Congregationalism is actually very close to the Bible, but it goes a little beyond the Bible. The Congregationalist brothers studied the Bible but failed to discover the thought of locality. Jerusalem is a city, not a congregation; Antioch is a city, not a congregation; Ephesus is a port city, not a congregation; Colossae is a city on a hill, not a congregation. They thought that Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, and Colossae were congregations, and they concluded that congregations were independent of each other. Church history tells us that not long after its beginning, the church deteriorated until the time of Luther. Afterward there was a recovery, an improvement, until the stage of the independent churches. From the time of the independent churches, the church went to another extreme of taking a congregation as the unit. This included Congregationalists and Baptists and later even the Open Brethren who also went to the extreme of considering a congregation as the unit.
Now I wish to discuss the reason that congregationalism is wrong. It is the closest to the Bible; yet it is still wrong. The Lord desires that we love one another, receive one another, and avoid envy, strife, and divisions in the same local church. The unity of congregationalism takes the congregation as its unit. This poses a problem in that it is difficult to pin down such a thing as a congregation. There may be one congregation at 145 Nanyang Road and another at 143 Nanyang Road. If I love the brothers at 145 Nanyang Road, I will meet with them. When I disagree with them, I will set up another congregation at 143 Nanyang Road. If we have seen that unity is a matter of locality, we could only go and set up a church in another city, not another one in Shanghai. This is not easy, but still we must love one another. Oh, how great is the Lord’s wisdom in putting us in localities and giving us the locality as the boundary! Only here can we really find the cross to bear and the lessons to learn.
What is the meaning of a congregational church? It means that there can be several congregations within each locality, each having a unity within itself and each independent of the others. This is a very serious matter. The unity of congregationalism is a mistake. The mistake of the international church goes to one extreme, causing many localities to have one church, but the mistake of the congregational churches goes to the opposite extreme, causing one locality to have many churches. The Roman Catholic Church is at one end, with many localities having one church, and the congregational churches are at the other end, with one locality having many churches. This is like a pendulum that swings to one side with many localities having one church and then swings to the other side with one locality having five to ten churches. In the last century the Brethren were raised up, but some of them fell into congregationalism. They were mainly separated into the Closed Brethren and the Open Brethren. The Closed Brethren are still on the side of the united church; the Open Brethren have gone to the other side and become congregations, “chapel” assemblies. They may have one assembly on one street and another assembly on another street, each having nothing to do with the other. This means they have many churches in one locality.
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