The Great Ejection 1662

Coleman Anecdote 16 William Jenkyn

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The next case we present is one, amongst many others, of imprisonment and death - painful confinement issuing in death. Mr William Jenkyn [1613-1685] was maternal grandson to John Rogers, the proto-martyr in the Marian persecution. In the great storm that prevailed against the Nonconformists in James II's reign, on September 2, 1684, when he, with Mr [Edward] Reynolds [1599-1676], Mr J[ohn] Flavel [1627-1691] and Mr [Thomas] Keeling, was spending a day in prayer, with many of his friends, in a place where they thought themselves out of danger, the soldiers broke in upon them in the midst of the exercise. All the ministers made their escape except Mr Jenkyn. Mr Flavel was so near that he heard the insolence of the officers and soldiers to Mr Jenkyn when they had taken him, and observes in his diary that Mr Jenkyn might have escaped as well as himself, had it not been for a piece of vanity in a lady, whose long train hindered his going down the stairs, Mr Jenkyn, out of his too great civility, having let her pass before him.

Being taken before two aldermen, Sir James Edwards and Sir James Smith, they treated him very roughly, well knowing that it would be acceptable in the highest places in the land. Upon his refusing the Oxford oath, they committed him to Newgate, rejecting his offer of £40 fine which the law empowered them to take, though it was urged that the air of Newgate would infallibly suffocate him. He petitioned the King for a release, which was backed by an assurance from his physician that his life was in danger from his close confinement; but no other answer could be obtained but this, "Jenkyn shall be a prisoner as long as he lives." This was most rigorously adhered to. He was not suffered to go to baptize his daughter's child, though a considerable sum was offered for his liberty to do it, with security for his return. The keepers were ordered not to let him pray with any visitants; even when his daughter came to ask his blessing, he was not allowed to pray with her. He soon began, through this confinement, to decline in health, but continued all along in the utmost joy and comfort of soul. He said to one of his friends, "What a vast difference there is between this and my first imprisonment (alluding to his having formerly been sent to the Tower for being concerned in [Christopher] Love's plot); then I was full of doubts and fears, of grief and anguish, and well I might, for going out of God's way and my calling to meddle with things that did not belong to me. But now, when I was found in the way of my duty in my Master's business, though I suffer even unto bonds, yet I am comforted beyond measure. The Lord sheds abroad his love sensibly in my heart: I feel it, I have assurance of it." Turning to some who were weeping by him, he said, "Why weep ye for me? Christ lives; He is my Friend, a Friend born for adversity; a Friend that never dies. "Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children." He died in Newgate, January 19th, 1685, aged 72, having been a prisoner there four months, where, as he said a little before he died, "a man might be as effectually murdered as at Tyburn."

A nobleman, having heard of his happy release, said to the King, "May it please your Majesty, Jenkyn has got his liberty." Upon which he asked with eagerness, "Ay, who gave it him?" The nobleman replied, "A greater than your Majesty, the King of kings." With which the King appeared greatly struck, and remained silent.

Coleman Anecdote 15 Bristol

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In the published records of the Broadmead church, in the city of Bristol, we see the spirit of their persecutors, the sufferings undergone, and the contrivances to which they resorted to elude their adversaries. "In the year 1664, at a week-day meeting, a guard of musketeers was sent to take them into custody; but having been apprised of their coming, and the darkness of the night proving favourable, they withdrew into an underground cellar, which had a communication with Baldwin Street, and so they escaped, and left their persecutors disappointed.

"Soon after, on a Lord's day, the mayor and aldermen, with their officers, broke open Mr [Thomas] Ellis's house at the back door, and came in. But while these housebreakers were effecting an entrance, Mr Ellis contrived to hide a garret door, by placing a large cupboard before it, and by that means sent away most of the men. Still, many necessarily remained behind, of whom the mayor and Sir John sent 31 to Bridewell for a month, preparatory to ultimate banishment.

"In November, 1665, a troop of horse were sent to the city to suppress the conventicles, and very abusive they were at all the meetings they could discover.

''The first Lord's day after the 10th of April, when the 'Conventicle Act' first came into operation, the informers were on the alert, and because the church could gain no information of their intended plan of proceeding, they closed their meeting-house door. The informers immediately fetched constables, broke open the door, went in, and took down the names of those whom they knew, who were in consequence brought before the magistrate and convicted. But persecution sharpened their invention. The next Lord's day they broke a large hole in a high wall, which enabled them to hear the preacher in the next house, without being present with him. Yet the bishop's informers went again, and not recognising such a nice distinction, took down the names, and some of them were again taken before the mayor and convicted.

"The scene was also enacted on the third Lord's day, and on the fourth the mayor went himself, with his officers and several of the aldermen; but finding these means to be utterly ineffectual, they resorted to another expedient. On the Saturday evening they raised the trained bands, some of whom, to prevent the church from meeting, nailed up the doors, and put locks upon them. Being thus ejected by force and power, they met in the public lanes and highways."

At another time, when all their ministers were removed - one dead, three imprisoned, and their deaths apprehended - the bishop's men and Helliar, a lawyer, being in hot pursuit and woefully successful, so that the extinction of the churches seemed almost inevitable, the members proved themselves men of the right stamp. They animated each other's hearts, and, notwithstanding all their discouragements, so far from forsaking the assembling of themselves together, they clung with greater tenacity to a privilege difficult of attainment, and exercised all their ingenuity to accomplish with impunity this one desire of their hearts.

When they could again meet in their place of worship, in order to disappoint spies who might be present as hearers, and yet not to exclude strangers who might attend without any evil design, they contrived that a curtain should be hung all across, the space behind it being so arranged as to accommodate the preacher and his confidential friends. Consequently, if there were spies present, they could not see the preacher so as to give any certain information against him; and lest any should intrude behind the curtain, some of the members were especially appointed to prevent all from this whom they did not know to be the friends of Christ and his cause. When the time was come for commencing this curtain was drawn close, and the stairs completely filled with female friends. Sentinels were also appointed without, who, on seeing the approach of the informers, passed the word with telegraphic despatch and secrecy; the preacher sat down, the curtain was undrawn, the whole room exposed to view, and the people began simultaneously to sing a psalm. To prevent confusion, the psalm which was to be sung on the entrance of the informers was previously annoiinced; and to avoid the inconvenience of reading it, all brought their Bibles and read for themselves. By these means when the mayor came he was disappointed, they were all singing, and whom to take up for preaching he could not tell. When the informers were gone] the singing ceased, the curtain was drawn, and the preacher resumed his discourse until they returned, which they sometimes did three times during one meeting. Then again the preacher retired, the curtain was drawn aside, and singing resumed as before. "This," they say, "was our constant practice in Olive's mayoralty, and we were in a good measure edified, and our enemies often disappointed." Laus Deo.

One of their ministers, Mr [Thomas] Hardcastle [1636-1678], ejected from a living in Yorkshire, had been imprisoned eight months in York Castle, from thence conveyed to Chester Castle, where he was detained a close prisoner fifteen months more. For preaching Christ in London he was again apprehended, and continued a prisoner six months. Twice also at Bristol did he pay this penalty for Christ and a good conscience, each imprisonment lasting six months; "still preaching," say the records, "as soon as ever he came forth, and so continued till his death."

Nathaniel Heywood's House

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Nathaniel Heywood's House Chapel Street Ormskirk 2005

Coleman Anecdote 14 Philip Henry

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The name of Philip Henry (1631-1696) carries with it all that is pious, peaceful, and benevolent, yet towards him we find the spirit of bitter persecution arises. He was emphatically one of the "quiet of the land" acting with the greatest caution, anxious to avoid offence, though continually influenced by a spirit of supreme regard to God, and ready for every duty to which he believed his Master called him. Yet he was subject, with others with whom he was associated, to great oppression and trial, especially on the following occasion, the circumstances of which are particularly narrated in the memoirs of his life. At the beginning of the year 1681, a great drought prevailed in the land; it was generally apprehended that a famine would ensue. Many of the pious part of the people thought it was time to seek the Lord, who giveth rain in its season. In the neighbourhood in which Mr Henry resided, some desired to have a day set apart for fasting and prayer on this account. Suitable services were to be held at the house of a certain individual in Hodnet parish, Shropshire, June 14. Mr Henry, on being invited to attend and give his assistance, inquired how they stood with the neighbouring justices, and the reply was "well enough."

The drought continuing in extremity, some that had not been in the habit of attending such meetings were present, under the apprehension they had of a threatened judgment. Mr Edward Bury (1616-1700), of Bolas, well known by several useful books that he had published, prayed. Mr Henry prayed, and then preached on Psalm lxvi. 18 "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Hence the doctrine was, that iniquity regarded in the heart will certainly spoil the success of prayer. When he was in the midst of his sermon, closely applying this truth, Sir Thomas Vernon and Charles Mainwaring, Esq, two justices of the peace for Shropshire, with several others of their retinue, came suddenly upon them, disturbed them, set guards upon the house door, came in themselves, severely rallied all they knew, reflected upon the late honourable "House of Commons," and upon the vote they passedconcerning the unreasonableness of putting the laws in execution against Protestant Dissenters, as if in so voting they had gone beyond their sphere, as they did who took away the life of King Charles I. They diverted themselves with very abusive and unbecoming talk, swearing, and cursing, and reviling bitterly. On being told that the occasion of the meeting was to turn away the anger of God from us in the present drought, they showed their ignorance and impiety by answering that such meetings as these were the occasion of God's anger. "While they were thus entertaining themselves, their clerk took the names of those who were present, in all about one hundred and fifty, and so dismissed them for the present.

Mr Henry noted, in the account he kept of this event, that "the justices came to this good work from the alehouse at Prees Heath, about two miles off, to which, and to the bowling-green adjoining, they, with other justices, gentlemen, and clergymen of the neighbourhood, had long before obliged themselves to come every Tuesday during the summer under a penalty of twelve pence a time if they were absent, and there to spend the day in drinking and bowling, which was thought to be as much more to the dishonour of God and the scandal of the Christian profession as cursing, and swearing, and drunkenness are worse than praying, and singing psalms, and hearing the Word of God."

It is supposed the justices knew of the meeting before, and might have prevented it by the least intimation; but they were determined to take the opportunity of making sport for themselves, and giving trouble to their neighbours.

After the feat done, they returned to the alehouse, and made themselves and their companions merry with calling over the names they had taken, making their remarks as they saw cause, and recounting the particulars of the exploit.

There was one of the company whose wife happened to be present at the meeting, and her name was taken down among the rest, with which they upbraided him. But he answered, that "she had been better employed than he was; and if Mr Henry might be permitted to preach in the church, he would go a great many miles to hear him." Tor which saying he was forthwith expelled their company, and was never more to show his face at that bowling-green. To which he replied, "that if they had so ordered long ago, it would have been a great deal better for him and his family."

Two days after they met again at Hodnet, where, upon the oath of two witnesses, who, it was supposed, were sent on purpose to inform, they signed and sealed two records of conviction. By one record they convicted the master of the house and fined him £20, and £5 more as constable of the town for that year, and with him all the persons whose names they had taken down, and fined them 5s., and issued warrants accordingly.

By another record they convicted the two ministers, Mr Bury and Mr Henry. The Act makes it only punishable to preach and to teach in any such conventicles, and yet they fined Mr Bury £20, though he only prayed, and did not speak one word either in the way of preaching or teaching, not so much as, "Let us pray." However, they said praying was teaching, and right or wrong he must be fined; though his great piety, peaceableness, and usefulness, besides his deep poverty, might have pleaded for him against so palpable a piece of injustice. They took £7 off from him, and laid it upon others; and for the remaining £13, he being utterly unable to pay, they took from him by distress the bed which he lay upon, with blankets and rug; also another feather bed, nineteen pairs of sheets, most of them new, of which he could not prevail to have so much as one pair returned for him to lie in. Also books to the value of £5, besides brass and pewter. And though he was at this time perfectly innocent of that heinous crime of preaching and teaching with which he was charged, yet he had no way to right himself but by appealing to the justices themselves in quarter-sessions, who would be sure to confirm their own decrees. So the good man sat down with his loss, and "took joyfully the spoiling of his goods, knowing in himself that he had in heaven a better and a more enduring substance."

But Mr Henry being the greatest criminal, and having done the most mischief, must needs be animadverted upon accordingly, and therefore he was fined £40. It was much pressed upon him to pay the fine, which might prevent loss to himself, and trouble to the justices. But he was not willing to do it, partly because he would give no encouragement to such prosecutions, nor voluntarily reward the informers for what he thought they rather deserved punishment; and partly because he thought himself wronged in the doubling of the fine. Whereupon his goods were distrained upon and taken away. But their warrant not giving them authority to break open doors, nor their watchfulness getting them an opportunity toenter the house, they carried away about 33 cart-loads of goods out of doors - corn cut upon the ground, hay, coals, etc - which made a great noise in the country, and raised the indignation of many against the decrees which prescribed this grievous ness ; while Mr Henry bore it with his usual evenness and serenity of mind, not at all moved or disturbed by it. He did not boast of his sufferings, or make any great matter of them, but would often say, "Alas! this is nothing to what others suffer, nor to what we ourselves may suffer before we die." And yet he rejoiced and blest God, that it was not for debt or evil doing that his goods were carried away; and "while it is for well doing that we suffer," he said, " they cannot harm us."

Coleman Anecdote 13 Nathaniel Heywood

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As a further illustration of the state of things, we may present a case from another part of the country. Mr N Heywood (1633-1677), ejected from Ormskirk, in Lancashire, where he had been a laborious and successful minister of the gospel, preached privately after his ejectment as he had opportunity - usually twice on Lord's-day, and sometimes repeatedly on week days, ordering his labours in several parts of the parish, both in the day and in the night. Nay, in times of great danger, he hath preached at one house the beginning of the night, and then gone two miles on foot over mosses, and preached towards morning to another company at another house. On the Lord's day, December 20,1674, there came three men while Mr Heywood was in prayer before sermon, and when he had ended, one of them came up to the pulpit and said, "Sir, you are our prisoner, come down and go along with us." Mr Heywood desired he might be suffered to preach, and promised then to submit. But the wretch held a pistol to his head, and with dreadful curses and threatenings ordered him down. However, persons of character espoused his cause, so that he was kept from prison and his goods from being distrained; but his spirit was overwhelmed with grief on account of his people, whom he loved as if they had been his children.

Nonconformity Timeline

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This useful timeline can be found here at The Dr WIlliams Centre for Dissenting Studies site

1660 Act for Restoring Ministers

•An Act for the confirming and restoring of Ministers [12 Car. II, c. 17]

1661 Corporation Act

•An Act for the well-governing and regulating of Corporations [13 Car. II, stat. 2, c. 1]

1662 Act of Uniformity

•An Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayers and Administration of Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies, and for establishing the Form of making, ordaining and consecrating Bishops, Priests and Deacons in the Church of England [14 Car. II, c. 4]

1664 First Conventicle Act

•An Act to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles [16 Car. II, c. 4]

1665 Five Mile Act

•An Act for restraining Non-conformists from inhabiting in Corporations [17 Car. II, c. 2]

1669 Second Conventicle Act

•An Act to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles [22 Car. II, c. 1]

1673 Test Act

•An Act for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants [25 Car. II, c. 2]

1678 Second Test Act

•An Act for the more effectual preserving the King’s Person and Government, by disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament [30 Car. II, stat. 2, c. 1]

1689 Toleration Act

•An Act for exempting Their Majesties Protestant Subjects, dissenting from the Church of England, from the Penalties of certain Laws [1 Gul. & Mar., c. 18]

1698 Blasphemy Act

•An Act for the more Effectual Suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness [9& 10 Wm III, c.32]

1711 Occasional Conformity Act

•An Act for preserving the Protestant Religion, by better securing the Church of England as by Law established [10 Anne, c. 6]

1714 Schism Act

•An Act to prevent the growth of Schism, and for the further security of the churches of England and Ireland, as by law established [13 Anne, c. 7]
1719 Act for the Repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts

•An Act for strengthening the Protestant Interest in these Kingdoms [5 Geo. I, c. 4]
1779 Protestant Dissenters' Relief Act

•An Act for the further Relief of Protestant Dissenting Ministers and Schoolmasters [19 Geo. III, c. 44]
1812 Places of Religious Worship Act

•An Act to repeal certain Acts, and amend other Acts relating to Religious Worship and Assemblies, and Persons teaching or preaching therein [52 Geo. III, c.155]
1813 Unitarian Relief Act

•The Doctrine of the Trinity Act [53 Geo. III, c. 160]

1826 founding of the University of London

•(its name was changed to University College London in 1836)

1828 Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts

•An Act for repealing so much of several Acts as imposes the Necessity of receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a Qualification for certain Offices and Employments [9 Geo. IV, c. 17]
1832 Reform Act

•An Act to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales. Its formal short title and citation is the Representation of the People Act 1832 [2 & 3 Wm. IV, c. 45]
1834 University Admission Bill

1835 Municipal Reform Act

•Municipal Corporations Act 1835 [5 & 6 Wm. IV, c. 76]
1836 Founding of the University of London

•(established as an examining body to award degrees)

1854 Oxford University Act

•An Act to make further Provision for the good Government and Extension of the University of Oxford, of the Colleges therein [1854 CHAPTER 81 17 and 18 Vict.]
1856 Cambridge University Act

•An Act to make further Provision for the good Government and Extension of the University of Cambridge, of the Colleges therein [1856 CHAPTER 88 19 and 20 Vict.]
1871 Universities Tests Act

•An Act to alter the law respecting Religious Tests in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, and in the Halls and Colleges of those Universities [1871 CHAPTER 26 34 and 35 Vict.]

David L. Wykes

Farewell Sermons Contents

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The Contents of the Farewell Sermons volume from SDG

1- Edmund Calamy - Sermon from 2nd Samuel 24:14 "Let us Fall into the Hand of the Lord"

2- Thomas Manton - Sermon from Hebrews 12:1 - "The people of God that have such a multitude of examples of holy men and women set before them, should prepare themselves to run the spiritual race with more patience and cheerfulness."

3- Joseph Caryl - Sermon from Revelation 3:4 - "In which encouragement I told you we might consider two things, or take it into two parts. First, " That they should walk with Christ." Secondly, " They should walk in white."

4- Thomas Case - Sermon on Revelation 2:5 - "CHRIST here prescribes precious physic for the healing of this languishing church of Ephesus; it is compounded of a threefold ingredient: 1. Self-reflection, " Remember from," &c. 2. Holy contrition and humiliation before the Lord, " Repent." 3. Thorough reformation, " Do thy first works."

5- William Jenkyn - Morning Sermon on Hebrews 11:38 - "The apostle in this excellent chapter, (that by some is deservedly called a little book of martyrs) discovers the triumph of faith, or victory against all difficulty we meet with."

