The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-09 00:00:00

CONGREGATIONAL UNIONS.

A conference of the ministers and delegates from the prin-
cipal Congregational churches of Lancashire has been held
at Liverpool. The Rev. W. Conder, of Manchester, took the
chair, arld delivered a long address on Church questions.
Ho claimed 17,:r the Nonconformists that they had been the
salvation of Engi,ind from Papal tyranny and kingly misrule.
After enumerating tLe several Acts of religious liberty
by the energy of Dissent, dr Couder said, in reference to the
Irish Church Bill, that the p:inciple of the Establishment
had received its death wound. From it a large portion
of the more thoughtful incinters of the English Church
Lad wisely begun to familiarise thenmelves with a
possible future. The needless and bitter strife between
Clan cloand Dissent had wasted much valuable energy, and
he believed tLo dividing line would be soon removed. Many
excellent men objected to what they called the un-
christianizing of the state. They held that the nation
by its representatives should avow itself Christian.
Mr. Conder professed Lis inability to see the
matter from that point of view. A nation was
Christian, so far as the individuals who composed it
were Christian, and no further. Mr. Conder went on to say
that the sharply defined doctrinal divisions have begun to
melt away, and wl at is common to both sides is coming to
be regarded as of greater importance tl.an the things that
caused division. Why could not all agree to divide the
home and foreign missionary work among them ? We had
four evangelists, but one gospel ; so we might have a score
of Christian bodies, but one Church, all the more
one for not being organised into a visible oneness.
Later in the conference the Rev. Thomas Green, M.A., of
Ashton, read a paper on "The Relation of Independency to
Modern Scepticism." He admitted that all scepticism did
not spring from a hostile spirit, but much of it arose from an
earnest seeking after truth; but went on to say that the
State Church fostered scepticism in the form of Rationalism
and was the nursing mother of heresy.
The West Riding Congregational Union are also holding
a conference at Halifax. The Rev. Enoch Mellor delivered
the inaugural address, congratulating the (union upon the
progress which their opinions had made, as shown in the
measures taken with regard to the Irish Church. The
thought was rapidly growing even in the Establishment
itself that more freedom should be allowed for the sake of
the prosperity of the Episcopal Church. As a denomination
the Independents need not fear the readjustment
which was ecclesiastically coming about, for they
boasted in the elasticity of their policy. At a
public meeting the Rev. D. Loxton, of Sheffield, spoke
in the same strain. if religion could prosper in Ireland
without an Established Church, as he believed it would, the
people of this country would soon begin to ask why they
should not disestablish the Church in England too. The
Established Church, as it now existed, was one great
cause of the present commercial immorality, from the fact
that so many persons in the Church took the pay, and did
little or no work. The only way in which he could ac bunt
for the growth of Ritualism and Romanism in the Church
was because of its connection with the State.