INDEPENDENTS

INDEPENDENTS or CONGREGATIONALISTS are a Protestant sect deriving both names from their principle of government; repudiating both Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, they hold that every congregation should manage its own affairs, and elect its own officers independent of all authority save that of Christ; they profess to derive all rules of faith and practice from the Scriptures, and are closely akin to Presbyterians in doctrine. Numerous as early as Queen Elizabeth's time, they suffered persecution then; many fled or were banished to Holland, whence the Mayflower conveyed the Pilgrim Fathers to New England in 1620. Regaining ascendency under Cromwell, they again suffered at the Restoration; but political disabilities then imposed have gradually been removed, and now they are the most vigorous Dissenting body in England. The congregations in the English Union (a union for common purposes and mutual help) number 4700, those in the Scottish Union 100.