6- William Jenkyn - Afternoon Sermon on Exodus 3:2-5 - "First then, for explanation, I shall here endeavour to open these two things to you: first, what it is for a place to be holy, or wherein the nature of the holiness of the places consists ; secondly, what that is, that is the foundation or cause of the holiness of places; and both these must in our discourse, and likewise apprehension, be accurately distinguished."

7- Richard Baxter - Sermon on Colossians 2:6,7 - "Omitting the division, and in part the opening of the words, the observation is ; - " That those that have received Christ Jesus the Lord, must accordingly be rooted, built Up in him, and established in the faith; and walk in him as they have been taught, and abound therein with thanksgiving."

8- Thomas Jacombe - Morning Sermon on John 8:29 - The observation I intend to speak to, shall be this: They that please God, and endeavour always to do the things that please God, such God will be with; such the Father will not leave alone; especially in times of suffering and trouble, for I will bring it to that case.

9- Thomas Jacombe - Afternoon Sermon on John 8:29 - Let me endeavour to prevail with every one of you, so to carry yourselves in your several places and capacities, that whatever you do, you may please God.

10- William Bates - Morning Sermon on Hebrews 12:20,21 - Now in these two verses he sums up, by way of recapitulation, all that which he had discoursed of at large, and in them you may observe these two things. 1. A description of God, to whom he addresses this prayer: The God of Peace. 2. The substance of the prayer itself.

11- William Bates - Afternoon Sermon on Hebrews 12:20,21 - It follows " that great Shepherd of the sheep." For the opening of this, 1. We will consider the title of Christ. 2. The person for whom this title relates.

12- Thomas Watson - Morning Sermon on John 13:34 - Doctrine. Christians ought to make conscience of this duty of loving one another. Confident I am, we shall never see religion thrive in the world, until we see this grace of love flourish in the heart of christians.

13- Thomas Watson - Afternoon Sermon on 2 Corinthians 7:1 - It is the title that I intend now, by the help of God, to insist upon, that sweet parenthesis in the text, "dearly beloved," wherein you have the apostle breathing forth his affections unto this people. He speaks now as a pastor, and he speaks to them as his spiritual children.

14- Thomas Watson - Farewell Sermon on Isaiah 3:10,11 - This text is like Israel's pillar or cloud; it hath a light side, and a dark side: it hath a light side unto the godly, "Say unto the righteous, it shall be well with him;" and it hath a dark side unto the wicked, "Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him." Both you see are rewarded, righteous and wicked; but here is a vast difference, the one hath a reward of mercy, the other a reward of j ustice.

15- Thomas Lye - First Sermon on Philippians 4:1 - I shall without any more ado enter upon the text; in which you have two things considerable. A most melting compellation, and a most serious exhortation. 1. A melting compellation, "my brethren, dearly beloved," &c. 2. A serious exhortation; and in it first, the matter of the duty, stand, and stand it out, and stand fast. Secondly, the manner. First, so stand, so as you have stood, stand fast. Second, in the Lord; stand so, and stand in the Lord, in the Lord's strength, and in the Lord's cause.

16- Thomas Lye - Second Sermon on Philippians 4:1 - "It is the grand and indispensable duty of all sincere saints, in the most black and shaking seasons, to stand fast fixed and steadfast in the Lord."

17- Matthew Mead - Sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:3 - Being therefore now to part, I thought to go to the top of the mount, and leave with you grace and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. In which words there are two generals. 1. A double blessing desired: Grace and Peace 2. A double spring discovered: that is the Father and the Son, God and Christ.

18- Matthew Newcomen - Sermon on Revelation 3:3 - There are three doctrines obvious in the text; Doctrine 1. That it is the duty of christians, to remember those truths that they have heard and received. Doctrine 2. That it is the duty of christians to hold fast the truth that they have heard and received. Doctrine 3. That continued repentance is the duty of christians, as well as initial repentance. Remember therefore how thou hast received, and heard, and hold fast and repent.

19- Thomas Brooks - Sermon on Questions Asked and Answered followed by 27 Legacies that Brooks Left to his Beloved People

20- John Collins - Sermon on Jude 3 - These words contain two parts. 1. A duty exhorted to. 2. The manner of the management of duty. The duty exhorted to, is, to retain the faith delivered to the saints. The manner of its management is, that we should earnestly contend to keep it.

21- Edmund Calamy - Sermons 1 Samuel 4:13 - I shall gather two observations from the words. 1. That when the ark of God is in danger of being lost, the people of God have thoughtful heads and trembling hearts. 2. That a true child of God is more troubled, and more solicitous what shall become of the ark, than what shall become of wife and children or estate.

22- John Gaspine - Sermon on Luke 12:32 - The text contains that exhortation of Christ, wherein he exhorts them to undauntedness and resolution in the ways of God. " Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." The words may be divided into these two parts. First, Here is an exhortation: "Fear not, little flock." Secondly, The reason of this exhortation: "for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

23- Lazarus Seaman - Sermon on Hebrews 13:20,21 - In which words, there are two two things considerable. 1. The matter of the apostle's prayer. 2. The grounds, which he doth insinuate for audience.

24- George Evanke - Sermon on Matthew 26:39 - Doct. A gracious soul will endeavour the crossing his own will, when be sees that it crosses God's. Or, thus, A true Christian dare not, at least ought not, to gratify his own humour when it stands in opposition, or cometh in competition with God's honour.

Farewell Sermons SDG

2011-09-23T02:38:00.000-07:00

Solid Ground Books are currently advertising this volume of Farewell Sermons here. They say

FAREWELL SERMONS

Addresses from Some of the Most Eminent Nonconformist Ministers of the Great Ejection of 1662

Richard Baxter, Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson, Thomas Brooks, Joseph Caryl, William Jenkyn, William Bates and Eleven More

GREAT NEWS!

SOLID GROUND has an Opportunity to Publish a New Edition of "FAREWELL SERMONS: Addresses from Some of the Most Eminent Nonconformist Ministers of the Great Ejection of 1662

The following paragraphs from the Original Preface will explain the power in this volume:

"Most of the sermons contained in this collection were delivered on the twenty-fourth of August, in the year 1662. On that day the act requiring a perfect conformity to the book of Common Prayer, and to the rites and ceremonies of the church took place: the effect of which enactment was the silencing of nearly two thousand five hundred ministers, the death of three thousand nonconformists, and the ruin of sixty thousand families. Such was the result of the restoration of Charles the Second of infamous memory.

To ascertain the spirit which actuated the ejected ministers, it is sufficient to refer to the following selection of their farewell sermons, which were delivered at the very moment they were agonizing under the fangs of persecution, but which discover nothing but a combination of christian graces. Bishop Burnet admits that 'many of them were distinguished by their abilities and their zeal '; and the celebrated Locke has remarked, 'Bartholomew-day was fatal to our church and religion, by throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious and orthodox divines.'"

C H Spurgeon said "Those great preachers whose names we remember, were men who counted nothing their own: they were driven out from their benefices, because they could not conform to the Established Church, and they gave up all they had willingly to the Lord. They were hunted from place to place, they wandered here and there to preach the gospel to a few. Those were foul times; but they promised they would walk the road fair or foul, and they did walk it knee-deep in mud; and they would have walked it if it had been kinee-deep in blood too. But now we are all little men, there is scarce a man alive now upon this earth."

John Bunyan, who spent 12 years in Bedford jail for his Nonconformity, said, "I fought till my sword did cleave to my right hand; and then they were joined together, as if a sword grew out of my arm; and when the blood ran through my fingers, then I fought with most courage."

Iain Murray wrote, "John Stoughton has described the Sunday upon which most of the Farewell Sermons were preached: 'No Sunday in England ever resembled exactly that which fell on the 17th of August, 1662, one week before the feast of St Bartholomew. There have been "mourning, lamentation, and woe," in particular parish churches when death, persecution, or some other cause has broken pastoral ties, and severed from loving congregations their spiritual guides; but for many hundreds of ministers on the same day to be uttering farewells is an unparalleled circumstance. In after years, Puritan fathers and mothers related to their children the story of assembled crowds, of aisles, standing-places and stairs, filled to suffocation, of people clinging to open windows like swarms of bees, of overflowing throngs in churchyards and streets, of deep silence or stifled sobs, as the flock gazed on the shepherd - "sorrowing most of all that they should see his face no more." ' It is well for us to bear such a background in mind as we read the following pages. The atmosphere of that day was electric and charged with emotion; the popular discontent was great and strong guards stood ready in London, but these sermons seem far removed from all that. There is a calmness, and unction and a lack of invective. Great though their sorrow was for their flocks and for their nation, they had a message to preach which was more than equal to the strain of the crisis. An eternal God, an Ever-Living Saviour and a glorious hope of heaven, carried them through this heaviest trial."

Don Kistler, founder of Northampton Press, said the following about this volume: "This is a precious volume, because it is the last sermon many of these Puritan pastors preached to their congregations before they were forced out of their pulpits. Yet you will not find any bitterness or acrimony in their sermons. Instead, they do what they had done every other Lord's Day: They preached the glories of Christ.

First published in 2 volumes in the 1600's, then retypeset in 1816 in a single volume, and then published again in 1992, this wonderful collection of Puritan sermons is now available once again. Who knows when it might be available after this edition is gone? Do not miss this opportunity to have this marvelous work. You will be the richer for it. Also, this will likely be your only chance to read sermons by some of the lesser-known, but not lesser-important men represented here, such as Lazarus Seaman, Thomas Lye, George Evanke, and Thomas Jacomb. Solid Ground is to be commended for choosing to reprint this work. Now commend them yourself by purchasing it!"

Ray Rhodes, founder of Nourished in the Word Ministries just added: "If writing makes a man more precise in his communication then writing under persecution further clarifies the message. Some of history's richest sermons have been preached and books written when the author was under either the threat or the actual fires of suffering. The authors of these "Farewell Sermons" are some of the brightest lights in all of Puritan history. Each word, sentence, and paragraph hits the target. Words cannot be wasted when life hangs in the balance. Do you want your character strengthend and your faith deepened? Read these sermons that have been washed by the tears of those who were persecuted for righteousness sake."

Robert Paul Martin, author of 'A Guide to the Puritans' wrote - "Simply one of the finest volumes ever published. The farewell sermons of great Puritan preachers. What more could we ask?"

Dr Williams's Centre Conference

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The Evangelical Library Conference on March 27 will not be the only one marking 1662 it seems.
The Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies has announced its Conference in 2012 as

1662 Revisited

It is on Saturday 26 May 2012. Details found here.

The eighth annual one-day conference of the Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies, a collaboration between the School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London, and Dr Williams's Library.

To mark the 350th anniversary of the Restoration Settlement of Religion, the conference will explore its implications in four panels:

Religion: Stephen Taylor (Reading) and Kenneth Fincham (Kent); Mark Burden (Queen Mary); Cory Cotter (Virginia)

Politics: Mark Goldie (Cambridge); Paul Seaward (History of Parliament); Grant Tapsell (St Andrews)

Literature: Neil Keeble (Stirling); David Appleby (Nottingham); Michael Davies (Liverpool)

The Three Kingdoms and the Colonies: Alasdair Raffe (Durham); Owen Stanwood (Boston College); Robert Armstrong (Trinity College Dublin)

Note that the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches Congregational Studies Conference on Saturday March 17, 2012 is set to look at the same subject I understand.

Coleman Anecdote 12 John Shuttlewood

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There was also a Mr [John] Shuttlewood [d 1689], a friend and fellow-sufferer of Mr Clarke (see previous blog), who became the first pastor of the Independent Churches at Welford and Creaton, Northamptonshire. In the year 1668, when he was uniting with some others in singing a psalm, one Mr B, with thirty or forty horsemen, with swords drawn and pistols loaded, came and seized him with many that were worshipping with him. Several of both sexes were beaten and driven into the field and there dismissed upon promising to appear the next day before a justice of the peace. Mr Shuttlewood was conveyed to Leicester jail, where he was a prisoner for some months. After the "Conventicle Act" passed, he was again seized by one Charles Gibbons, a notorious persecutor and profane swearer, taken by him from one justice of the peace to another, and warrants were issued to distrain upon him for £20, upon the owner of the house where he preached for £20, and 5s a-piece on others. At another time his house was entered when he was conducting divine service; a warrant was obtained to distrain upon him for £40, when seven of his milch cows were taken and sold. He was obliged frequently to change his abode, sometimes in Leicestershire, sometimes in Northamptonshire, to escape from his foes. When he met his people at Welford, one of the number was appointed to watch, while the rest were engaged in worship, so that when the informers were seen to approach, notice might be given to Mr Shuttlewood and his hearers, who escaped by the window into the fields. Sometimes they met in the pastures that surrounded the house at Selby, amidst the darkness and the damps of night. These were days of trial, when the reality of religious principle was tested and its power appeared. The constitution of Mr. Shuttlewood was greatly injured by the sufferings he endured, and also by his preaching at unseasonable hours and in unsuitable places.

[This man appears to have opened an academy for training ministers - see Neale]

Coleman Anecdote 11 Maidwell, Browning, Clarke

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In the county of Northampton we have a Mr Thomas Maidwell [1609-1692] ejected from the Church at Kettering, and afterwards becoming the devoted successful pastor of the Independent Church formed in that place, much tried, like many of his brethren, by persecutions. One H Sawyer, Esq, a large landed proprietor in the parish, was a bitter enemy to the Nonconformists, and often tried to get Mr Maidwell into his power. He frequently escaped with difficulty, sometimes in disguise. It is said that he was once cast into prison. He was also banished from his home by the "Five Mile Act."

Mr Thomas Browning, ejected from Desborough, Northamptonshire, who became pastor of the Independent Church at Howell, in the same county, was for some time confined in Northampton jail for preaching the gospel; and in the records of the church it is stated, in 1664, "from this time dates a sore persecution and scattering that lay upon us, that we hardly got together, much less obtained church meetings."

In the adjoining county of Leicester we have a Mr Matthew Clarke ejected from the living of Narborough, who afterwards became the pastor of the Independent Churches at Market Harborough and Ashley, three times cast into Leicester jail for the crime of preaching the gospel, narrowly watched by some furious justices of the peace, though he often had the happiness to escape. He dwelt for a time in a lone house in Leicester Forest, and was driven from thence by the "Five Mile Act" to live at a greater distance from any place where he had preached.

Coleman Anecdote 10 William Wilson

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A Mr William Wilson, ejected from a living in the county of Sussex [Billingshurst, he was apparently a Baptist], was greatly tried. He had been educated at Cambridge, but was prosecuted after his ejectment for teaching school and preaching. His two greatest enemies were a neighbouring justice and the parson that succeeded him in the parish. The justice threatened that he would have him, dead or alive, and make him rot in the jail. But it is observed that he himself went first to rot in the grave. The parson was so violent, that he directed the officers how to apprehend him, and vented his malice upon Mr Wilson's family after his death, though it was well known that his interest helped to bring him into the parish. But though several warrants were issued out against him, and several attempts were made to take him, God so preserved him, that he never fell into their hands, though he often very narrowly escaped. His usual refuge was the house of Dr Banks, a neighbouring Conformist minister, where he lay unsuspected. At length he was forced to give up his school; and then he purchased a small farm, which his wife and servants managed; but he held on preaching when he could get an auditory, at his own house, or elsewhere. His heart was so set upon ministerial service, that in his last illness nothing was more grievous to him than his being thereby taken off from his work. "When another ejected minister came to visit him, and asked him what he would have him pray for, he answered, "That God would either be pleased to restore him to his ministerial labours, or else receive him to glory." The latter of these requests was answered in the year 1670, when he was about forty years of age.

Baxter on Simeon Ash

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In his autobiography Baxter writes about the nonconformist Simeon Ash as follows:

Good old Mr Simeon Ash was buried the very even of Bartholomew's Day and went seasonably to heaven at the very time he was to be cast out of the Church. He was one of our very oldest Nonconformists (of the old strain; for now [1662] conforming is quite another thing than before the wars): he was a Christian of the primitive simplicity; not made for controversy, nor inclined to disputes, but of a holy life and a cheerful mind, and of a fluent elegancy in prayer, full of matter and excellent words: his ordinary speech was holy and edifying: being confined much to his house by the gout, and having a good estate, and a very good wife, inclined to entertainments and liberality, his house was very much frequented by Ministers: he was always cheerful, without profuse laughter or liberty, or vain words: never troubled with doubtings of his interest in Christ; bat tasting the continual love of God, was much disposed to the communicating of it to others, and comforting dejected souls: his eminent sincerity made him exceedingly loved and honoured: insomuch as Mr Gataker, Mr Whittaker, and others of the most excellent divines of London, when they went to God, desired him to preach their funeral sermons. He was zealous for bringing in the king; having been chaplain to the Earl of Manchester in the wars, he fell under the obloquy of the Cromwellians for crossing their designs: he wrote to Colonel Sanders, Colonel Barton, and others in the army, when General Monk came in, to engage them for the king. Having preached his lecture in Cornhill, being heated, he took cold in the vestry, and thinking it would have proved but one of his old fits of the gout, he went to Highgate; but it turned to a fever. He died as he lived, in great consolation and cheerful exercise of faith, molested with no doubts or fears, discernible: exceeding glad of the company of his friends, and greatly encouraging all about him with his joyful expressions in respect of death and his approaching change; so that no man could seem to be more fearless of it. When he had at last lain speechless for some time, as soon as I came to him, gladness so excited his spirits that he spake joyfully and freely of his going to God to those about him. I stayed with him his last evening, till we had long expected his change (being Speechless all that day), and in the night he departed.

Baxter's Analysis

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In his autobiography Baxter attempts an analysis of the way things stood after the Great Ejection. He speaks of

1. Conformists

1 Some conformed who had previously been known as Presbyterians as simply subscribed understanding it in their own sense. Baxter suggests considerations of family and poverty held sway with some. He adds that "most that I knew, when once they inclined to Conformity, did avoid the company of their brethren, and never asked them what their reasons were against Conformity."
2 Latitudinarians - (neo-)Platonists, Cartesians, many Arminian, some universalists. Some scholars some ambitious to rise.
3 Hearty conformists
(1) Some zealous for diocesan views and against the Nonconformists
(2) Some more sympathetic (privately) to Nonconformists
(3) The ignorant adn unlearned and the snesuous and scandalous

2. Nonconformists
1 Some few were for the old conformity, not covenanters nor happy about the civil wars yet unable to assent to all things now imposed
2 Men like Baxter himself, not strongly pro- or anti- episopal
3 Genuine Presbyterians
4 Independents. Mostly these, Baxter says, are like the moderate Presbyterians but some are more factious. He also mentions sects such as the Quakers and some Anabaptists who also fell foul of the new laws, of course.

