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On these questions, Puritans divided between supporters of episcopal polity, presbyterian polity and congregational polity. The episcopalians (known as the prelatical party) were conservatives who supported retaining bishops if those leaders supported reform and agreed to share power with local churches. [ 72 ]
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.
Presbyterianism is a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders. [2] Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that were formed during the English Civil War.
The struggle between the assertive Church of England and various Presbyterian and Puritan groups extended throughout the English realm in the 17th century, prompting not only the emigration of British Presbyterians from Ireland to North America (the Scotch-Irish), but prompting emigration from Bermuda, England's second-oldest overseas territory ...
The execution of Charles I in 1649 horrified the Presbyterians and led to a serious rupture between them and the Independents. English Presbyterians came to be representative of those Puritans who still cherished further reformation in church, but were unwavering in their fundamental loyalty to the Crown. [4]
Beginning in 1630, some 20,000 Puritans emigrated as families to New England to gain the liberty to worship as they chose. Theologically, the Puritans were "non-separating Congregationalists". The Puritans created a deeply religious, socially tight-knit and politically innovative culture that is still present in the modern United States.
The Puritans were known to harbour First-day Sabbatarian views, which became well established in their successive Congregationalist Church, in addition to becoming entrenched in the Continental Reformed and Presbyterian churches, all of which belong to the Reformed tradition of Christianity. Additionally, the Moravian, Methodist, and Quaker ...
The Presbyterians gained more from the union than the Congregationalists. Around 2000 churches founded as Congregationalists in the states of New York, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan switched allegiance to the Presbyterian Church. The union was also damaged by a conflict between conservatives and liberals in both denominations.