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The Plan of Union in New York

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Robert Hastings Nichols
Robert Hastings Nichols
Affiliation:
Auburn Theological Seminary
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Extract

The history of the Plan of Union has been written largely under the influence of denominational zeal, jealousy, and antipathy. Underlying much of the writing have been the assumptions that a main object of religious endeavor is to build up denominational organizations and enlarge the statistics, that denominations ought to be kept “pure,” that movements of individuals or churches from one to another are not altogether creditable and justify suspicion of inferior motives on the part of somebody. For example, the Rev. James H. Dill, in an article on “Congregationalism in Western New York” in the Congregational Quarterly in 1859, which has recently been cited as an authority, refers to churches “which have been spirited away from Congregationalism”; and Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, in an article on “Congregationalism in Eastern New York” in the same periodical in 1860, says “The Black River Association … had increased to seventeen churches when in 1817, it was induced to unite with the Watertown Presbytery. … After some years, some of the Congregational churches withdrew from this entanglement, and re-organized in an Association.” On the other side, Dr. Samuel J. Baird in 1868 said in A History of the New School, “The multiplication of Congregational ministers, in the Presbyterian Church, was no increase of strength; but the introduction of an element of weakness, division and heresy.”

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 1936 , pp. 29 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1936

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References

1 History of the Congregational Churches in the United States (1894), 318.Google Scholar

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8 Ib., 80–81, 96. It shows the atmosphere surrounding the operation of the Plan of Union that similar arrangements for delegates were made by the General Assembly in 1803–04 with the Convention of Congregational Ministers in the State of Vermont, in 1810 with the General Association of New Hampshire, in 1811 with the General Association of Massachusetts and in 1828 with the General Conference of Maine. In 1827 the Assembly expressed desire for discontinuance of the voting of delegates; and the Maine arrangement excluded voting. Another sign of atmosphere is that the General Assembly's “Narrative of the State of Religion” in the early years of the century regularly contains reports of conditions in “our sister churches” of New England.

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