Coleman Anecdote 09 John James

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In the county of Nottingham lived a Mr John James, who was called to suffer great losses and long imprisonments. For seventeen months he was confined in Nottingham jail. He then petitioned Judge Atkins in the circuit, and was released. But some time after he was seized again, and clapped up in Newark jail, where he lay about six years, and could obtain no relief, unless he would promise to give over preaching, which he absolutely refused. His prison, indeed, here was made tolerably comfortable by the favour of the keeper, who suffered his friends to come to him, and gave him leave to preach amongst them, both in the prison and in other houses in the town. His confinement continued until the Indulgence in 1672. Afterwards, falling into the same sin of preaching, he was informed against, and warrants were granted to seize his goods, which was done with such rigour, that they left him not a stool to sit on. They broke open house, stable, and barns, and took away whatever they met with; and they did it in so furious a manner, as to fright three children into convulsions, and one of them, six years of age, died a night or two after. He lost to the value of nearly £500 in goods and cattle. His chief adversary, Justice Whaley, who had then an estate of £1500 per annum, died in prison for debt in London. Some time before his death he wrote a letter to Mr James, acknowledging his great crime in being an enemy to him, and owning that the hand of God was justly upon him for it.

Coleman Anecdote 08 Richard Worts

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In the county of Norfolk we find a Mr R[ichard] Worts [d 1686], a worthy minister, a great sufferer for his Nonconformity. He was seized, and made a close prisoner at the time when the plague raged in London. With six more he was put into the castle, in a hole in the wall, where there was neither door, window, nor chimney. The hole had three wickets into the castle yard, one of which was of necessity open night and day, or they must have been suffocated with the steam of the charcoal. For five weeks the door below was kept continually locked, the hole being above 'forty steps high in a narrow passage in the wall. The keeper usually went away with the key ahout four o'clock, near a mile and a half from the head jailer's house, and returned not until about eight in the morning, during whose absence none could -come to them, whatever occasion there might be, and they were not permitted for five weeks so much as to come out into the yard. If a prisoner's wife came to see him, he was called down to the door, and .the keeper used to set his back against one side of the door, and his foot against the other, and in this manner the husband and wife might only see and rspeak with each other. After about two months' continuance here, they were removed to another prison. They were wonderfully preserved this year from the contagion of the plague, while the arrows of the Almighty fell very near them, on one side and another, there being only a lane between, so that they could see some that were shut up, and hear them cry for bread. In this trying situation they fled to their strong tower, the name of the Lord, where they found safety and peace. Some time after, a great man in power told the jailer he must forthwith carry them to the castle, and put up each in a place alone. The jailer answered, "It cannot be done, the castle is full, and I daily fear the plague should break out amongst them." "Then put them into a place together; what do I care if the plague be in it ?" was the reply. However, they were preserved in that filthy hole, at whose wickets came in the odious smell of the common yard of the felons. One of them, indeed, was almost suffocated by it, and the physician could give him no relief, so long as he was confined there. Mr Worts continued a prisoner seven years.

More Baxter

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"And now," Baxter continues " came in the great inundation of calamities, which in many streams, overwhelmed thousands of godly Christians together with their pastors. ... (1) Hundreds of able ministers with their wives and children had neither house nor bread; for many of them had not past thirty or forty pounds per annum apiece, and most but sixty or eighty pounds per annum, and few had any considerable estates of their own. (2) The people's poverty was so great, that they were not able much to relieve their ministers. (3) The jealousy of the state and the malice of their enemies were so great, that people that were willing durst not be known to give to their ejected pastors, lest it should be said that they maintained schism, or were making collections for some plot or insurrection. (4) The hearts of the people were much grieved for the loss of their pastors. (5) Many places had such set over them in their steads, as they could not with conscience or comfort commit the conduct of their souls to: and they were forced to own all these"... receiving the sacrament in the several parishes whether they would or not. (6) Those that did not this were to be excommunicated, and then to have a writ sued out against them de excommunicato capiendo, to lay them in the jail, and seize on their estates." Baxter lengthens out this catalogue of evils by enumerating the many divisions among ministers and among Christians which the great controversy of the time occasioned, the murmuring and complaining of the people against the government; and he concludes with the remark that "by all these sins, these murmurings, and these violations of the interest of the church and the cause of Christ, the land was prepared for that further inundation of calamities, by war and plague, and scarcity, which hath since brought it near to desolation."

Baxter on that day

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"When the Act of Uniformity was passed," says Richard Baxter in his autobiography, "it gave no longer time than till Bartholomew's day, Aug. 24, 1662, and then they must be all cast out. This fatal day called to remembrance the French massacre, when, on the same day, thirty or forty thousand Protestants perished by Roman religious zeal and charity. I had no place of my own; but I preached twice a week, by request, in other men's congregations, at Milk Street and Blackfriars. The last sermon that I preached in public was on May 25. The reasons why I gave over sooner than most others were, because lawyers did interpret a doubtful clause in the act, as ending the liberty of lecturers at that time; because I would let authority soon know that I intended to obey in all that was lawful; because I would let all ministers in England understand in time, whether I intended to conform or not; for, had I staid to the last day, some would have conformed the sooner, from a supposition that I intended it. These, with other reasons, moved me to cease three months before Bartholomew's day, which many censured for a while, but, afterwards, better saw the reasons of it."

Coleman Anecdote 07 Timothy Sacheverel

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Of Mr Timothy Sacheverel, who was ejected from Tarrant Hinton, in Dorsetshire, great uncle to the notorious Doctor Sacheverel, we are informed, that between the Restoration and Bartholomew-day, he was put down in a list that contained the names of several that were to be sent to prison; but Sir Gerard Naper, being in the chair at the sessions, and having a respect for him, refused to set his hand to the commitment, and so they all escaped for that time. Soon after Bartholomew-day he was cited to the Spiritual Court at Blandford, whither many people came in hope of something like a public disputation - at least, expecting to hear him very severely reprimanded; but the Chancellor told him he did not send for him to dispute with him, knowing him to be a person of great worth, temper, and learning, but only desired him to weigh all matters calmly and without prejudice, and then left him to do as God should direct him; whereupon, as soon as he had in form admonished him, he was dismissed. But such was the hostility to the worship of the Nonconformists in any way, that not long after several troopers of the militia rushed suddenly into his house one morning, while he was at prayer with his family. One of them came and held a pistol at his back, commanding him, in the king's name, immediately to stand up, but he still continued praying. However, he soon concluded, and, with great presence of mind, asked the trooper "How he durst thus pretend in the king's name to interrupt him, while he and his family were presenting their petitions to the King of kings?"

Coleman Anecdote 06 Joseph Allen

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Mr Joseph Allen, the ejected minister of Taunton, was, on May 26th, 1663, committed to Ilchester jail for singing psalms in his own house, and preaching to his family, others being present. Here he continued a year, but upon his enlargement, returned again to his work, which he followed with unwearied diligence. But in the next year he was committed a second time to jail, with several other ministers, and forty private persons, where he contracted such distempers and weaknesses, as brought him to his grave before he was thirty-six years of age. He was an awakening, lively preacher, zealous and successful in his Master's work, and of a peaceable and quiet spirit.

Judge Jeffries and the Bloody Assizes

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Judge George Jeffries features in several of Coleman's anecdotes. Read about Jeffries here and the Bloody Assizes of 1685 where he presided here.

Coleman Anecdote 05 Francis Bampfield

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A Mr Francis Bamfield, ejected from Sherbourn, in the same county [Dorset], was, after his ejectment, praying and expounding a portion of Scripture, as was his custom, with his family, and a few neighbours were present, when some soldiers broke in upon them, and obtained a warrant for their imprisonment. He afterwards suffered eight years' confinement in Dorchester jail, which he bore with great courage and patience, being filled with the comfort of the Holy Ghost. He preached in the prison sometimes every day, and gathered a church there. When he obtained his liberty he travelled in several counties preaching the Word. Was taken up again and imprisoned in Salisbury, where he continued 18 weeks. He afterwards formed a church in London, of the Baptist persuasion, which met at Pinners' Hall; but here he was exposed to fresh persecution. On one occasion the constable and several men with halberts rushed into the assembly when he was in the pulpit. The constable ordered him, in the king's name, to come down. He replied that he was discharging his office in the name of the King of kings. The constable told him he had a warrant from the Lord Mayor. Mr B replied, "I have a warrant from Christ, who is Lord Maximus, to go on;" and so proceeded in his discourse. But the constable and one of the officers pulled him down. They seized him, took him and six more to the Lord Mayor, who fined several of them £10. In the same month he was again pulled out of his pulpit, and led through the streets with the Bible in his hand, and great numbers of people after him, some reproaching and others speaking in his favour, one of whom said, "See how he walks, with the Bible in his hand, like one of the old martyrs.'" Being brought to the session, where the Lord Mayor was, he and three more were sent to prison. When afterwards brought to receive their sentence, the recorder, after odiously aggravating their offence, and reflecting on scrupulous consciences, read their sentence as follows: "That they were out of the protection of the king's majesty; that all their goods and chattels were forfeited; and that they were to remain in jail during their lives, or during the king's pleasure." Upon this Mr. B. would have spoken, but there was a great uproar—" Away with them, we will not hear them"—when Mr. B. said, "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness," " The Lord be judge in this case." They were then returned to Newgate, where Mr Bamfield, who was of a tender constitution, soon after died.

Larkham Manuscripts

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In his book on Cumberland and Westmorland benjamin Nightingale has this note among his sources

The Larkham MSS

These include:

(a) The Cockermouth Church Book. This was the work of George Larkham until his death, a few additions being made by later hands. It is in the possession of the

Deacons of the Cockermouth Congregational Church.

(b) The Diary of Thomas Larkham from 1647. This is a most remarkable document and is about the same size as the Cockermouth Church Book. There appear to be in

it at least five different handwritings:

1. That of the original owner who seems to have been an apothecary. The writing here is beautiful and the entries are such as would concern his business. The date in this writing goes back at least to 1697.

2. Near the end of the book are several pages occupied with Christenings, Burials and Receipts in "or [our] prish church of East Greenwch, by G. L. then elected Clarke," beginning with December 1615. The writing is small and neat, but distinctly different from the other.

3. Thomas Larkham was sometime Minister of East Greenwich, and probably the book came into his possession through this connection. He used it as a Diary and Book of Accounts and the earliest date is 1647. These items appear in the various spaces which the other writers had left; but Larkham was not satisfied with that, he has written on the top of the other, actually using their words and letters wherever possible for his own purpose. The result is that it is extremely difficult to pick out his entries.

4. From Thomas Larkham the book appears to have passed on to his son George, the Cockermouth Minister, who fills in remaining spaces and adds copies of letters which Mr Lewis has printed.

5. The next writer is Larkham Bowes, George Larkham's grandson, whose entries are few.

The MS. is owned by H M Fawcett, Esq, of Whitley Bay, a descendant of Larkham, who kindly lent it me for some time. It is very doubtful if a complete transcript can ever be made owing to the superimposition of Larkham's writing upon the original; and the task of making a fairly readable one is very serious. I have, however, proceeded some way through it. The MS is soiled and worn in places ; and was rebound by the owner a short time ago.

Thomas Larkham

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Thomas Larkham was ejected from the lving at Tavistock in Devon. See here. Also see ODNB. A little history of the church can be found here. His diary is due to be published this year.

Coleman Anecdote 04 John Weeks

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In Dorsetshire there was a Mr John Weeks, who after his ejectment became minister of a large congregation at Bristol. But he met with hardships on account of his Nonconformity, which he bore with great patience, meekness, and courage. As he was once preaching in Froom Woodlands, some informers came who had vowed to shoot him; but he directed his discourse to them with such majesty arid boldness that they rode away without giving him any disturbance. He was afterwards imprisoned six months for his Nonconformity, during which he preached out of the prison windows, and had many of the common people constantly to hear him. He was once carried to prison from his pulpit. While he was preaching the officers came in, and demanded by what authority he preached. He thereupon clapped his hand upon the Bible, and said, "By the authority of God and this book." They ordered him to come down. He desired he might conclude with prayer, which they yielded to, standing uncovered. He; prayed so heartily for the king and government, that one of his friends, after prayer, asked a clergyman, who came with the officers, what he had to say against such a man. "Truly nothing," he replied, "only such men eat the bread out of our mouths." There was one John Helliar, a lawyer, crafty and subtle, one of the most furious persecutors in that part of the kingdom. A rather amusing anecdote is related concerning him. On one occasion he went with the bishop to Mr Weeks' meeting-house at Bristol, to apprehend Mr Weeks, and he took down the names of several who were present at the meeting. One, however, hesitated to tell his name, and, though he was pressed again and again, he still refused. At length, being urged by several to inform them why he would not tell his name, he answered, "Because I am ashamed of it." Being further asked what reason he had to be ashamed of his name, he answered, with well-feigned reluctance and shamefacedness, " Because it is Helliar." It is needless to add that there was a general laugh at the mortified lawyer.

We are informed that Mr Weeks was as popular a preacher as most in England, and remarkably fervent in expostulating with sinners. He took pains with his sermons to the last. He was a minister out of the pulpit as well as in it; a most affectionate, sympathising friend, and one who became all things to all men. He discovered a most divine temper in his last illness, and was serene and joyful in the approach of death.

Coleman Anecdote 03 Robert Collins

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In the same county (of Devon) our attention may be directed to a Mr [Robert] Collins, who preached in his own house after his ejectment. But under the "Conventicle Act," one Lord's day in September, 1670, his house was surrounded with the officers and the vilest rabble of the town, who, not daring to break open the doors till they had obtained a warrant from a neighbouring justice, kept the congregation prisoners till night, when the warrant arrived. On forcing the doors, the gentlemen and the rabble treated both the minister and the people with great incivility. They wrote down the names of whom they pleased; took some into custody ; had warrants issued out for levying £20 on Mr Collins for preaching, £20 on the house, and 5s on each of the hearers, though they could produce no proof that there was any preaching or praying at all. After this followed breaking open of houses and shops, taking away goods and wares, forcing open gates, driving off cattle and exposing to sale for the raising of the fines.

On another occasion he was brought before a justice of the peace, who treated him and some others with great inhumanity, calling Mr Collins a minister of the devil, using other abusive and scurrilous language; and when Mr C offered to reply, threatening him with the jail, and interlacing his words with oaths and curses. On another occasion he and his wife went on horseback to attend a funeral, and a constable, by a warrant he obtained, seized them both. But at length his wife was set at liberty, and he was taken to the constable's house, and kept there under a guard, night and day, from Wednesday to Friday, when he was brought before the magistrate, and had the "Corporation Oath" tendered. On his refusing it, he was sent to the high jail, though a thousand pounds bail was offered, where he lay six months with the common prisoners, though while there he was considered to have heen the instrument of converting a poor prisoner that was executed. He was repeatedly persecuted for not attending divine service at church; also for living within five miles of the place where he had been minister; till he was at last constrained to leave his family and the kingdom and to withdraw to Holland, at the loss of several hundred pounds, and was obliged to sell a very handsome mansion-house, and a fine estate adjoining, to maintain himself and his family in their distracted condition. He was a grave and holy man. At his death he left £20 towards building a new meeting house.

Coleman Anecdote 02 Nosworthy

2011-07-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

In the county of Devon we find a Mr Nosworthy meeting with many enemies and much opposition. One Mr Stowell distinguished himself in his furious zeal against him; and with _____ Bevan, Esq., came

into his meeting and required him to come down. He was advised by an attorney who was present to keep his place; but they threatened to pull him out of the pulpit, and at length obliged him to come down. The same person more than once disturbed his meeting afterwards; and one time, on a week-day, with drums and muskets, which so frightened Mrs Nosworthy that it was thought to occasion her death. In consequence of his having a service in his house, they convicted him for holding a conventicle, imposed upon him a fine of £20, and £20 upon the house. Yet he was a man whose learning and other ministerial qualifications were considerable. The neighbouring ministers paid great deference to his judgment, and often made him moderator in their debates. After his death, several of his enemies were troubled on account of the disturbances they had given him, and sent to his children, who were eminent for their piety, begging their prayers, and desiring forgiveness of the injury they had done their families.

Coleman Anecdote 01 Calamy

2011-07-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

In London the celebrated Edmund Calamy, BD, was one of the first that was imprisoned after the passing of the "Act of Uniformity." He went on Lord's-day, December 28, to the church of Aldermanbury, where he had been minister, with an intention to be a hearer; but the person expected to preach happened to fail. To prevent a disappointment, and through the importunity of the people present, he went up and preached upon the concern of old Eli for the ark of God. Upon this, by a warrant from the Lord Mayor, he was committed to Newgate as a breaker of the "Act of Uniformity;" but in a few days, when it was seen what a resort to him there was of persons of all qualities, and how generally the severity was resented, he was discharged by his Majesty's express order. His grandson relates the following:

"I have been informed that a certain Popish lady, happening then to pass through the City, had much ado to get along Newgate Street, by reason of the many coaches that attended there, at which she was not a little surprised. Curiosity led her to inquire into the occasion of the stoppage, and the appearance of such a number of coaches in a place where she thought nothing of that kind was to be looked for. The standers-by informed her that one Mr Calamy, a person generally beloved and respected, was imprisoned there for a single sermon, at which they seemed greatly disturbed and concerned. This so moved the lady that, taking the first opportunity of waiting upon the King at Whitehall, she frankly told his Majesty the whole matter, expressing her fear that, if such steps as these were taken, he would lose the affections of the City, which might be a very ill consequence. Upon this account, and some others, my grandfather was in a little time discharged by the express order of his Majesty."

This imprisonment made no small noise in the country. Dr Wilde published a copy of verses, in a facetious style, addressed to Mr. Calamy, which was spread through all parts of the kingdom. And oh what insulting, says Mr Baxter, there was by that party in the Newsbook and in their discourses, that Calamy, who would not be a bishop, was in jail. Coleman gives the Wilde poem.

Coleman on the 2000 Confessors of 1662

2011-07-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

Thomas Coleman's book on the 2000 Confessors of 1662 first appeared in 1862. Some 240 pages long it has seven unequal chapters. After an introduction linking the St Bartholomew's Day massacre, 1662 and the disruption in Scotland the first chapters (1-3) cover the history of the period - the events leading up to the ejection (17-27), the principles on which they acted (28-51) and the oppressive measures they suffered (52-84).

At this point the book becomes more anecdotal with a long chapter (82 pages) on Characteristics of the men and their times, looking at the sufferings endured (85-137), some remarkable interpositions on their behalf (138-158) and rebukes suffered by adversaries (159-167). Chapter 5 outlines the eminent piety of some of these men (168-207). Chapter 6, makes four points regarding their subsequent influence (208-223) - 1. Their great influence on the civil and religious liberties of Britain 2. Their powerful influence in teaching to their own generation, and to those that have succeeded them, that there is something more in religion than a name and a form 3. Their great influence on the theology of their country 4. Their great influence in maintaining the vital power of Christianity against the formality that was promoted by the ritualism of the Church. A final chapter considers the way things were at the time of publication (224-236).

