church

Dictionary of American Words And Phrases by John Russell Bartlett.

Mr. Pickering has the following remarks on this word: "A church, as a body of persons, is distinguished in New England, from a congregation, by the privileges which the former in general reserve to themselves of receiving exclusively in that church the sacrament and baptism, in consequence of their having publicly declared their assent to the creed which that church maintains. Marriage, burial, and public worship, are open to the members of the congregation at large, according to the forms and methods employed in each church; as are also catechizing for children and visits to the sick."--Vocabulary.

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