CONGREGATIONALISM had its origin in an attempt in England to carry the principles of the Protestant Reformation regarding the authority of Scripture to their radical conse quences. Accepting the Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice, the founders of Congre gationalism sought to find in it not merely an authoritative source of Christian doctrine; but, also, a complete, adequate and binding pattern of church government and organization. They grew out of the Puritan party of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of which party they were the most advanced wing. They shared fully the intense Calvinism of that party and differed from it only in matters affecting church or ganization and government. The great ma jority of the Puritans held to the conception of a national Church, of which all baptized and non-excommunicated inhabitants of the king dom were members. The reformation of this Church, though earnestly to be sought by private Christians they viewed as ultimately the work of the national government, and hence they held it to be a duty to remain in the Church of England, while laboring for what seemed to them its betterment. This reforma tion involved, in the conception of the Puritans generally, the establishment everywhere of a learned, earnest, preaching ministry; of efficient discipline; of what they deemed a more scrip tural organization of the Church; and the dis use of such• vestments and forms of worship as seemed to them to be without biblical authority or to savor too strongly of Roman usages.
The founders of Congregationalism sympa thized with these aims and criticisms of the Puritan% but, unlike the majority of that party, they believed that the reforms which they de sired in the Church of England should come about through individual Initiative, by the separation from that Church of those who criticised it. Hence the early Congregational ists of England were called °Separatists?' They rejected the thought of a national Church. They held that the onlyproper form of the visible Church is the local congregation, com posed of a company of professed disciples of Christ who can claim personal religious ex perience, and are united to Christ and to one another by a voluntary covenant which trans forms a company of Christians into a Church. Of these congregations Christ is the immediate head. Each, they conceived, is completely self
governing, choosing its own officers and ad ministering its own discipline. While no earthly authority outside of such a Church has jurisdiction over it, each such congregation owes advice and aid to its sister congregations as necessity may require. This mutual re sponsibility and helpfulness has always led American Congregationalists to reject the name "Independent° which is popularly attached to the churches of this order in Great Britain. The officers of such a local Church were con ceived by the founders of Congregationalism, following what they thought the New Testa ment model, to be a "pastor," and a °teacher* who should preach and administer the sacra ments; a °ruling elder" who should aid the and °teacher* in the administration of discipline; "deacons" to administer the financial affairs and charities of the congregation, and szwidows° to care for those in illness and the poor. In their revolt from the prescribed liturgy of the Church of England they held that public prayer should be wholly free; and, like the Calvinists generally, they gave the chief place in public worship to the sermon.
Though Richard Fitz and his associates, whose congregation at London was broken up by the English government in 1567, may be deemed the earliest organized Congregational ists, the first clear presentation of Congrega tional principles was made in the works of Robert Browne, a graduate of the University of Cambridge in 1572, who passed from Puri tanism to Separatism, probably in 1579, or ganized a church at Norwich in 1580 or 1581, and issued a series of tracts in defense of his views, from his exile at Middleburg in Hol land, in 1582. Though Browne not long after conformed to the Church of England, a similar work was taken up by others, notably by Barrowe, a lawyer of London, and Rev. John Greenwood and Rev. Francis Johnson in the same city, where a Congregational church was organized in 1592. In 1593 Barrowe, Green wood and Rev. John Penry were hanged at London for opposing the ecclesiastical author ity of Queen Elizabeth, and the Church in Lon don was driven into exile. It found a refuge in Amsterdam under the pastoral care of Francis Johnson and Henry Ainsworth.