There is also an appendix listing numbers county by county and an index. An edition of the book can be accessed here.

Baptists and 1662 Chart

2011-07-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

Double Click to enlarge

Ministers charged with holding posts in the Established Church while being Baptists, grouped in eleven classes.

1. Never Baptist. 2. Never in the Establishment. 3. Became Baptist after 1662. 4. Resigned from the Establishment on becoming Baptist. 5. Doubtful if Baptist. 6. Date of resigning living uncertain. 7. Not identified. 8. Chaplain. 9. Died as Baptist in the Establishment. 10. Ejected as Baptist from the Establishment 11. Conformed though Baptist.

Millard The Great Ejectment of 1662

2011-07-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

Benjamin A Millard's 1912 book The Great Ejectment of 1662 is just 114 pages and seeks to introduce the subject to young Congregationalists of the time. It is the sort of thing we need today updated.

It was published by the Congegational Union of England and Wales has 8 chapters.

1. Before the king came home - Giving the background and explaining the religous parties of the time (Independents, Presbyterians, Praltists adn Roman Catholics)

2. "Presbyterian" Ideals - Having explained their dominance among the Puritans at this time he says that they sought four things - 1. Limitation of the scope and powers of the Episcpal office 2. A more thorough and effective system of spiritual discipline 3. Omission of certain ceremonial acts and prohibition of certain vestments 4. Thorough revision of the Prayer Book inviolving omissions and additions.

3. The Act of Uniformity - Here he surveys the course of events to the passing of the act

4. "Black Bartholomew" - This relates the actual events of the time the act was implemented

5. The whip of scorpions - Here he realtes the persecution that followed including the bringing in of further Acts that served to make the suffering of the Nonconformists greater.

6. "Of whom the world was not worthy" - something further on the sufferings that were endured 1662-1688 with some examples

7. The spoils of victory (1) - After a brief review he give, first, more particular consideration to the matters arising, namely 1 The supremacy of Scripture 2 The responsibilities of conscience 3 The basis on which a National Church should be established 4 How spiritual unity can be realised

8. The spoils of victory (2) - The final brief consideration is to do with 1 Human rights 2 Spiritual freedom

Peter Ince

2011-07-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

The story of the ejected minister Peter Ince is often told. Coleman has it like this
A Pleasing Discovery
Mr Peter Ince, ejected from the rectory of Dunhead, in Wilts, after being silenced, clothed himself in the dress of a shepherd, and engaged himself in that capacity to a Mr Grove, that in this way he might obtain support for himself and his family.
But not long after the year 1662, the wife of Mr Grove, who was a gentleman of great opulence, was taken dangerously ill, and Mr G sent for the parish minister to pray with her. When the messenger came, he was just going out with the hounds, and sent word that he would come when the hunt was over.
Mr Grove expressed much resentment against the minister, for choosing rather to follow his diversion than attend his wife, under the circumstances in which she then lay, when one of the servants said, "Sir, our shepherd, if you will send for him, can pray, very well; we have often heard him at prayer in the field." Upon this he was immediately sent for, and Mr Grove asked him whether he ever did or could pray. The shepherd fixed his eyes upon him, and, with peculiar seriousness in his countenance, replied,
"God forbid, sir, I should live one day without prayer." Hereupon he was desired to pray with the sick lady, which he did so pertinently to her case, with such fluency and fervency of devotion, as greatly to astonish the husband and all the family that were present. When they arose from their knees, Mr. Grove said, " Your language and manner discover you to be a very different person from what your present appearance indicates. I conjure you to inform me who and what you are, and what were your views and situation in life before you came into my service." Whereupon he told him that he was one of the ministers that had been lately ejected from the Church, and that having nothing of his own left, he was content, for a livelihood, to submit to the honest and peaceful employment of tending sheep. Upon hearing this, Mr Grove said, "Then you shall be my sfiepherd/" and immediately erected a meeting-house on his own estate, in which Mr Ince preached, and gathered a congregation of Dissenters. He is said to have been a good scholar, well skilled in the languages, especially in the Hebrew, and a good practical preacher. He had an admirable gift in prayer, and would, in days of special prayer, pour forth his soul with such spirituality, variety, fluency, and affection, that he was called praying Ince.

English Religious Laws 1660-1728

2011-07-04T06:54:00.000-07:00

English Religious Laws passed from 1660 to 1728

Act	Effect	Date passed	Date repealed	Duration	Comments
Corporation	Required oaths and communion for officers	1661	1828	167	Penalties reduced by Indemnity Act; Final repeal 1871
Licensing	Publications approved by Archbishop or Bishop	1662	1681	19
Uniformity [1]	Ejected nonc. ministers by 1664	1662		To present	Bartholomew Act
Uniformity [2]	Required teachers to take communion and have Bishop’s License	1662	1689	27
Uniformity [3]	Required oath 39 Articles universities	1662	1871	207	Changed in 1772
Quaker	Banned Quaker assemblies, required oaths	1662	1689	27
Conventicle [1]	Banned religious gatherings of more than 5	1664	1670	6
Five Mile	Banned ejected ministers and unlicensed preachers within 5 miles of towns	1665	1689	24
Conventicle [2]	Banned religious gatherings of more than 5	1670	1689	19
Test	Civil/military officers must take communion, renounce Mass, swear Corporation oaths, aimed at Catholics, also affected other Nonconformists	1673	1829	156	Penalties reduced by Indemnity Act
Papist’s Disabling	Barred Catholics from Parliament	1678	1829	151
Toleration	Suspended penal laws agt. Nonconformists, allowed Trinitarians to license chapels	1689		To present	Modified in 1779
Blasphemy	Penalties incl. death for arians, socinians and atheists	1697	1813	116
Occasional Conformity	Barred Dissenters from taking Anglican communion to qualify for office	1711	1718	7
Schism	Barred Dissenters from keeping schools	1714	1718	4
Indemnity	Reduced penalties under Test and Corporation Acts; allowed Dissenters to hold offices	1728		Intermit-tent	Became annual from 1756 until repeal of Test and Corporation Acts

Found here

Baptists and 1662

2011-07-04T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is a 46 page Carey Kingsgate booklet from 1862 containing two essays, one by E A Payne and one by Norman S Moon giving the background to 1662 and saying what there is to be said about Baptists in that connection. Moon says that according to W T Whitley no more than 26 Baptists were among the 2,000 (Payne suggests less). Most notable was Henry Jessey of Southwark. Others include Richard Adams, Richard Breviter, Daniel Dyke, John Donne, John Gibbs and John Tombes. Also note Vavasor Powell, John Miles and Thomas Ewins. Payne also points out that Francis Bampfield and others later became Baptists, after their ejection. The conventicle act affected Baptist churches quite a bit and at the end of 1662 there were 289 Baptists in Newgate Prison and 18 in The Tower. The booklet takes the story into the more recent past, mentioning The Occasional Conformity Act of 1711, Dissenting Academies, Carey and the eventual repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828.
(An article on the subject by W T Whitley can be found online here)

Books on the subject 1962

2011-07-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

See here for a summary of some books published in conncection with our subject in 1962.

James Forbes

2011-06-09T02:36:00.000-07:00

(From Wikipedia)

Forbes was born in or about 1629. He was educated at Aberdeen University, where he proceeded MA, being subsequently admitted ad eundem at Oxford. In 1654 he was sent to Gloucester Cathedral, where he preached ‘with great success, but to the apparent danger of shortening his life.’ At the Restoration he was speedily ejected from the cathedral, but he still continued at Gloucester, ‘ministering privately as he could.’ Struck by his talents, Robert Frampton, then dean, but afterwards bishop of Gloucester, ‘courted him to conformity in vain.’

In consequence of the "Yarranton Plot" or "Pakington Plot", he was committed to Chepstow Castle, where he was kept a long while. On regaining his liberty he returned to his pastoral charge; he was often imprisoned in Gloucester, on one occasion for a whole year; he was indicted under the Corporation Act, the penalty of which was imprisonment. He was also indicted under 23 James I, the penalty of which was £20 a month, and under 35 Elizabeth, of which the penalty was to abjure the realm or suffer death. At the same time, also, he was excommunicated, and the writ de excom. capiendo was out against him.

At the time of Monmouth's rebellion he retired to Enfield, Middlesex, and there continued in his ministry. He was later recalled to Gloucester, where he continued to labour until his death. Altogether, he exercised his ministry in Gloucester for 58 years, less one month. He died 31 May 1712, aged 83, and was buried under his own communion-table. His funeral sermon was preached by John Noble of Bristol. Edmund Calamy, who represents him as the model of a nonconformist divine, states that at his death he left gifts to charitable uses, including his library (now in Toronto).

Hendon area

2011-05-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

Francis Warham, the vicar ejected in 1662, was licensed as a Congregationalist in 1672, when he was living at Upper Hale. Richard Swift, ejected from Edgware in 1660, was imprisoned on several occasions for holding conventicles in his house, Jeanettes, at Mill Hill. The Independents who registered Samuel Everard's house at Childs Hill as a place of worship in 1672 may have been the dissenters who registered Mary Everett's house there in 1690.

From: 'Hendon: Protestant nonconformity', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 39-43. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=26889

Grandsons of the Ejected

2011-05-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

Among the well known grandsons of ejeced ministers are

Philip Doddridge 1702-1751. His grandfather John Doddridge 1621-1689 was rector of Shepperton, Middlesex until 1662.

John Wesley 1703-1791 (like his brothers) had ejected grandfathers on both sides. Both Dorset vicar John Westley 1636–1678 and Samuel Annesley c 1620-1696 of St Giles Cripplegate were grandfathers to the famous Methodist and Arminian. (John Westley's father Bartholomew Westley 1596–1680 was also ejected).

Henry Grove 1684–1738, an English nonconformist minister, theologian and dissenting tutor had a grandfather who was ejected from Pinhoe in Devon.

The Ejected (93 of them)

2011-04-26T02:10:00.000-07:00

Articles are currently available on 93 people who were ejected on Wikipedia here.
A
Richard Adams (religious writer)
Thomas Adams (writer)
Joseph Alleine
Richard Alleine
Vincent Alsop
Isaac Ambrose
Samuel Annesley

B
William Bagshaw
Nathanael Ball
Matthew Barker
William Bates (minister)
Richard Baxter
Thomas Baylie
William Benn (divine)
James Bradshaw (1613-1685)
James Bradshaw (minister)
John Brinsley the younger
Thomas Brooks (Puritan)
John Bryan (minister)
Anthony Burges
Cornelius Burges
Ralph Button
Richard Byfield

C
Edmund Calamy the Elder
Joseph Caryl
Thomas Case
Daniel Cawdry
Stephen Charnock
Samuel Clarke (annotator)
Samuel Clarke (minister)
John Collinges
William Cooper (Puritan)
Zachary Crofton
Samuel Crossman

D
William Dell
Thomas Doolittle
Daniel Dyke

F
Giles Firmin
John Flavel
Thomas Ford (minister)
Richard Frankland (tutor)

G
Richard Gilpin
Thomas Gouge
William Greenhill
Obadiah Grew

H
Thomas Hall (minister)
Timothy Hall (bishop)
Samuel Hammond (minister)
Philip Henry (clergyman)
Oliver Heywood (minister)
Joseph Hill (lexicographer)
Leonard Hoar
Thomas Horton (Gresham College)
Charles Hotham (rector)
John Howe (Puritan)
John Humfrey

J
Arthur Jackson (minister)
James Janeway
William Jenkyn
Thomas Jollie

L
Henry Langley
Nicholas Lockyer

M
William Manning (Unitarian)
Thomas Manton
Walter Marshall (Puritan)
Adam Martindale
Edmund Staunton
Richard Mayo (minister)
Matthew Mead (minister)
Charles Morton (educator)

N
Henry Newcome
Matthew Newcomen

O
John Oxenbridge

P
William Pell (minister)

R
Edward Reyner
Thomas Rosewell
John Rowe (minister)

S
Lazarus Seaman
John Shawe
William Sherwin (minister)
William Spurstowe
Nathaniel Stephens (clergyman)

T
Francis Tallents

V
Ralph Venning
Nathaniel Vincent
Thomas Vincent

W
Thomas Watson (Puritan)
Bartholomew Westley
John Westley
Henry Wilkinson (canon)
Henry Wilkinson (dean)
Benjamin Woodbridge
Hezekiah Woodward

The Savoy Conference

2011-04-26T01:33:00.000-07:00

(From Wikipedia)

The Savoy Conference of 1661 was a significant liturgical discussion that took place, after the Restoration of Charles II, in a supposed attempt to effect a reconciliation within the Church of England.

It was convened by Gilbert Sheldon, in his lodgings at the Savoy Hospital in London (where the Savoy Hotel now is) and was attended by commissioners: 12 Anglican bishops and 12 representative ministers of the Puritan and Presbyterian factions. Each side also had nine deputies (called assistants or coadjutors). The nominal chairman was Accepted Frewen, the Archbishop of York. The object was to revise the Book of Common Prayer. Richard Baxter for the Presbyterian side presented a new liturgy, but this was not accepted. In 1662 the Act of Uniformity followed and the Great Ejection.

Commissioners

The nominated commissioners and deputies were as follows:

Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York

Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London

John Cosin, Bishop of Durham

John Warner, Bishop of Rochester

Henry King, Bishop of Chichester

Humphrey Henchman, Bishop of Salisbury

George Morley, Bishop of Worcester

Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln

Benjamin Laney, Bishop of Peterborough

Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester

Richard Sterne, Bishop of Carlisle

John Gauden, Bishop of Exeter

For the presbyterians (eventually ejectees marked *):

Edward Reynolds, Bishop of Norwich

Anthony Tuckney*

John Conant (Reynolds' son-in-law)

William Spurstow*

John Wallis

Thomas Manton*

Edmund Calamy*

Richard Baxter *

Arthur Jackson*

Thomas Case*

Samuel Clarke*

Matthew Newcomen*

Deputies

On the episcopal side:

John Earle, Dean of Westminster

Peter Heylin Sub-dean of Westminster.

John Hacket

John Barwick

Peter Gunning

John Pearson

Thomas Pierce

Anthony Sparrow

Herbert Thorndike

On the presbyterian side:

Thomas Horton (ejected but then conformed)

Thomas Jacomb*

William Bates*

John Rawlinson*

William Cooper*

John Lightfoot

John Collinges*

Benjamin Woodbridge (ejected but then conformed and then became a nonconformist again)

There was to have been one more deputy on the presbyterian side, the former physician Roger Drake*. A clerical error caused his name to appear as "William Drake" in the official document, and he did not actually attend.

The Ejected of 1662 in Cumberland & Westmorland

2011-04-08T01:12:00.000-07:00

The book The Ejected of 1662 in Cumberland & Westmorland can be consulted here on Google Books as a preview. Most though not all of the book can be seen there.

Pendlebury of Bury

2011-04-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

In Bury, Lancashire, the Presbyerian Church of 1719 and the Independent Chapels, that in the 19th Cnetury were in New Road and in Henry Street (erected 1792 and 1807 respectively) are the outcrop of the ejection of 1662. The Rev Henry Pendlebury, MA was ejected from Holcombe Chapel, in Bury, in 1662. For over 25 years, Pendlebury continued to preach wherever he could in the district, in secret and illegally – in Richard Kay's barn, in the houses of Margaret Holt, Giles Unsworth and Abraham Wilkinson, and even in the open air. Eventually a Meeting house was built for him in Bass-lane, in the township of Walmersley. After his death the Presbyterian place of worship, called Dundee Chapel, on the opposite side of the brook to the Episcopal Chapel, whence Mr. Pendleton was ejected, was built for his successor; and in 1719 that part of the congregation who resided in Bury, erected a chapel in Silver Street.

Bere Regis Congregational, Dorset

2011-04-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

In 1662 Philip Lamb, vicar of Bere Regis, was one of the puritan clergy to resign and can therefore be considered as the founder of the Congregational Church in the parish. There were 73 clergy known to have been ejected from the Church of England in Dorset. Lamb was one of those who resigned before being ejected.

He was apparently a zealous minister preaching at Winterborne Kingston, his second church, as well as at Bere Regis. From the age of 21 he laboured at Bere and Kingston, until his ejection, holding a service every day in the week at Bere at 6.00 am. In his farewell sermon he said, "l may not speak from God to you, yet I shall not cease to speak to God for you."

Lamb secured a large place in the affections of the people, and there was great grief when he was silenced. For some time he continued to preach privately, and undoubtedly it was under his guidance that the Congregational Church was formed.

Later he was forced to move to Morden, where doubtless he found refuge with a stout friend of non-conformity, Sir Walter Erle, who lived at Charborough Park. Later still he moved to Alton Pancras near Cerne Abbas.

In 1672 he was granted a licence to be ‘a Congregational Teacher' in East Morden. Later still a convenient meeting house in Winterborne Kingston, probably the residence of Richard Woolfreys, was provided for him, where the people flocked from all parts to hear him. Persecution drove him to flee to Clapham, London, where he died in 1689 at the age of 66. He was offered £600 a year, a princely salary in those days, if he would conform, but he was not tempted. He was a man of unaffected piety, cheerful temper and engaging personality.

Precise information is not available of the trials and persecutions of the Bere Regis dissenters, as records, if kept, have since been lost. It appears that six ministers preached here in rotation once a fortnight until a Mr Bulstrode settled there in 1670.

Broad Street Independent, Reading

2011-04-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

The picture shows the former Broad Street Independent Chapel of 1707 in Reading,
now a branch of Waterstones. That all important 1662 date has been highlighted.

Thomas Doolittle

2010-03-04T02:09:00.000-08:00

Thomas Doolittle (1630-1707) was an English Puritan pastor of the 17th century. At his death, in 1707, at the age of 77, he had the distinction of being the last surviving pastor of the Great Ejection.

Born in Kidderminster, as a boy he heard Baxter preach "The Saints’ Everlasting Rest" (published 1653). The addresses led to Doolittle’s conversion and he would later call Baxter his “father in Christ.”
As an assistant to a county lawyer, he was required to work on the Sabbath adn so he left. Baxter encouraged him to enter the ministry. He studied at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, earning a BA 1653 and MA 1656. His tutor was William Moses, later ejected from Pembroke.
Doolittle quickly earned a reputation as a great preacher. In 1653, he received Presbyterian ordination but committed himself to St Alfege, London Wall, where he until ejected in 1662. His ministry there had been eminently successful. In 1657, he had written to Baxter “God hath given me abundant encouragement in my work, by giving me favour in the hearts and affections of the people … and others in the city."

Article list

2010-02-20T02:16:00.000-08:00

I found this list of Journal articles and other things at the Unitarian Historical Society's website.

