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Pilgrims Going to Church, a 1867 depiction of Puritans in the New England colonies, by George Henry Boughton.. The Congregational tradition was brought to America in the 1620s and 1630s by the Puritans—a Calvinistic group within the Church of England that desired to purify it of any remaining teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. [6]
Many Puritans believed the Church of England should follow the example of Reformed churches in other parts of Europe and adopt presbyterian polity, in which an egalitarian network of local ministers cooperated through regional synods. [16] Other Puritans experimented with congregational polity both within the Church of England and outside of it.
In the Puritan colonies, the Congregational church functioned as a state religion. In Massachusetts, no new church could be established without the permission of the colony's existing Congregational churches and the government. [31] Likewise, Connecticut allowed only one church per town or parish, which had to be Congregational. [32]
The Congregational church was the established church of Connecticut until 1818 and Massachusetts until 1833. The Puritans and their Congregationalist descendants had much in common with Presbyterians .
In church polity, Puritans were divided between supporters of episcopal, presbyterian, and congregational polities. Some believed a uniform reform of the established church was called for to create a godly nation, while others advocated separation from, or the end of, any established state church entirely in favour of autonomous gathered ...
The Puritans who settled colonial New England were Calvinists who believed in congregational church government and that the church should include only regenerated persons as full members. Because of this, they became known as Congregationalists and their churches became known as Congregational churches.
Congregational polity, or congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church (congregation) is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous". Its first articulation in writing is the Cambridge Platform of 1648 in New England.
First Puritan Church in North America and second Congregational Church in America. [14] Building constructed in 1838. First Church of Windsor: Windsor, Connecticut: CT 1630 Congregational Oldest congregation in Connecticut First Church in Boston: Boston, Massachusetts: MA 1630 Originally Puritan Congregational, now Unitarian Universalist