congregationalists

congregationalists were one of the main protestant dissenting sects. Since they believed strongly in the autonomy of each congregation, they were also known as independents or separatists. Their ideas, based on the priesthood of all believers, were developed by Robert Browne and Henry Barrow, and were Calvinist in tone. The first congregations were established in the late 16th cent. and increased rapidly during the Civil War period, particularly in the parliamentary army and under the protection of Cromwell, himself an independent. They made little progress in the 18th cent., but another great expansion took place in the early 19th cent. and at the time of the religious census of 1851 they were said to have 3,244 churches in England and Wales—more than the baptists though less than a third of the methodists. They were vigorous supporters of the London Missionary Society (1796) and the British and Foreign School Society (1807). The Congregational Union, formed in 1831, was necessarily a loose federation: in 1966 it was reorganized as the Congregational Church and in 1972 joined with the Presbyterian Church of England to form the United Reformed Church.

J. A. Cannon