Bolam, C. Gordon 'The Ejection of 1662 and its consequences for the Presbyterians in England' Hibbert Journal 60:3 (April 1962) 184-195

Bolam, C. G. and Goring, Jeremy 'Presbyterians in separation: the cataclysm'

Bolam, C. G. and others The English Presbyterians: from Elizabethan puritanism to modern Unitarianism (London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1968) pp.73-92

Caplan, N. 'The numerical strength of nonconformity 1669-76; Sussex' TUHS 13:1 (1963) 13-18

Goring, Jeremy 'Some neglected aspects of the Great Ejection of 1662' TUHS 13:1 (1963)1-8

Kenworthy, Fred 'From authority to freedom in church life: the Act of Uniformity and Unitarian dissent' TUHS 12:4 (1962) 141-154

Montgomery, R. M. 'An old pamphlet [about the Conventicle Act is Suffolk, 1670]' TUHS 2:2 (1920) 33-42

Nuttall, Geoffrey; Thomas, Roger; Whitehorn, R. D.: Short, Harry Lismer The Beginnings of Nonconformity (London, James Clarke and Co, 1964) [The Hibbert Lectures]

Short, Harry Lismer 'The great ejection and its consequences' Commemorating the 'Great Ejection' 1662-1962 (Midland Union of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, 1962) pp.18-26

Thomas, Roger 'Presbyterians, Congregationals and the Test and Corporation Acts' TUHS 11:4 (1958) 117-127

Thomas, Roger 'A 1686 indulgence and its licences' TUHS 12:1 (1959) 41-42

Thomas, Roger 'Comprehension and indulgence' in Geoffrey Nuttall and Owen Chadwick From uniformity to unity 1662-1962 (London, SPCK, 1962) pp.

Thomas, Roger 'The rise of the reconcilers' Bolam, C.G. and others The English Presbyterians: from Elizabethan puritanism to modern Unitarianism London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1968) pp.46-72

Turner, G. Lyon Original records of early Nonconformity under persecution and indulgence 3 volumes (London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1911)

Wykes, David L. 'Religious Dissent and the penal laws: an explanation of business success?' History 75 (1990)

Wykes, David L. 'James II's religious indulgence of 1687 and the early organisation of Dissenters: the building of the first nonconformist meeting house in Birmingham' Midland History 16 (1991) 86-102 (covers most of England, not just Birmingham)

Wykes, David L. '"To let the memory of these men dye is injurious to posterity": Edmund Calamy's Account of the Ejected ministers' in Swanson, R. N. ed The Church retrospective (Boydell Press for The Ecclesiastical History Society, 1997) [Studies in Church History 33]

Appleby Book Honoured

2010-02-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

I found this piece of news here

David J. Appleby's Black Bartholomew's Day has been awarded the Richard L. Greaves Award by the International John Bunyan Society. The Richard L. Greaves Award is an award that is presented triennially to an outstanding book on the history, literature, thought, practices, and legacy of English Protestantism to 1700. The award is not limited to studies of Bunyan, and can be conferred on authors who are not members of the IJBS.

This is only the second time the award has been given, the first recipient being Isabel Hofmeyr of Princeton University.

Although the book has but one mention of Bunyan, the committee agreed that the book's contribution to dissenting studies was 'exceptional'.To find out more about the International John Bunyan Society follow this link: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~dgay/Bunyan.htm

Richard Morton

2010-02-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

In 1904 a William Osler began an article in a medical journal on the 17th century medical man Richard Morton thus:

August 22, 1662 - Black Bartholomew's Day, as it has been called - brought sadness and sorrow to many English homes. The enforcement of the Act of Uniformity called for subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, and enforced the use by all clergymen of the Book of Common Prayer. Among those ejected for refusal to subscribe - 2,ooo in number, it is said - was a young man, aged twenty-five, the Vicar of Kinver, in Staffordshire, Richard Morton by name. The son of a physician, born in 1637, he had been educated at Oxford, where he took the B.A. in 1656-57, became chaplain to his College and took the M.A. in 1659, and in the same year was appointed to the vicarage of Kinver. From the days of St. Luke there have been many instances of what has been called the angelical conjunction of physic and divinity. In the seventeenth century many men could sign after their names, as did Robert Lovell in his History of Animals and Minerals (1661), Philotheologiatronomos. Following Linacre's example, clerical orders have been taken as a rule by the physician late in life, but Morton, ejected from his living, turned his attention to medicine at a comparatively early age. From Baxter's account, he evidently was a loss to the church. He speaks of him as "a man of great gravity, calmness, sound principles, of no faction, an excellent preacher, of an upright life."
It is not known where Morton studied medicine. On the nomination of the Prince of Orange he was created an M.D. of Oxford in 1670. He settled in London, became a Candidate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1675, and a Fellow in 1679. He practised in Grey Friar's Court, Newgate Street, and had an unusual measure of success. He became physician-in-ordinary to the King, and enjoyed the confidence both of the profession and of the public. He seems to have been an intimate friend of Sydenham and a strong supporter of his new way in physic. He died in 1698.

His most important work is the Phthisiologia, 1689, of which there were six or seven subsequent editions in the succeeding century. Two English translations appeared, one in 1694, and the other in 1720.
His Pyretologia appeared in 1692, and is chiefly of value today as giving one of the most systematic and thorough accounts of the malarial fevers of that date.

The rest of the article can be found here.

Thomas Watson

2010-02-18T09:39:00.000-08:00

By 1662 Thomas Watson for 20 years had been Pastor of St. Stephens Church, Walbrook, London. The Sunday of "The great ejection" he preached the following words to his church.
"Now, I welcome the cross of Christ, welcome reproach, welcome poverty or whatever shall befall me. This morning I had a flock and you had a Pastor; but now, behold a Pastor without a flock and a flock without a Shepherd! This morning I had a house, now I have none. This morning I had a living, now I have none. ‘The Lord giveth the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord!'"
Watson continued "This doctrine that I have preached to you is:
1. That Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save sinners, by His death, came also to sanctify them and to purge them from their sins.
2. That those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, must be careful to maintain good works and to live a godly life (Titus 3:8).
3. That faith in Christ is not such a slight, easy and empty thing as this mistaken world imagines, but it demands conformity of the whole man, heart and life to the Person of Christ.
4. That whosever believes not in Christ; whosever is short of true and sincere faith and godliness cannot be saved.
This is the sum of my doctrine! This is the eternal truth of God! I hereby embark my whole soul and life, desiring to be found in Christ Jesus, for Christ is All and in All" (Colossians 3:11).

Nice summary

2010-02-09T05:49:00.000-08:00

A nice summary written in Wales by John Legg can be found here. It says

Christians must often define themselves by what they oppose, for example as Protestants or Nonconformists. What did they not conform to? The short answer is, ‘the Anglican church’, but there is more to it than just a dislike of formal worship or of the Establishment. We must look at their origins in the seventeenth-century.

Separatists
When James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603, he adopted the motto, ‘No bishop, no king’ and set about imposing conformity on the church. Many of his subjects, however, continued to meet together to worship God in a scriptural way. One such Separatist congregation was at Scrooby in Nottinghamshire. In 1608 persecution forced them to emigrate to Leyden in Holland, but after a peaceful few years they decided to go to America. Elder William Bradford later described their departure from Leyden: ‘they knew they were Pilgrims, and … lifted up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country’. Ever since they have been known as ‘the Pilgrim Fathers’. After many difficulties, they set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower. After a horrific voyage, they finally landed (in the wrong place!) and endured a cruel winter, fever, fires, accidents and the arrival of ungodly settlers. Within six months half of the original party (and half of the Mayflower’s crew) had died, but by prayer and the providential help of friendly Indians, they survived. The rest of the Leyden congregation arrived in 1630 and the settlement reached three hundred.

Not conforming to the Prayer Book
When Charles I succeeded to the throne, he and William Laud, his Archbishop of Canterbury, determined to impose conformity to the Book of Common Prayer. When Laud tried to extend the rule of bishops and the Prayer Book to Scotland, he ran into trouble. One doughty Scottish woman, named Jenny Geddes, resisted the public reading of the Prayer Book with the memorable action of throwing her stool at the Dean’s head and the equally memorable words, ‘Will ye dare read that book in my lug [ear]?’. By 1640 the number of colonists in America, eager to establish Bible-based churches, reached twenty-thousand and nonconformity was well established. Laud’s unwise policies contributed to Parliament’s resistance to the king and thus to the Civil War.

Oliver Cromwell
The coming of the Commonwealth and Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell brought relief to the Nonconformists of various shades. Although many Church of England ministers were removed from their parishes, they were only the inefficient, incompetent or immoral ones. During this period the Westminster Assembly met, in a failed attempt to unite England and Scotland in a Reformed alliance. The Assembly did, however, write the Westminster Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, perhaps the finest theological statements ever produced. Most of the members of the Assembly were Presbyterians; others were convinced Anglicans; five were Congregationalists or Independents. They argued against some of the Presbyterian ideas and became known as the Dissenting Brethren.

The Bedford Baptists
The Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists were emerging as a distinct group. By 1644, they had seven congregations in England. One famous Baptist church was established in Bedford in 1650 with twelve members under the leadership of John Gifford. From 1653, when the Anglican vicar was deposed, this Baptist church, now with twenty-five members, met in the parish church, as did many other new independent congregations. One of these members was a newly converted tinker called John Bunyan. Gifford died two years later, but fairly soon, Bunyan began preaching and in 1656 was set aside to preach both in the congregation and more widely. He was not actually pastor, but continued to support himself by his ‘tinkering’. By this time the congregation at the Bedford Meeting had grown to around ninety members. In 1660, however, all this came to an end.

The Restoration
When Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and was succeeded by his son, Richard, the politicians, who still hankered after a king and a national church, ‘restored’ the monarchy, with dire consequences. Charles II made conciliatory noises, but the new parliament insisted on restoring all forms and ceremonies of the church. The clergy who had been removed during the Commonwealth returned, including the vicar of Bedford, so that the Baptist congregation had to leave the parish church. The Presbyterians had high hopes of being included in the established church, but Bishop Sheldon of London was determined that there should be no compromise. He and his supporters wanted to get rid of all the Puritans, and this they did.
Not conforming to the Act of Uniformity, 1662
They drafted a bill strictly to make it impossible for even the least dogmatic of the Puritans to accept it with a clear conscience. The Act of Uniformity, passed in May 1662, gave all ministers of the Church of England until 24 August, St. Bartholomew’s Day, to conform to its demands. They had to affirm the supremacy of the monarch in all things ecclesiastical and spiritual, and that they gave ‘unfeigned assent’ to everything in the Book of Common Prayer. The timing was deliberately such as to deprive any who did not conform of a whole year’s income.
The Great Ejection
Nearly two thousand ministers (a hundred and thirty in Wales), including some who had withdrawn earlier, refused to conform. Most were Presbyterians or Independents, but there were also nineteen Baptists, of whom eleven were Welsh. The Bishop of London was disappointed that so many actually did conform. If he had thought so many would conform, he ‘would have made the Act stricter’! The ejection included not only ministers, but also lecturers and even schoolmasters, so that many of them were deprived of any means of livelihood.
What, then, did they object to? There were many important details in the Prayer Book that they found objectionable, such as the use of the sign of the cross in baptism and the wearing of the surplice. More importantly they refused ‘to pronounce all baptised persons regenerated by the Holy Ghost’; they regarded it as sinful to give the communion elements to the unfit, to pronounce a general and absolute absolution, and to declare anyone they buried ‘our dear brother here departed’. All these, of course, arose from the basic error that everyone in the parish was a Christian. More generally, they denied that anyone, king or pope, has the right to impose a liturgy on ministers.

The Clarendon Code
To back this up, Parliament introduced a set of penal acts aimed at destroying the many independent groups, Congregational or Baptist, which were still meeting. The First Conventicle Act banned the meeting together in a home of more than five people apart from the family members. In 1666 the Five Mile Act was introduced. This appears to have been specifically and spitefully aimed against certain godly ministers. When the Great Plague afflicted London in 1665 and the Anglican ministers fled to the country, the ejected ministers earned great credit by going back and looking after their flocks. The new act forbade them to go within five miles of any city, corporation or borough, or any parish where they had been minister or conducted unlawful conventicles. Immediately the king returned, the Bedfordshire magistrates ordered the restoration of the Prayer Book in public worship. Inevitably John Bunyan fell foul of the law and was imprisoned for twelve years. It was probably during this period that he began his great work, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan was only one of many Puritans who, in the providence of God, used their enforced silence to write.

Nonconformist restrictions
In 1672 Charles issued a Declaration of Indulgence, which allowed Nonconformists, including Bunyan, to apply for licences to preach and to establish meeting places where they could meet openly. However, Parliament was displeased and the Declaration in 1673 was replaced by the first Test Act which required all in public office to take communion at the Church of England. In this way Nonconformists were debarred from public office (and university) unless they were prepared to compromise their consciences. In other ways this was a time of relative quiet for the Nonconformists, but in 1681 new persecutions came on the Dissenters. In 1685, Charles’ son, an open Roman Catholic, became King James II. However, he went too far and the people rebelled. The ‘Glorious Revolution’ took place and William of Orange and Mary took the throne. Although the Protestant Dutchman did not do as much as the Nonconformists expected, he did introduce religious toleration for Protestants in an Act of 1689. Many disabilities remained for Nonconformists, but the worst was past.
In days when we tend to take our freedoms for granted, when we can attend university if we want, become members of Parliament and mayors if we so desire, attend the church of our choice without fear and, still preach the gospel without hindrance, we must remember the principles and struggles of our forefathers.

Farewell Sermons (audio)

2009-01-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Two Farewell Sermons can be heard being read here. The sermons are those of Edmund Calamy and Joseph Caryl.

Stoughton's Heroes 06

2008-04-23T11:07:00.001-07:00

In the year following that in which the Act of Uniformity was passed, another statute was made for the oppression of the Nonconformists. Under pretence of preventing riotous assemblies, such as had recently troubled the peace of Yorkshire and Westmoreland, in which a few of the Fifth Monarchy men were implicated, it was enacted that if more than five persons, besides the members of a family, met together for religious exercises, anywhere but in the churches of the Establishment, the offenders should in the first instance be fined five pounds, or be imprisoned three months; in the second, pay ten pounds or suffer imprisonment for six months; and in the third, forfeit a hundred pounds or be sent over the seas for seven years. The Act did not remain a dead letter in the statute-book. In many places it was carried out with extreme rigour. The Nonconformists were carefully watched: spies were set to discover where they worshipped, and inform the local authorities. Men calling themselves officers of justice were prompt in endeavouring to arrest the parties, and inflict the penalty. The records of the Church at Broadmead, Bristol, contain several notices of the operation of the Act. As the people met at one Mr Yeats's house, a baker, in Maryport Street, the house was beset by the mayor and several aldermen, who demanded entrance; but the door being kept close, they forced it open with iron bars: some of the worshippers escaped out the back of the premises; others were seized and sent to prison. "We were hunted by the Nimrods," observe these humble confessors, "and assaulted many u time by men, but saved by God." One day, on a week meeting, a guard of musketeers was sent to take them into custody; but, getting down into a cellar, they eluded their enemies' search. "Another time, at brother Ellin's, on a Lord's day, the mayor and aldermen, with officers, beset the house, and at last broke open the back door, and so came in; but in the meantime our brother having contrived, by a great cupboard, to hide a garret door, ho sent up most of the men out of the meeting into the said garret; and so we were concealed." The Nonconformists in country villages sometimes avoided detection by assembling in some manorial hall belonging to one of the richer brethren; and there, at the midnight hour, the ejected pastor gathered round him some of his scattered Mock, and refreshed their hearts by the sound of his familiar voice, but infinitely more by the truths he uttered. Thus, in the great hull at Hudscott, belonging to the family of the Rolles, near South Moulton, in Devonshire, did John Flavel address a crowded auditory. Supported by the hospitality, and screened by the influence, of the owner of the mansion, he there resided for some time; and amidst the plantations, gardens, and rural scenes which environed the spot, gathered the materials of his "Husbandry Spiritualized;" so that it is highly probable he furnished in his midnight exorcises many of those ingenious illustrations, so suited to the tastes and habits of his rustic flock, which are found in the popular work just mentioned. The recesses of the dark wood offered a still more secure, and in some seasons even a more grateful sanctuary; and beneath the shades of lofty pines, or overhanging elms, or round the gnarled trunks of oaks that had stood for ages, forming temples of God's own building, - the persecuted brotherhood assembled to hear the Word of God; and there, too, at times, without fear, and freely as the birds on the branches, would they lift up their voices to heaven, and chant the high praises of their Creator. So did a group of Christians at Andover meet in a sequestered dell, amidst a wide-spreading wood, four miles from the town, while the clear shining stars, or the pale moon, guided them to their retreat. The same little company afterwards assembled in a private dwelling-house, selecting the night as the season for worship. "It was when the eye of human observation was closed by sleep, that they ventured to the room; and having entered it, made fast the door and closed the window-shutter, and even extinguished the light of the candle, lest its glimmering might be discovered through a crevice, by some stray enemy from without. Here they often continued all night in prayer to God, until the ray of morning light, struggling down the chimney, announced the time to disperse. Thus they learnt that the darkness hideth not from God, but the night shineth as the day; and that the Father, who seeth in secret, shall reward us openly."

But the cleverest precautions sometimes failed. In many cases they were altogether neglected; and the worshippers exposed themselves to detection, from a consciousness that they were only obeying the laws of God, however their conduct might be regarded by the laws of men. It touched the heart of Mr Pepys, High Churchman as he was, to see these unoffending persons led through the streets as culprits. He writes in his Journal, under date 1664, "I saw several poor creatures carried by constables, for being at a conventicle. They go like lambs, without any resistance; and would to God they would either conform, or be more wise, and not be catched." Such were the consequences of the Restoration of Charles II. "Fiat justitia, ruat coelum," ('Let justice be done, even if Heaven falls') said a zealous Presbyterian Royalist, when conversing with a friend upon the question of bringing in his Majesty. "Ruit coelum," (the heavens are falling)remarked this friend, on meeting him one day after the Act of Uniformity was passed.

Stoughton's Heroes 05

2008-04-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Some, indeed, may look on them as fictions; but those who thoroughly believe the assurance of the Divine Redeemer, that if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all needful things shall be added unto us, will readily allow the probability, the verisimilitude of such statements; nor can any fair suspicion be entertained respecting the veracity, the means of information, the good sense, and habits of careful inquiry possessed by the men who have related these incidents. If we believe (and who that reads the New Testament can disbelieve it?) that a special providence watches over those who strive to do God's will, and rest upon his promises, we shall be prepared to admit remarkable interpositions on behalf of men who signalized themselves by their religious integrity? Instead of there being an antecedent improbability against such facts, they are the very facts which Divine revelation stamps with a striking likelihood.

