America: A Popular History of Their Origin, Belief, Polity, Growth and Work. New York: J. A. Hill & Co.
Hall, David D. (2008), "New England, 1660–1730", in Coffey, John; Lim, Paul C. H. (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, Cambridge University Printing, pp. 143–58, ISBN978-1-13982782-9 .
Miller, Perry (December 1933). "The Half-Way Covenant". The New England Quarterly. half-dozen (4): 676–715. doi:10.2307/359738. JSTOR 359738.
Noll, Mark A. (2002). America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19803441-five.
Pope, Robert M. (Wintertime 1970). "New England versus the New England Mind: The Myth of Coast". Journal of Social History. Oxford University Press. 3 (2): 95–108. doi:10.1353/jsh/3.ii.95. JSTOR 3786237.
Scobey, David Chiliad. (Jan 1984). "Revising the Errand: New England's Ways and the Puritan Sense of the By". The William and Mary Quarterly. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Civilization. 41 (1): three–31. doi:10.2307/1919203. JSTOR 1919203.
Winship, Michael P. (2018). Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America. Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-12628-0.
Youngs, J. William T. (1998). The Congregationalists. Denominations in America. Vol. 4 (Educatee ed.). Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN978-0-27596441-2.

External links [edit]

"Half-Manner Covenant". U-Southward-History.com. Online Highways LLC. Retrieved June 25, 2018. Brusk overview of historical events.
Lewis, Jone Johnson (April 4, 2017). "A History of the Half-Manner Covenant: Inclusion of Puritan Children in Church building and State". ThoughtCo. Dotdash. Retrieved June 25, 2018. A comprehensive caption for people new to the material.
"One-half-Way Covenant". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, inc. November eighteen, 2014. Retrieved June 25, 2018. Another, encyclopedia-style historical overview.

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