CONGREGATIONALISM (INDEPENDENTS, ante), a church polity according to which any congregation of believers, associated for Christian worship and work, mutual edification, and the maintenance of Christian ordinances, is a church of Christ, subject to no ecclesiastical authority, though bound by the law of Christ to be in fellowship especially with neighboring churches and generally with the whole body of believers. This system recognizes no church as statedly organized on any field wider than that of the local community. If in the administration of its affairs the interests of other churches scent involved, or if it have vainly sought to settle serious difficulties within itself, it seeks the advice of neighboring churches in a council; but it is not bound to follow such advice against its own deliberate and conscientious conviction of Christian duty. The cases are, however, very rare in which the decision of a council is not found to be practically self-enforcing by moral pressure. A member whose rights are invaded by the fiction of the church? may request the church to join with him in calling a coun cil to consider the case; if his request be disregarded, he may call an ex parte council. A council is always limited strictly by the letter-missive which convenes it. That is its charter, and it has no functions as to any case or question not distinctly specified therein. Each Congregational church frames or adopts its summary of doctrines, in accordance with its own interpretation of the Scriptures, elects its own pastor and other officers, admits or rejects candidates for its membership, admonishes and rebukes offend ers, and withdraws fellowship from them if they prove incorrigible. Every male mem ber of full age has the right to vote in church affairs, and in some churches the right for women and minors to vote is admitted. The officers of a church are a pastor (usually the moderator in church meetings), and de-icons in number as may be needed. A clerk, a treasurer, and needful committees may be appointed. The deacons serve at the communion table, care for the needy members, and are expected to aid the pastor in watching over all the interests of the brotherhood. In theory, their office involves the charge of the temporalities of the church, but practically their ditties in this regard are in the hands of a board of trustees appointed by the "society," which provides for all the temporal affairs of the church. The deacons are elected sometimes for life, and
sometimes for a period of time. The church has power to ordain its own minister if it see necessity so to do, but this is almost universally avoided as an irregularity, and when a pastor has been elected, his ordination is by a council of neighboring churches called for this purpose, and present by their pastors and delegates. The council examines the candidate as to his moral, spiritual, and intellectual qualifications, and, if it find hint worthy, ordains or installs him by such religious services as to it may seem lit. These services usually embrace a sermon, a prayer of ordination, with laying on of hands, a charge to the pastor, with the right-hand of fellowship, and an address to the church and congregation. It occasionally happens that a council called to aid in the settlement of a minister fails to be satisfied with his fitness, and therefore declines to act in induct ing him into office. In such cases the church, in its discretion, either relinquishes the candidate, or (very rarely), continuing him in the pulpit, takes upon itself the responsibil ity for whatever may be the effect of its action upon its standing and fellowship with other churches.
Congregationalism, like every other church polity. may be associated with any form of theological doctrine. The Baptist, Unitarian, Universalist, and sonic other denomi nations adopt the polity, though they do not take the name. The " Congregationalists" so called, and bearing this as their distinctive title, arc clearly evangelical, and are deemed Calvinistic, though scarcely so except in a sense somewhat lubdified by modern thought. Their ecclesiastical polity, whose central principle is the independence of the local church under the law of Christ alone, tends to make subordinate questions of mere form or method, to keep open the path of free inquiry, and to foster the spirit of prog recs; while the moral influence of the great body of churches voluntarily associated in religious fellowship and for co-operation in Christian work, operates as a check, all the more powerful because unostentatious, upon hasty and ill-considered divergences from the old paths.