The pecuniary difficulties, however, in which the Act of Uniformity involved so many devoted men, were only the beginning of sorrows: their reputation, their personal liberty and their lives were soon in jeopardy. For these silenced ministers to preach to their late parishioners and friends, for them even to pray with a few devout spirits like themselves, was deemed a crime. Their words were often caught up, and with diabolical ingenuity construed into treason. If some quaint preacher spoke of the devil as a king who courts the soul, and speaks fair till he has obtained his throne, the metaphorical language was grossly perverted, and there were informers ready to declare that the good man said the King was like the Evil One. Treason, heresy, schism, were unscrupulously charged upon this proscribed class and the malicious were never at a loss for pretexts to compass their purposes. Ruffians were ready to execute the bidding of inhuman magistrates and informers, and would rush into the houses of ejected ministers while they were praying with their families, and, levelling a pistol at the back of the suppliant, command him in the King's name to rise and surrender himself. Dragged before prejudiced justices of the peace to answer charges equally vague and false, these Puritans were treated with a brutality which in the present day appears incredible. When, for example, one of these confessors was pleading his own cause, an alderman rose from the bench, tore off the satin cap worn by the accused and boxed his ears. The ejected ministers were sometimes conducted through the streets by constables after the manner of criminals and compelled to walk long distances to prison, till their feet were pierced through their worn-out shoes and stained with blood.

A memorable story is told of one of these worthies, illustrative of the inhumanity of his persecutors and of his own beautiful Christian spirit. Thomas Worts was Curate of Burningham in Norfolk. Being apprehended after his ejectment by a writ De excommunicato capiendo, he was brought from Burningham to Norwich Castle with his legs chained under the horse's belly. Entering that old wall-girt city through St Augustine's Gate, which with its square tower guarded one of the northern entrances, he was watched by a woman looking from a chamber window, who exclaimed in derision, as he passed close by her, "Worts, where's now your God?" "Turn," said the injured man, "to Micah vii 10: Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, "Where is the Lord thy God? Mine eye shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.'" It is added, that the woman, touched by this allusion, ceased from her enmity and became a kind friend to the man whom she had insulted. Worts had a brother named Richard, who in like manner was apprehended and was imprisoned for seven years. Part of this time was spent in Norwich Castle, in a miserable cell containing six prisoners beside himself, with wickets looking into the felons' yard, which were constantly kept open, or the inmates would have been stifled with the fumes of the charcoal burnt in that cold damp place. "If his wife came to see one of the captives, he was called down to the door; and the keeper used to set his back against one side of the doorway, and his foot against the other, so as to prevent her entrance any farther." The plague was raging at the time; the filth and stench of the prison were alone enough to create a pestilence. The close confinement of the prisoners seriously affected their health; one was in imminent danger; and under these circumstances application was made for at least a temporary release - but in vain.

Stoughton's Heroes 04

2008-04-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

"With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran:
Even children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile :
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,
Their welfere pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,—
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven:
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

The 24th of August, perhaps, was the most trying day to the ejected ministers, for then as men of God they surrendered their spiritual charge; but the day when they left their homes, endeared by the domestic associations of past happy years, could not fail to affect them deeply, for then came their trial as husbands and fathers. No artist that I know of has painted the Nonconformist and his family leaving the parsonage, though it would form an interesting subject for his pencil; nor has any poet selected it as the theme for his muse: but the well-known lines in Goldsmith's Deserted Village may be accommodated to the incident, and will bring before us the picture with touching beauty.

"Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day,

That call'd them from their native walks away,

When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,

Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last.

With loudest plaints the mother spoke her woes,

And blest the cot where every pleasure rose,

And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,

And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear;

While her fond husband strove to lend relief,

In all the silent manliness of grief."

Upon the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII and upon the deprivation of the Popish priests under Elizabeth, some provision was made for their necessities; and when any one of the Episcopal clergy, during the Commonwealth, was dismissed from his living, a fifth of his former income was reserved for his use: but no consideration of this kind was shown to the ministers who were ejected by the Act of Uniformity. Numbers of them were therefore reduced to perfect poverty. Some interesting facts have been preserved relative to their sufferings, and the remarkable interpositions of Providence in their behalf: but what a multitude of such facts, in the history of two thousand families or more, must have passed into oblivion!

Not long after the year 1662, Mr Grove, a gentleman of great opulence, whose seat was near Bird-bush, upon his wife's lying dangerously ill, sent to his parish minister to pray with her. When the messenger came, he was just gone out with the hounds, and sent word he would come when the hunt was over. Mr Grove expressing much resentment against the minister for choosing rather to follow his diversions than attend one of his flock in such circumstances, one of the servants took the liberty to say, 'Sir, our shepherd, if you will send for him, can pray very well: we have often heard him at prayer in the field.' Upon this he was immediately sent for; and Mr Grove asking him whether he ever did or could pray, the shepherd fixed his eyes upon him, and with peculiar seriousness in his countenance, replied, 'God forbid, Sir, I should live one day without prayer.' He was then desired to pray with the sick lady; which he did so pertinently to her case, with such fluency and fervour of devotion, as greatly to astonish the husband and all the family who were present. When they arose from their knees, the gentleman addressed him to this effect: 'Your language and manner discover you to be a very different person from what your appearance indicates. I conjure you to inform me who and what you are, and what were your views and situation in life before you came into my service.' Upon which he told him he was one of the ministers who had been lately ejected from the Church; and that having nothing of his own left, he was content for a livelihood to submit to the honest and peaceful employment of tending sheep. On hearing this, Mr Grove said, ' Then you shall be my shepherd,' and immediately erected a meeting-house on his own estate, in which Mr Ince (for that was the shepherd's name) preached and gathered a congregation of Dissenters."

After the ejectment of Mr Perkins, Vicar of Burley in Rutlandshire, he often travelled on the Lord's day several miles from home to preach, and got ten shillings for his day's service, which for a great while was the most that he had to support his family. He was often in straits. At one time a niece of his, whom he had brought up, going after her marriage to visit him, in the course of free conversation with her, he said, "Child, how much do you think I have to keep my family? — but a poor threepence." After which, she appearing affected, he with a great deal of cheerfulness cried out, "Fear not; God will provide;" and in a little time a gentleman's servant knocked at the door, who brought him a side of venison for a present, together with some wheat and malt. Mr Maurice, Rector of Shelton in Shropshire, was sometimes reduced to great straits, whilst he lived at Shrewsbury after his ejectment. Once, when he had been very thoughtful, and was engaged in prayer with his family, suiting some petitions to their necessitous case, a carrier knocked at the door, inquired for him, and delivered to him a handful of money untold, as a present from some friends, but would not tell who they were.

These are but specimens of the legendary tales handed down respecting the Bartholomew confessors.

Stoughton's Heroes 03

2008-04-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

At length the feast of St. Bartholomew arrived. It was with an aching heart that many a one rose that morning. With what deep feeling must the pastor have prayed in his closet - the father in his family! That day dawned on them in plenty; it would close on them in pauperism. We are told of the immense congregations that assembled to hear the farewell discourses, and of the numbers who were melted into tears. The ejected ministers had to preach funeral sermons over their own ministry. Their official character now ceased. Henceforth their lips in public must be sealed, as with the touch of death. This gave unwonted force and pathos to their ministrations, and no one can wonder that the listening multitudes were melted into tears. Some of the sermons are preserved, and they are remarkable for the singleness of purpose which they display. The preacher evidently aims alone at the edification of his people on this last opportunity of addressing them. There is a striking absence in their discourses of everything like party feeling, of invectives against their enemies, of attempts to excite pity for themselves. Their personal allusions are few, simple, manly, and dignified. "I know," said the eminent Dr Bates in his farewell sermon, "I know you expect I should say something as to my Nonconformity: I shall only say thus much, - it is neither fancy, faction, nor humour that makes me not to comply, but merely for fear of offending God. And if after the best means used for my illumination, as prayer to God, discourse, or study, I am not able to be satisfied concerning the lawfulness of what is required, - if it be my unhappiness to be in error, surely men will have no reason to be angry with me in this world, and I hope God will pardon me in the next."

"Brethren," exclaims Mr Lye, " I could do very much for the love I bear to you, but I dare not sin. I know they will tell you this is pride and peevishness in us, that we are tender of our reputation, and would fain all be Bishops, and forty things more; but the Lord be witness between them and us in this. Beloved, I prefer my wife and children before a blast of air or people's talk. I am very sensible of what it is to be reduced to a morsel of bread. Let the God of heaven and earth do what He will with me, if I could have subscribed with a good conscience I would: I would do anything to keep myself in the work of God; but to sin against God, I dare not do it." In meeting the charge of disaffection to the Government, Mr Atkin observes, "Let him never be accounted a sound Christian that doth not fear God and honour the King. I beg that you will not interpret our Nonconformity to be an act of unpeaceableness and disloyalty. We will do anything for his Majesty but sin. We will hazard anything for him bnt our souls. We hope we could die for him, only we dare not be damned for him. We make no question, however we may be accounted of here, we shall be found loyal and obedient subjects at our appearance before God's tribunal."

Men who could thus talk and act, must have felt, as the feast of Bartholomew closed upon them, a conscious integrity, and a self-respect which compensated for their temporal losses. Some ministers, who had conformed, once met Mr Christopher Jackson, of Crossby on the Hill, in Westmoreland, an ejected brother, and taunted him with his threadbare coat. "If it be bare," he rejoined, "it has never been turned." And truly a man whose soul is clothed with an untorn conscience, though his attire be that of a beggar, may walk through the world with a more portly bearing and princely step than he whose ragged conscience is covered with the costliest robes! Some of the parishioners of these ministers wondered at their scruples."Ah! Mr. Heywood," said a countryman, addressing the Vicar of Ormskirk, "we would gladly have you preach still in the church." "Yes," said he, "I would as gladly preach as you can desire it, if I could do it with a safe conscience." "Oh, Sir," replied the man, "many now-a-days make a great gash in their consciences: cannot you make a little nick in yours?" And some of the very individuals who were in the first instance the loudest in condemning conformity, and in leading their brethren to the edge of the Rubicon, and persuading them to make the decisive plunge, when it came to the point to do the thing themselves, shrank back from the danger, and blamed the men whom they had before cheered on. "Never conform! never conform!" said the Rector of Burnham to Mr Clopton, who had the living of Reckondon, "Never conform, Sir!" - but when St Bartholomew's day came, this zealous adviser could not find it in his heart to sacrifice his tithes and his glebe. He then wrote to Mr Clopton, and told him to remember that Reckondon was a good living; but the minister, who had been at first less excited about the matter than his neighbour, wrote back word that "he hoped he should keep a good conscience." The men who, with integrity and uprightness, sacrificed their livings, secured for themselves a much better inheritance than the men who, on the principles of expediency, conformed and retained their benefices.

Stoughton's Heroes 02

2008-04-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

The feast of St Bartholomew, August 24th, 1662, was the day fixed for the execution of the Act. In anticipating the day, there were some who were mainly anxious about retaining their livings, and were little scrupulous respecting their submission to the conditions imposed. Their consciences had been so exercised already in the matter of conformity, that they had become amazingly supple. Some of these compliant personages had been Prelatists under Charles, Presbyterians under the Parliament, Independents under Cromwell, and were therefore now prepared to take another bend in their ecclesiastical coarse, and become once more zealous Episcopalians, and advocates for the Book of Common Prayer. But others, who had not attained to such marvellous flexibility of mind, took into their grave consideration the newly-enacted terms of conformity. Some men, who had a conscience, did not think that oaths could be so lightly abjured, and their moral obligation so easily annulled, as this new law took for granted; and though quite prepared to swear allegiance to the Crown, they could not go so far as to subscribe to the doctrine of unqualified passive obedience. But subscription to the revised Book of Common Prayer constituted with many the chief difficulty. As to the exact contents of it, some of the ministers could not be informed previously to the time of their being required to give to it their unfeigned assent and consent; inasmuch as it was not issued from the press till a very short time before the 24th of August, and men living in remote parts of the country could not obtain the volume by that day. But, of course, the ministers were acquainted with its contents in general. Baptismal regeneration, the practice of having godfathers and godmothers, using the sign of the cross, kneeling at the Lord's Supper, the belief of a threefold order in the ministry, the burial-service, confirmation, and the reading of the Apocrypha in churches, were all still sanctioned in the Prayer-Book; and these points, which had from the beginning been opposed by the Puritans, remained as strongly objectionable as ever. Exceptions were also taken against several of the canons. Thus far almost all who belonged to the Puritan class were agreed, but the strict Presbyterians and Independents obviously had additional and yet graver objections to the new Establishment.
The parsonages in many parts of England, as the corn was ripening in the summer of 1662, must have been the scenes of some memorable struggles between conscience and care, faith and feeling. Good men were reduced to a sad dilemma. The alternative was not the parish-church or the conventicle, tithe or voluntary contribution, but preaching as a Conformist or silence - a legalized income or beggary. To render the hardship the more severe, the terms of conformity were imposed before Michaelmas, when the payment of the year's tithes would be due, and therefore the ejected ministers would lose a twelvemonth's income. They were men - they were husbands - they were fathers; they had their quiet studies, and they saw their families in comfort - their wives sitting in the snug parlour of the rectory - their children sporting in the garden or over the glebe. To leave these tranquil homes, to exchange them for abject poverty, - here was a trial of faith, more easily talked of than thoroughly realised. It were ridiculous to look on these individuals as obstinate fanatics, - they had heads and hearts, and both were at work in this trying season. They thought deeply on the matter, weighed it carefully, looked at it on all sides, prayed over it, conversed about it. Perhaps the reader sees one of them in his study revolving the whole subject, examining the Prayer-Book, pondering its objectionable sentences, and writing down his reasons for dissent. Perchance a wife and a mother, who is honouring this volume by her perusal, may with all the vividness of a woman's imagination picture to herself the country rector, and the beloved companion of his cares, sitting at eventide by the window, round which the honeysuckle and the rose are entwining their buds and shedding their fragrance, first looking at the garden which she has cultivated with her own hands, and the church peeping above the trees where he has laboured for many a year, and then gazing on
each other with tears as they discuss the point, "We must conform, or leave all this next August." Nor did the ministers neglect to correspond with one another on the question: the sluggish post was anxiously waited for by many a worthy, as he expected from some clerical brother a folio sheet of closely-written answers to a similar amount of matter in the form of query and objection. After mature deliberation the Nonconformist adopted his resolve, sometimes with a solemnity which rendered all subsequent hesitation impossible. A copy of a written resolution by Mr Samuel Birch, of Hampton, Oxfordshire, addressed in the most solemn manner to the Deity, is preserved by Calamy. "I am at thy footstool," says this confessor; "I may not do evil that good may come, - I may not do this great sin against my God and the dictates of my conscience. I therefore surrender myself, my soul, my ministry, my people, my place, my wife and children, and whatsoever else is herein concerned, into thy hand from whom I received them. Lord, have mercy upon me, and assist me for ever to keep faith and a good conscience." One good man braced himself up for the crisis, by preaching to his people for several successive Sabbaths from the words of Paul to the suffering Hebrews: "Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance." Another, who had a wife and 10 children, fortified himself by reflecting on that consolatory passage in our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, where lie bids his followers take no thought for the morrow, and chides their distrust in Providence by an appeal to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field ; and when this excellent individual was asked how he would maintain his large family, he replied, "They must live on the sixth chapter of Matthew."

Stoughton's Heroes 01

2008-04-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

The Chapter on Black Bartholomew in John Stoughton's 1850 book Spiritual Heroes or Sketches of the Puritans begins thus

CROMWELL was gone: his son, unable to bear the heavy load which his father had sustained, was soon oppressed with the difficulties of his position, and abdicated the Protectorship. By treachery and intrigue the Restoration was accomplished: and after years of war and suffering for the sake of liberty, the people were seen prostrate at the feet of Charles II; asking no guarantees against the revival of despotism, but rather craving forgiveness for the victories they had won. The Royalist party, recovering from their depression, knew no bounds to their joy, as they welcomed another sovereign of the Stuart line. In a state of perfect delirium they celebrated his accession to his father's throne. Bonfires blazed in many a market-place and on many a hill, - the streets at night shone with illuminations, - windows were decorated with tapestry and garlands, - the May-poles were set up in the cross ways, - rumps of beef were roasted for the populace, and loaves of bread were thrown from the tops of market-houses. The bells rang till the steeples rocked, and crowds shouted till the very earth shook. The Royalist, on his knees, drank to the health of his Prince; and the swaggering Cavalier once more boldly sang his favourite lay, "The King shall enjoy his own again."

"No Bishop, no King," was the motto of James; and his grandson, so far adopting the sentiment as to regard Episcopacy as a bulwark to the throne, early restored the prelates to their office and rank. Mr Pepys, in his curious and inquisitive rambles, went down to Westminster on the 4th October, 1660, to see how the crochet and lawn looked after long disuse, and on his return home wrote down in his Journal, "Saw the Bishops all in their habits in Henry VII's Chapel; but, at their going out, how people did most of them look upon them as strange creatures, and few with any kind of love or respect."

The altered state of things foreboded evil enough to all classes of Nonconformists; and however some might be buoyed up with hopes of "liberty to tender consciences," the worst fears of others were completely realised. The Presbyterians had been active in the restoration of the King. They had attended him with acclamations through the city towards Westminster; and good old Mr Arthur Jackson had presented the gay monarch with a richly-bound Bible, which Charles promised should be the rule of his actions. They had also received the royal assurance that respect should be paid to their conscientious scruples; and they soothed themselves with the hope of retaining their benefices by some compromise with their adversaries. They sought a revision of the Liturgy, and some other alterations in ecclesiastical matters; in consequence of which a conference on the subject was appointed by the King to take place at the Savoy Palace, between 21 Anglican divines and as many of the Presbyterian order. "It broke up," says Burnet, "without doing any good. It did rather hurt, and heightened the sharpness that was then on people's minds to such a degree that it needed no addition to raise it higher. The Presbyterians laid their complaints before the King. But little regard was had to them; and now all the concern that seemed to employ the Bishops' thoughts was, not only to make no alteration on their own account, but to make the terms of conformity much stricter than they had been before the war."

Before the Savoy Conference terminated, the two Houses of Convocation assembled. The ruling party, having resolved to disregard the conscientious scruples of their brethren, proceeded to take measures for the full enforcement of their own ecclesiastical system. They decided that Episcopal ordination was indispensably necessary, and that all who would not submit to that right should be compelled to relinquish their benefices. They revised the Book of Common Prayer, and introduced a number of alterations, some of which seemed to be intended only for the purpose of exasperating the Puritans. It was known that they objected to saints' days, - the Bishops increased the number. It was known that they disliked the Apocryphal lessons, - the Bishops therefore added another, containing the story of Bel and the Dragon. Parliament at length confirmed the work of the Convocation, and passed the memorable Act of Uniformity. This law enjoined on all clergymen to profess their unfeigned assent and consent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer; to repudiate the Solemn League and Covenant, and acknowledge that the oath taken to maintain it involved no moral obligation; and further, to declare that it was unlawful under any pretence whatever to take up arms against the King.

