HALF-WAY COVENANT: An expedient adopted by New England churches in the seventeenth cen tury to allow baptized persons of moral conduct and orthodox belief to have their children baptized and enjoy themselves all privileges of church-mem bership except participation in the Lord's Supper. In the early New England colonies church members included (1) Christians who had entered into cov enant with a local church; and (2) their children, who were members in virtue of their birth in a Christian household. There was thus a double basis of church membership. The children were, however, admitted to the Lord's Supper only after regeneration and taking the covenant of the church. The question whether such as were church members by birth only were entitled to have their children baptized was a matter of controversy for nearly thirty years, when a synod called by the General Court of Massachusetts in 1662 confirmed the de cision of a ministerial body appointed by the same Court in 1657; viz., that non-regenerate members who "owned the covenant," publicly approved the principles of the Gospel, lived upright lives, and promised to promote the welfare and submit to the discipline of the church, might bring their children to baptism; but they themselves might not come to the Lord's table nor take part in ecclesiastical affairs. Notwithstanding much opposition, this became the general practise of the New England churches. Accordingly many persons of reputable life, especially in times of religious interest, who could make no full profession of religion, were admitted to Half-Way Covenant relations in the church and their children were baptized. Solo man Stoddard, pastor at Northampton, Mass., 1669-1729, initiated a further modification which was widely adopted: the Lord's Supper, in his view a converting ordinance, was to be participated in by " all adult members of the church who were not scandalous." The Half-Way Covenant received its death-blow from Jonathan Edwards, Stoddard's successor, although it survived for many years. The last instance of its practise was in Charlestown, Mass., in 1828. See Congregationalists, I., 4, J 3.

C. A. Beckwith.

Bibliography: J. B. Felt, Ecclesiastical Hist. of New Eng land, ii. Passim, Boston, 1862; A. E. Dunning, Congrega- tionalists in America pp. 186-188 passim, New York, 1894; W. Walker, American Church History Series, iii.

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170-182 et passim, ib. 1894; idem, Ten New ffnpland Leaders, pp. 128-134, 244-247 et passim, ib. 1901; L. W. Bacon, Congregationalists, pp. 78-112, 114, ib. 1904.