The Saybrook Platform was a constitution for the Congregational church in Connecticut in the 18th century.
The Saybrook Platform was a constitution for the Congregational church in Connecticut in the 18th century.
Religious and civic leaders in Connecticut around 1700 were distressed by the colony-wide decline in personal religious piety and in church discipline. The colonial legislature took action by calling 12 ministers and four laymen to meet in Saybrook, Connecticut; eight were Yale trustees. Delegates were involved in the polity debates between Presbyterianism on the one hand, Congregationalism on the other, and the mediating position of Consociationalism.
The Platform consists of three parts: a confession, the Heads of Agreement, and the Fifteen Articles.
In reference to doctrine, the assembly adopted the Savoy Declaration as amended by the Boston Synod of 1680. [1] This put the Connecticut church in line with the Westminster tradition and the Massachusetts church.
The Savoy originally appended its own platform on polity to the confession, but this was not adopted in either Boston or Saybrook, which instead used the Cambridge Platform and Saybrook Platform respectively. [2]
In reference to church order and unity, [1] the assembly adopted the Heads of Agreement, a document effecting a union between Congregationalists and Presbyterians of (old) London. This document was previously circulated among American churches, but was not chosen to unify Presbyterians and Congregationalists in Connecticut, as there were no Presbyterian delegates. [3] The Heads of Agreement were drafted by Increase Mather, Matthew Mead and John Hone. [4]
The Heads of Agreement are considered the most liberal part of the platform, and challenging to enforce, [4] hence the need for the following articles.
In reference to church government and discipline, [1] the assembly produced their own Articles for the administration of church discipline.
They (the articles) are in reality the Platform, for all that goes before them is but a reaffirmation of principles already accepted, and the new thing in the document, the advance in ecclesiasticism, is the increased authority permitted and, later, enforced by these Fifteen Articles. [4]
The articles prescribe consociations to litigate church discipline issues, associations of ministers to meet concerning the interest of churches and to examine ministerial candidates, and an general association of delegates to meet annually. [1] There was to be at least one association and consociation per county.
The Saybrook Platform brought a more centralized church system than existed prior to 1708, similar to but not completely Presbyterian. The Congregational church was now to be led by local ministerial associations and consociations composed of ministers and lay leaders from a specific geographical area. A colony-wide General Assembly held final authority. Instead of the congregation from each local church selecting its minister, the associations now had the responsibility to examine candidates for the ministry, and to oversee behavior of the ministers. The consociations (where laymen were powerless) could impose discipline on specific churches and judge disputes that arose. Associations were equipped to disfellowship non-compliant churches. Similar proposals for more centralized clerical control of local churches were defeated in Massachusetts, where a more liberal theology flourished. [5] The Platform facilitated close ties with the Presbyterians; Connecticut Yankees who moved West founded Presbyterian churches. [6] The Platform was a conservative victory against a non-conformist tide which had begun with the Halfway Covenant and would culminate in the Great Awakening. [7] [8]
As the established church, the terms of the Saybrook Platform were legally enforceable against dissenting Christians, such as Connecticut Baptist Isaac Backus. Following the Great Awakening, Connecticut Old and New Lights underwent a "great schism." [4] Connecticut's ecclesiastical laws were finally amended in 1750.
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The Toleration Party, also known as the Toleration-Republican Party and later the American Party or American Toleration and Reform Party, was a political party that dominated the political life of Connecticut from 1817 to 1827. The American name referred not to nativism or the later Know Nothing, which was also known as the American Party, but to the party's national orientation. The party was formed by an alliance of the more conservative Episcopalians with the Democratic-Republicans, as a result of the discrimination of the Episcopal Church by the Congregationalist state government. In the 1817 elections, the Toleration Party swept control of the General Assembly. At the Connecticut Constitutional convention in 1817, 111 of the 201 convention delegates belonged to the Toleration Party. The resulting Constitution of 1818 generally adhered to the Tolerationist platform, especially their two major issues: increasing the electorate and the democratic nature of the government and disestablishing the Congregational Church. By the end of the 1820s the Tolerationists had developed into the Jacksonian branch of the Connecticut Democratic Party.
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Zebulon Crocker was a Congregationalist pastor and educator. He is best known for his published account of the 1837-38 schism of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America entitled The Catastrophe of the Presbyterian Church.
James Dana was a Protestant clergyman and pastor of the first church in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Reverend Noadiah Russell was a Congregationalist minister, a founder and trustee of Yale College, and one of the framers of the Saybrook Platform.
The National Council of Congregational Churches of the United States was a mainline Protestant, Christian denomination in the United States. Its organization as a denomination was delayed by the Civil War. Congregational leaders met again in Boston, Massachusetts in 1865, where they began to hammer out standards of church procedures (polity) and adopted a statement of faith, known as the Burial Hill Declaration. Denominational organization came in 1871 with formation of the National Council of Congregational Churches, which existed until its merger in 1931. In 1928, there were 5,497 Congregational churches in the U.S. with a membership of 939,130. These churches were served by 5,648 ministers.
Congregationalism in the United States consists of Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition that have a congregational form of church government and trace their origins mainly to Puritan settlers of colonial New England. Congregational churches in other parts of the world are often related to these in the United States due to American missionary activities.