Farewell Sermons

2008-04-21T08:10:00.001-07:00

Where can we find the farewell sermons? David Appleby highlights

1. The 77 printed sermons by 50 men mentioned elsewhere

2. The 8 sermons by Moseley preacher Joseph Cooper amalgamated and printed together

3. The valedictory addresses written of in various contemporary diaries and other similar accounts

4. Five sermons in manuscript form. The same hand transcribed sermons by Thomas Ford, Lewis Stucley and Thomas Powel delivered in Exeter. These are preserved in the Rawlinson MS at the Bodleian.

5. Two sermons by Matthew Newcomen given at Dedham that can be found in Dr Williams' Library. The latter was published though in revised form.

The overwhelming majority of printed sermons appeared 1662-1664. At least 19 pamphlets of various sizes circulated (from one or two sermons to Richard Fairclough's 14 sermon series). Compilations soon began to appear as well, first by London men then from elsewhere. At least 16 compilations appeared August 1662-March 1663 some containing as many as 42 sermons. There was at least one translation - into Dutch.

A unique and anonymous East Midlands collection England's Remembrancer was published in 1663. Calamy revealed their names in 1713. Unlike other publications, it contained only farewell sermons.

We must remember that, all told, this is still only a small fraction of the hundreds of farewell sermons preached at the time.

Geographical distribution

2008-04-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

Elsewhere we have given Thomas Coleman's list. David Appleby comments that "religious dissent was everywhere in evidence". He notes that Richard Greaves found Presbyterians to be strongly represented in Northumberland, Lancashire, Cheshire, Devon, Somerset (esp Bristol) and Carmarthen (South West Wales), while Congregationalists proliferated in south and central Wales, the Midlands, Essex, Suffolk and Lancashire. A G Matthews' thought that the concentration of nonconformist ministers was highest in the west country, followed by Essex, Suffolk and Lancashire, with a fairly even distribution elsewhere. This West Country predominance is noticeable in the printed literature (London also, unsurprisingly, dominates). The phenomenon was found in every county facilitated by various efficient networks.

Their youthfulness

2008-04-12T02:01:00.000-07:00

Appleby tells us that by the mid-17th Century the average clergyman began ministering in his mid-twenties and commonly went on for another 30 years. Seaver says that in 1640-1662 the average age of incumbents rose to 42. Appleby says that the average age at the Ejection of those listed in Calamy Revisited (where the data is available) was 41.9. The average from those who published farewell sermons is 39.6. Ten Midlands authors featured in England's Remembrancer were on average as low as 32.7. The point then is that far from being past their prime, those ejected in 1662 were younger than average.
Even the older ones could be very energetic. Appleby cites Richard Fairclough (41) who habitually rose at 3 am to squeeze in all the various things he did in a week. This factor should be borne in mind when we consider how it was that these men (unlike the elderly bishops recently restored) went on preaching for decades after 1662.

Educated men

2008-04-11T12:58:00.001-07:00

Though not all university men, the ejected men of 1662 were well educated and trained in rhetoric often using Latin, Greek and even Hebrew to get the message across. Non-university men like Richard Baxter and John Oldfield were clearly well read, which was a Puritan tradition. David Appleby makes the point that 'Far from being inferior, the ejected ministers of 1662 were at the very least the intellectual equals of the confomrist clergy.' They were educated not just in their college days but after through household seminaries run by experienced ministers. From the time of Elizabeth godly conferences had been a feature of the scene. Those such as the one at Dedham had become famous. They have been compared to modern professional associations.

University men

2008-04-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

On page 20 of his book on 1662 David Appleby says that despite statements by W F Mitchell in 1932 saying that those who were ejected were generally poorly educated some 85% were university graduates. Most had gone to Cambridge, especially those who had farewell sermons printed. At least 87 attended Emmanuel College, 'a hotbed of Puritanism'. He suggests that the tutors would have encouraged friendships and that Ralph Venning, George Swinnock and John Whitlock (all of whom graduated from Emmanuel in 1646) would have known each other from their teenage years being part of a larger group in other colleges. Luke Cranwell, Henry Newcombe, John Barrett, Robert Seddon and Oliver Heywood all graduated from Cambridge that same year.

Fewer had studied at oxford but just four colleges - Exeter, Magdalen, New Inn Hall and Wadham produced 111 between them. The writers went to Wadham (Robert Atkins, Thomas Lye, Thomas Manton) and Exeter (Joseph Caryl, John Galpin, George Newton).

Victorian Silks

2007-12-16T02:14:00.000-08:00

I was in someone's home recently and I saw an attractive Victorian silk like these ones. These examples are found at the bottom of this web page here.

Thomas Coleman List

2007-11-14T08:14:00.000-08:00

This list is taken from an appendix in Thomas Coleman's book on the Great Ejection

APPENDIX: THE NUMBER OF MINISTERS EJECTED FROM THE DIFFERENT COUNTIES OF ENGLAND, ETC
London, Westminster and the Borough of Southwark 113
University of Oxford 35
University of Cambridge 45
Bedfordshire 16
Berkshire 23
Buckinghamshire 33
Cambridgeshire 18
Cheshire 44
Cornwall 41
Cumberland 27
Derbyshire 39
Devonshire 137
Dorsetshire 54
Durham 18
Essex 127
Gloucestershire 52
Hampshire 58
Herefordshire 17
Hertfordshire 32
Huntingdonshire 8
Kent 78
Lancashire 81
Leicestershire 42
Lincolnshire 51
Middlesex 32
Northamptonshire 48
Northumberland 38
Nottinghamshire 30
Oxfordshire 23
Rutlandshire 6
Shropshire 43
Somersetshire 99
Staffordshire 49
Suffolk 94
Surrey 28
Sussex 76
Warwickshire 40
Westmoreland 5
Wiltshire 56
Worcestershire 37
Yorkshire 126
North Wales 14
South Wales 64
Ministers omitted 36

New Book

2007-11-06T00:31:00.001-08:00

A new academic book on our subject has recently appeared. The book is called Black Bartholomew's Day: Preaching, Polemic and Restoration Nonconformity and is by David J Appleby and has a Manchester University Press imprint. David Appleby lectures in early modern history at Nottingham University. See more here.

We have not seen the book but I have found this blurb elsewhere on the internet.

"A substantial contribution to the study of the farewell sermons, Restoration Nonconformity and the 1660s." Prof John Spurr, University of Wales, Swansea

It explores the religious, political and cultural implications of a collision of highly-charged polemic prompted by the mass ejection of Puritan ministers from the Church of England in 1662. It is the first in-depth study of this heated exchange, focusing on the departing ministers' farewell sermons. Many of these valedictions, delivered by hundreds of dissenting preachers in the weeks before Bartholomew's Day, would be illegally printed and widely distributed, provoking a furious response from government officials, magistrates and bishops. Black Bartholomew's Day re-interprets the political significance of ostensibly moderate Puritan clergy, arguing that their preaching posed a credible threat to the restored political order

The book approaches the texts, their authors and audiences from a number of angles: investigating the preachers' need to reconcile political loyalty with religious integrity; considering nonconformist and conformist sermons in terms of performance and rhetorical content and revealing how political comment could be surreptitiously broadcast. It demonstrates how the nonconformist message was affected by the process of scribal and printed circulation, discussing authorship, reception, marketing and censorship. In exploring the polemical responses to the farewell sermons, he argues that individuals within the Restoration establishment exploited the texts to pursue an anti-Puritan agenda which served to further their personal careers. Finally, an epilogue charts how the farewell sermons have been regularly repackaged over subsequent centuries.

The book is aimed at readers interested in historicism, religion, nonconformity, print culture and the political potential of preaching in Restoration England.

Contents
Acknowledgements
Conventions
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The context of Restoration nonconformity
2. Preaching, audience and authority
3. Scripture, historicism and the critique of authority
4. The public circulation of the Bartholomean texts
5. Polemical responses to Bartholomean preaching
6. Epilogue
7. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

ISBN: 0719075610
ISBN-13: 9780719075612
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Dimensions (cm): 23.495 x 15.875
Pages: 272

ODNB Ejected Ministers 181-203

2007-10-29T06:28:00.000-07:00

1. Stephens, Nathaniel (1606/7–1678), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Richard Stephens, vicar from 1604 of Stanton St Bernard, Wiltshire ...
2. Stewart, Andrew (1614/15?–1671), clergyman and ejected minister
... one of the four children of the Revd Andrew Stewart ...
3. Strickland, John (1601?-1670), clergyman and ejected minister
... probably the John Strickland who was baptized on 11 March 1601 ...
4. Stubbes [Stubbs], Henry (1605/6–1678), clergyman and ejected minister
... the son of Henry Stubbes of Bitton, Gloucestershire ...
5. Swinnock, George (c 1627–1673), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Maidstone in Kent, the son of George Swinnock ...
6. Sylvester, Matthew (1636/7–1708), ejected minister
... born at Southwell, Nottinghamshire, a son of Robert Sylvester, mercer ...
7. Tallents, Francis (1619–1708), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in November 1619 at Pilsley, North Wingfield, Derbyshire ...
8. Thomas, William (1592/3–1667), clergyman and ejected minister
... probably born at Whitchurch, Shropshire. He was almost certainly educated locally ...
9. Tilsley, John (c 1614–1684), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Lancashire, possibly near Bolton ...
10. Tombes, John (1602–1676), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Bewdley, Worcestershire ...
11. Towne, Robert (1592/3?–1664), clergyman and ejected minister
... matriculated as from Yorkshire at Oriel College, Oxford on 4 December 1612 ...
12. Troughton, William (1613/14–1686/90), clergyman and ejected minister
... was the son of William Troughton b 1584/5?, rector of Waberthwaite, Cumberland ...
13. Truman, Joseph (1631-1671), clergyman and ejected minister, and religious writer
... son of Richard and Mary Truman ...
14. Veal [Veel], Edward (1632/3–1708), clergyman, ejected minister, and nonconformist tutor
... of uncertain origins ...
15. Venning, Ralph (c 1622–1674), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Devon, the son of Francis Venning and his wife ...
16. Vincent, Thomas [T. V.] (1634–1678), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in May 1634 in Hertford (where he was baptized ...
17. Walter, Henry (1611–1678?), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Piercefield, St Arvans parish, Monmouthshire ...
18. Warren, John (1621–1696), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Wolverley, Worcestershire, on 29 September 1621 ...
19. Watson, Thomas (d 1686), ejected minister
... recorded as of Yorkshire when he matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, ...
20. Whitaker, William (d 1672), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Oakham, Rutland, the son of the schoolmaster Jeremiah Whitaker ...
21. Wilkinson, Henry (1610–1675), Church of England clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 4 March 1610 at Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire ...
22. Wilkinson, Henry (1616/17–1690), college head and ejected minister
... son of William Wilkinson, curate or chaplain of Adwick-le-Street, Yorkshire ...
23. Willis, Thomas (b in or before 1618, d in or after 1673), clergyman and ejected minister
... elder son of Thomas Willis 1582/3–1666 of Isleworth ...

ODNB Ejected Ministers 161-180

2007-10-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

1. Quick, John (1636-1706), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Plymouth and baptized at St Andrew's Church, Plymouth ...
2. Ranew, Nathanael (1602?–1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 10 June 1617, graduated BA ...
3. Richardson, Christopher (1619, d. 1698), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Thomas Richardson of Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire ...
4. Robotham, John (d 1664?), clergyman and ejected minister
... may have been related to John Rowbotham, sometime JP of St Albans ...
5. Rogers, John (1610–1680), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 25 April 1610 at Chacombe, Northamptonshire, and baptized there ...
6. Rosewell, Thomas (1630–1692), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 3 May 1630 at Dunkerton, near Bath in Somerset ...
7. Rowe, John (1626/7–1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of John Rowe 1588–1660, minister, and grandson of Lawrence Rowe ...
8. Ryther, John (1631x5–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of John Rither d 1673, a tanner of York ...
9. Sampson, Henry (c 1629–1700), ejected minister and historian of dissent
... born at South Leverton, Nottinghamshire ...
10. Sangar, Gabriel (1608–1678), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Sutton Mandeville, Wiltshire, in May 1608 ...
11. Scandrett, Stephen (1631?–1706), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Stephen Scandrett d 1643, yeoman of the wardrobe ...
12. Seaman, Lazarus (d 1675), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Leicester. In 1624 he was admitted sizar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge...
13. Sheffield [Sheffeild], John (d 1680), clergyman and ejected minister
... came from Northamptonshire. His parents' names are not known ...
14. Sherwin, William (1607–1690), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Nottinghamshire. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1624 ...
15.Shuttlewood, John (1632–1689), clergyman, ejected minister, and nonconformist tutor
... born on 3 January 1632 at Wymeswold, Leicestershire ...
16. Slater, Samuel (1629?–1704), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in London, the son of Samuel Slater d c 1670, puritan ...
17. Spurstowe, William (d. 1666), clergyman and ejected minister
... the son of William Spurstowe, a citizen and mercer of London ...
18. Stalham, John (d 1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Norfolk of unknown parents and was educated at Christ's College ...
19. Staunton, Edmund (1600–1671), ejected minister and college head
... born on 20 October 1600, the third son ...
20. Stedman, Rowland (d 1673), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Corfton, in the parish of Diddlebury in Shropshire ...

Bogue and Bennett 03

2007-10-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

To add iniquity to iniquity, the conventicle act was passed, decreeing, that if any person, above the age of sixteen years be present at any meeting for worship, different from the church of England, where there shall be five persons more than the household, they shall, for the first offence, suffer three months imprisonment, or pay five pounds ; for the second, the punishment is doubled; and for the third, they shall be banished to America, or pay a hundred pounds; and if they return from banishment, suffer death (Burnet p. 204). The oath of an informer was sufficient to inflict all the severity of this statute of Draco. While many of the best of men filled our jails, the vilest of the human race rioted in debauchery by informing, for the sake of the reward.

A most dreadful plague visited this aceld'ama of persecution, and while some of the conforming ministers faithfully stood by their flocks, the greater part of them fled, as the hireling when he seeth the wolf; so that the non-conformists seized this opportunity of preaching to the multitudes who, while on the brink of the grave, were left as sheep without a shepherd. But as no revenge could satisfy, so no judgments could alarm the high party; for they now introduced an act to restrain non-conformists from inhabiting corporations. An oath of passive obedience, and non-resistance* was enacted; and all who refused it, were prohibited from coming within five miles of any corporate town where they formerly preached; or from keeping schools, or taking boarders, under a penalty of forty pounds. Thus, though they were not actually burnt alive, they were intentionally starved to death. But while earth and hell were against them, heaven appeared in their behalf. During twenty-eight years of sufferings, their enemies were never gratified by any resistance nor was any of them in prison for debt. Scarcely Elijah himself was fed more immediately from heaven.*

The king, at length, began to complain aloud of the bishops and conforming clergy,* who increased the numbers of dissenters by their conduct, which the people could not help contrasting with that of the ejected ministers. Hence a scheme for toleration was now talked of; but though it was cherished by the moderate divines of the establishment, it roused such opposition from the bigots*, that the non-conformists were left to all the fury of renewed persecution. A paper war fanned the flames of hatred and bigotry. Ralph Willis, called the cobbler of Gloucester, published an account of the scandalous lives of many of the conforming clergy. Samuel Parker, afterwards bishop of Oxford, was the champion for the hierarchy; but he was answered by Andrew Marvel, the pasquin of his age, whose lively wit effected more than all the learning of Dr Owen's grave replies; so that his book afforded merriment to all ranks and parties, from the king and his mistresses, down to the lowest of the populace.

The act against conventicles, was renewed with additional severity*; denying to the sufferers the protection of trial by jury; exposing them to conviction on the oath of a single informer, who was rewarded by a third of the exorbitant fine; while the laws were always to be interpreted against mercy and the non-conformists.

Volumes could not contain a complete history of the sufferings of these men, whose souls, from beneath the altar of God, cry, "how long, Lord, holy, just, and true?" At length, to accomplish the design of favouring the papists, and establish the king's prerogative to dispense with the laws, a declaration of indulgence was published by his majesty, suspending all the penal laws against dissenters,and allowing them to meet in places of worship licensed by the king. The high-church clergy were dreadfully alarmed, and severely condemned the dissenters for using the liberty of which they had been unjustly deprived.*

*Warner, vol. II. p. 604. Warner, p. 612.

*The righteous governor of the world sent fire as well as plague, so that-eighty-nine parish churches in London, together with St Paul's cathedral, were burnt down. Some temporary places were erected with boards, where, as well as in their own abodes, the non-conformists preached. They were called tabernacles; a name which has been since familiar among those who worship apart from the establishment. Drs. Owen and Goodwin, with other independent ministers, adopted this practice, so that many of the citizens of London flocked to the places where the liturgy was not used.

*Pierce, p. 240. Warner, vol. II. p. 611, 615.

*Warner, p. 615.

*To the honour of bishop Williams it should be recorded, that he argued against this infamous act, though the king had requested him not to speak against it, or to stay away from the house while it was debated. He told his majesty that, as an Englishman and a senator he was bound to speak his mind.

*Dr. Calamy being present at his late parish of Aldermanbury, London, was invited to preach, as the person expected did not cornet For complying he was thrown into Newgate; but there was such a resort of persons of distinction to visit him, that it was thought prudent, after a few days, to restore him to liberty.

*At this time was passed the Test Act, of which we shall speak intirely in the words of Dr. Warner, the clergyman to whose history so frequent reference is made in the progress of this work. " Whatever the dissenters might at first think of the indulgence, they saw now that they were only to be tools to advance the Romish religion, etc, etc"

Bogue and Bennett 02

2007-10-29T05:57:00.000-07:00

Ecclesiastical history furnishes no such instance of a noble army of confessors at one time: it is an honour peculiar to the English dissenters. Never has the world seen such a sacrifice on principle. A person, who was no dissenter, observed at that time, "I am glad so many have chosen suffering, rather than conformity to the establishment; for had they complied, the world would have thought there had been nothing in religion; but now they have a striking proof that there are some sincere in their professions."
A conformist thus liberally pleads their cause*.' "They have suffered the loss of all things: is it for mere honour, not conscience or religion ? Have they so little wit as not to know what is best, good livings, or nasty prisons ? Do they hate their wives and children ? They declare, they cannot conform: Who should know best, they or we ?"

From this time, the name of puritan was exchanged for that of non-conformist, including presbyterians, independents, baptists, and quakers. They petitioned the king for an indulgence, which, for the sake of covering the Roman catholics, he seemed disposed to grant; but as the parliament was unwilling, they gave him money, and he left the sufferers to their fate. Thus were the tears and blood of the non-conformists, through all this reign, the prize for which
the parliament bestowed subsidies on the king. Some of the ejected ministers, to show their Catholicism, practised what was called occasional conformity, by going to the established places, and joining in the worship, though they could not comply with the terms required of ministers, to swear that they assented to every thing in the book of common prayer*.
*Conformists' Plea *Burnet p. 204

*Dr. Calamy being present at his late parish of Aldermanbury, London, was invited to preach, as the person expected did not come. For complying he was thrown into Newgate; but there was such a resort of persons of distinction to visit him, that it was thought prudent, after a few days, to restore him to liberty.

To be concluded.

Bogue and Bennet 01

2007-10-29T05:29:00.000-07:00

In the Introduction to their History of the Dissenters, from the Revolution in 1688, to the Year 1808 Bogue and Bennet say this

On St. Bartholomew's-day, August the twenty fourth, in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty-two, the act of uniformity expelled from the establishment all ministers who would not swear their unfeigned assent, and consent to every thing in the Book of Common Prayer. In many parts of the kingdom, the ministers could not procure the book before the time within which the law required them to swear to it, or resign their livings: so that, in their farewell sermons, they told their flocks, that they were obliged to leave them for not swearing to a book, which they had not been able to see. But this was no obstacle to the ruling party, who wished for the most costly sacrifices at the shrine of absolute obedience, and longed to rid themselves of men who were troubled with a conscience.

Two thousand ministers resigned their livings in the establishment, and exposed themselves to the loss of all things rather than submit to these new terms of conformity, which their consciences condemned*. Bartholomew's-day was chosen, because, they would thus be deprived of their year's income, which would be due shortly after. No portion of their former livings was reserved to keep them from starving; for these persecutors were not ashamed to be outdone by their enemies. The great Mr. Locke styled these two thousand ejected ministers, learned, pious, orthodox divines; and we have no hesitation in saying, that of them the world was not worthy, nor have their equals been seen in any age or nation. Their writings have erected to their memory a monument more durable than brass or marble, which has so perpetuated and diffused their sentiments and* spirit, that had their enemies anticipated the consequences of excluding them from the pulpits, they would have left them to preach that they might have had no leisure to write.

* Calamy's Non-conformists' Memorial, passim. Pierce, p. 232 *Burrnet, vol. II. p. 184. Warner.

To be continued.

See here.

ODNB Ejected Ministers 141-160

2007-10-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

1. Newcomen, Matthew (d.1669), clergyman and ejected minister and religious controversialist
... the second son of Stephen Newcomen 1557/8–1629, vicar ...
2. Newton, George (1601/2–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
... a native of Devon and the son of a clergyman ...
3. Nicholls [Nicolls], Ferdinando (1597/8–1662), clergyman and ejected minister
... came from a Buckinghamshire gentry family; his parents' names are unknown ...
4. Norman, John (1622–1669), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized on 15 December 1622, the son of Abraham Norman ...
5. Oakes, Urian (c 1631–1681), ejected minister and college head
... born in England, possibly in or near London, ...
6. Oasland [Osland], Henry (1625-1703), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Lower Snead Farm, Rock, near Bewdley, in Worcestershire ...
7. Ogden, Samuel (1627/8–1697), ejected minister and schoolmaster
... born at Fowleach, Oldham, the son of John Ogden ...
8. Oldfield, John (1626/7–1682), clergyman and ejected minister
... born near Chesterfield, Derbyshire. He was educated at the grammar school ...
9. Pakeman, Thomas (c 1614–1691), clergyman and ejected minister
... matriculated from Trinity College, Cambridge, at Easter 1631, later migrating to Clare ...
10. Palmer, Anthony (1616-1679), ejected minister
... baptized at Great Comberton, Worcestershire, on 27 October 1616 ...
11. Parke, Robert (1600-1668), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized on 17 August 1600 in Bolton, Lancashire ...
12. Parson, Thomas (1631- c 1668 or later), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in London, the son of Thomas Parson of London ...
13. Pearse, Edward (c 1633–1673), clergyman and ejected minister
... matriculated as a servitor from St John's College, Oxford ...
14. Pell, William (1634-1698), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Sheffield and baptized there on 1 February 1634 ...
15. Pendlebury, Henry (1626–1695), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Jowkin, Bury parish, Lancashire, on 6 May 1626 ...
16. Petto, Samuel (c 1624–1711), clergyman and ejected minister
... may possibly have been connected with the Peyto family of Chesterton ...
17. Philips, Peregrine (1623–1691), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Amroth, Pembrokeshire, son of the vicar of that parish ...
18. Pinchbecke, Abraham (1626-1681/2), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized on 13 March 1626 at Lavenham, Suffolk ...
19. Porter, Robert (1623/4–1690), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Nottingham, the son of William Porter of Nottingham ...
20. Poynter, John (1600–1684), clergyman and ejected minister
... apparently born in London of an armigerous family ...

ODNB Ejected Ministers 121-140

2007-10-26T04:43:00.000-07:00

1. Lawrence [Laurence], Edward (d 1695), ejected minister and religious writer
... born in Moston in Hawkstone, Shropshire ...
2. Lawrence, George (1613, d 1691/8), clergyman and ejected minister
3. Lukin, Henry (1628–1719), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 1 January 1628 in Great Baddow, Essex ...
4. Machin, John (1624–1664), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 2 October 1624 at Seabridge, Staffordshire ...
5. Mallory, Thomas (d 1689), clergyman and ejected minister
... a native of Northamptonshire ...
6. Manning, William (1630x33–1711), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Cockfield, Suffolk, the son of William Manning ...
7. Marshall, Walter (1628–1679), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 15 June 1628 at Bishopwearmouth, co. Durham ...
8. Matthews, Marmaduke (c.1606–c.1683), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Swansea ...
9. Maynard, John (1600–1665), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Rotherfield, Sussex, and baptized at Mayfield ...
10. Mayo, Richard (c 1630–1695), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Richard Mayo d 1660 of St Giles Cripplegate ...
11. Meade [Mead], Matthew (1628/9–1699), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, the second son of Richard Meade ...
12. Meadows, John (1622–1697), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Chattisham, near Ipswich, Suffolk, on 7 April 1622 ...
13. Milbourne, Luke (1622-1668), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Loughborough, Leicestershire, and baptized on St Luke's day ...
14. Milward, John (1619/20–1680/83), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of a Somerset gentleman, George Milward of Shepton Mallet ...
15. Mocket, Thomas (c.1602–1670?), ejected minister and religious controversialist
... born in Kent of unknown parents ...
16. Morton, Richard (1637-1698), ejected minister and physician
... baptized on 30 July 1637 ...
17. Moxon, George (1602-1687), clergyman and minister
... vicar of Haverhill, Suffolk, in January 1657, and rector of Radwinter ...
18. Nalton, James (c 1600–1662), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Francis Nalton, a cleric of Walkington, near Beverley ...
19. Needler, Benjamin (1620–1682), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 29 November 1620 at Laleham in Middlesex ...
20. Newcome, Henry (1627-1695), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Caldecot in Huntingdonshire and baptized there on 27 November, 1627 ...

ODNB Ejected Ministers 101-120

2007-10-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

1. Heywood, Nathaniel (1633-1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... fourth son of Richard Heywood 1595/6–1677 of Little Lever, near Bolton, Lancashire ...
2. Heywood, Oliver (1630-1702), clergyman and ejected minister
... third son of Richard Heywood 1595/6–1677, yeoman, of Little Lever ...
3. Hickes, Gaspar (1605–1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of a Berkshire clergyman, matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford ...
4. Hickes, John (1633–1685), clergyman, ejected minister, and rebel
... born at Moorhouse Farm in Newsham, near Kirby Wiske ...
5. Hickman, Henry (1629-1692), clergyman, ejected minister and religious controversialist
... baptized on 19 January 1629 at Old Swinford ...
6. Hildersham [Hildersam], Samuel (1594?–1674), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, the son of Arthur Hildersham 1563–1632 ...
7. Holbeach [Holbech], Martin (1597-1670), schoolmaster and ejected minister
... baptized at Fillongley, Warwickshire, on 28 August 1597 ...
8. Holcroft, Francis (1628/9?–1692), clergyman and ejected minister
... a younger son of Sir Henry Holcroft c 1580–1650, of Green Street ...
9. Hopkins, William (1647–1700), Church of England clergyman and antiquary
... baptized on 28 August, the son of George Hopkins 1620–1666, clergyman and ejected minister, then vicar of All Saints, Evesham ...
10. Horne, John (1616-1676), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized on 10 August 1616 at Long Sutton, Lincolnshire ...
11. Hotham, Charles (1615–1672), ejected minister and author
... born on 12 May 1615 at Scorborough, near Beverley ...
12. Hughes, George (1603/4–1667), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Southwark. He matriculated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford ...
13. Hume, Abraham (1614/15–1707), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Dunbar, Haddingtonshire, and educated at St Andrews University ...
14. Humfrey, John (1621-1719), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized on 23 January 1621 at St Albans, Hertfordshire ...
15. Hurst, Henry (1629–1690), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Mickleton, Gloucestershire, on 31 March 1629, the eldest son ...
16. Ince, Peter (1614/15–1683), clergyman and ejected minister
... the son of Peter Ince of Chester ...
17. Jackson, Arthur (c.1593–1666), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Little Waldingfield, Suffolk. His father, John Jackson ...
18. Jacombe, Thomas (1623/4–1687), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of John Jacombe of Burton Lazars, Leicestershire ...
19. Jollie [Jolly], Thomas (1629–1703), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Droylesden, near Manchester, on 14 September 1629 ...
20. Langston, John (1640/41–1704), clergyman and ejected minister
... of unknown parentage and background. He was educated at Worcester grammar ...

ODNB Ejected Ministers 81-100

2007-10-25T07:36:00.000-07:00

1. Fox, Timothy (1629/30–1710), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Birmingham, the son of Edward Fox ...
2. Fuller, Francis (1636?–1701), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of John Fuller d. 1660, then vicar of Stebbing, ...
3. Fynch [Finch], Martin (1628/9–1698), clergyman and ejected minister
... admitted from Norfolk as a pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge ...
4. Gale, Theophilus (1628–1679), ejected minister and theologian
... born at Kingsteignton, Devon ...
5. Geare, Allan (1622–1662), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Stoke Fleming near Dartmouth in Devon ...
6. Gilbert, Thomas (1609/10–1673), clergyman and ejected minister
... parentage and origins are unknown ...
7. Gilbert, Thomas (1613-1694), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized on 17 January 1613 at Prees, Shropshire ...
8. Goodwin, Philip (d 1667), clergyman and ejected minister
... of unknown parentage. He matriculated from St John's College, Cambridge ...
9. Gouge, Robert (1629/30–1705), clergyman and ejected minister
... born the son of Robert Gouge at Chelmsford ...
10. Gouge, Thomas (1605–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 19 September 1605 at Stratford-le-Bow, Middlesex, the eldest son ...
11. Hall, Thomas (1610–1665), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 22 July 1610, the second son of a clothier ...
12. Hallett, Joseph (I) (1620-1689), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized at Bridport, Dorset, on 21 May 1620 ...
13.Hammond, Samuel (d 1665), clergyman and ejected minister
... described as a butcher's son of York ...
14. Hamond, George (1619/20–1705), clergyman and ejected minister
... parents and origins are unknown ...
15. Hanmer, Jonathan (1606–1687), clergyman and ejected minister
... born and baptized on 3 October 1606, the youngest ...
16. Hardcastle, Thomas (1637-1678), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Barwick in Elmet, the son of John Hardcastle ...
17. Harrison, John (1614–1670), clergyman and ejected minister
... eldest son of Peter Harrison of Hindley, near Wigan ...
18. Harrison, Thomas (1617/18–1682), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Hull, Yorkshire, the son of Robert Harrison, merchant ...
19. Hawes, Richard (1603/4–1668), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in East Anglia, probably the son of John Hawes ...
20. Henry, Philip (1631–1696), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 24 August 1631 at Whitehall, Westminster ...

Owen on 1662

2007-10-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

Owen was the author of A letter concerning the matter of the present excommunications which can be found here.

Owen on Liturgies

2007-10-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

This relevant piece can be found here. A preface by the editor appears there saying

It deserves attention that this pamphlet, with its humble title, “A Discourse concerning Liturgies,” etc., and printed anonymously in 1662, contains thejudgement of our author in regard to measures which gave rise to most important events in the ecclesiastical history of England. It is an argument against the liturgy, the imposition of which obliged nearly 2000 of the Church of England to resign their livings rather than sacrifice a good conscience, etc. ...
The chief merit of the following tract can only be understood in the light of these exciting events. From some expressions in it, it must have been written while the contestprevailed, and before the liturgy was actually imposed; and yet the whole argument isconducted in perfect temper, and the readers of Owen might fail to bear in mind that he is discussing a question which was stirring English society to its depths, and involved consequences unparalleled in English history. The treatise has all the weight and gravity of a judicial decision. The author, rising above petty details, expends his strength in proof that the imposition of a liturgy by civil enactment is an interference with the authority of Christ; and,unwilling to heighten the asperities of the prevailingcontroversy, he excludes from discussion the character of the English liturgy, and confines himself to the abstract question, as to the lawfulness of enforcing it on the conscience as essential to divine worship. It is the more honorable to Owen that he should have exerted himself against the imposition of the liturgy, when it is remembered that as at this time he held no living in the church, he could not suffer under the Act of Uniformity, and the measures of the Court were directed against the Presbyterians rather than the Independents. Orme remarks of this production and its subject, “The principle which these forms of human composition involve is of vast importance; and I know not where, in so small a compass, this principle is so well stated and so ably opposed as in this work.”

The Tragedy of 1662

2007-10-25T05:55:00.001-07:00

A contemporary essay on 'The tragedy of 1662' by Lee Gatiss is currently available here. The title intimates its stance. He provocatively states that '1662 was the tragic year that the Church of England became a sect'.

ODNB Ejected Ministers 61-80

2007-10-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

1. Crompton, John (1611-1669), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Bolton, Lancashire, and baptized there on 29 September 1611, ...
2. Crompton, William (1630/1633?–1696), clergyman and ejected minister
3. Crow, Francis (1627–1692/3), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Patrick Crow of Heugh Head in Berwickshire, Scotland, ...
4. Danson, Thomas (1629-1694), ejected minister
... son of Thomas Danson of St Mary-le-Bow, London, was baptized there ...
5. Dell, William (d 1669), ejected minister and educational reformer
... sizar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge ...
6. Denton, Nathan (1635-1720), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Bradfield in the parish of Ecclesfield, West Riding of Yorkshire ...
7. Dod, Timothy (d 1665), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of John Dod 1550–1645, clergyman, and his first wife ...
8. Doolittle, Thomas (1630/1633?–1707), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire ...
9. Douglas, Thomas (d c 1684), ejected minister and physician
... of unknown parentage and background ...
10. Dyer, William (1632/3–1696), clergyman and ejected minister
... probably came from the west country ...
11. Eedes, Richard (1610-1686), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized in 1610, at an unknown date at Feckenham, Worcestershire ...
12. Fairclough, Richard (1621?–1682), clergyman and ejected minister
... eldest son of Samuel Fairclough 1594–1677, lecturer at Clare, Suffolk, ...
13. Fairclough, Samuel (1594–1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 29 April 1594 at Haverhill, Suffolk ... (Father of the men above and below)
14. Fairclough, Samuel (1625–1691), clergyman and ejected minister
... probably born at Barnardiston, Suffolk, the third son of Samuel Fairclough ...
15. Fairfax, John (1623/4–1700), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Norfolk, the second son of four sons and six daughters ...
16. Finch, Henry (1633-1704), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Standish, Lancashire, where he was baptized on 8 September, 1633 ...
17. Firmin, Giles (1613/14–1697), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Ipswich, Suffolk, the son of Giles Firmin, an apothecary ...
18. Fisher, Samuel (1605/6–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of John Fisher of Northampton ...
19. Ford, Thomas (1598–1674), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Brixton, Devon. He attended school at Plympton ...
20. Fowler, Christopher (1613/14–1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Marlborough, Wiltshire, the son of John Fowler ...

ODNB Ejected Ministers 41-60

2007-10-24T02:28:00.000-07:00

1. Burges, Cornelius (d 1665), Church of England clergyman and ejected minister
... a native of Somerset ...
2. Burgess, Anthony (d 1664), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Watford in Hertfordshire, the son of a local schoolmaster ...
3. Burgess, John (1622/3–1671), clergyman and ejected minister
... the son of Walter Burgess, a poor clergyman, of Buckland ...
4. Burghall, Edward (1600-1665), clergyman and ejected minister, and schoolmaster
... baptized on 9 December 1600 at Beeston township ...
5. Bury, Edward (1615/16–1700), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Worcestershire, if John Walker is to be credited, ...
6. Byfield, Richard (1598-1664), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized on 24 September 1598 at Stratford upon Avon ...
7. Calamy, Edmund (1600–1666), clergyman and ejected minister
8. Calamy, Edmund (1634-1685), clergyman and ejected minister
... eldest son of the above ...
9. Calvert, Thomas (1605/6–1679), clergyman and ejected minister, and author
... son of James Calvert of St Crux, York, baker ...
10. Caryl, Joseph (1602–1673), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in London in November 1602 of genteel parents ...
11. Case, Thomas (1598-1682), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Boxley in Kent, the son of George Case, vicar ...
12. Cawdrey [Cawdry], Daniel (1587/8–1664), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in November 1587 or 1588 at South Luffenham, Rutland, ...
13. Cheynell, Francis (bap. 1608, d. 1665), ejected minister and religious controversialist
... born in Oxford ...
14. Clagett, Nicholas (bap. 1610, d. 1662), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Canterbury and baptized at St Andrew's, Canterbury ...
15. Clarke, Matthew (c 1630–c 1708), clergyman and ejected minister
... the son of Matthew Clarke, rector of Bitterley, Shropshire ...
16. Clarke, Samuel (1599–1682), clergyman, ejected minister, and biographer
... born on 10 October 1599 at Wolston, Warwickshire ...
17. Clarkson, David (1622-1686), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Robert Clarkson, was born at Bradford, Yorkshire ...
18. Collinges, John (1623/4–1691), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Boxted, Essex, the son of Edward Collinges, a minister ...
19. Cooper, William (fl 1640–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
20. Corbet, John (1619-1680), clergyman and ejected minister
... was baptized on 14 February 1619 at Holy Trinity, Gloucester ...

Lazarus Seaman

2007-10-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

Calamy's third entry in his history is the minister of All Hallows, Bread Street,

LAZARUS SEAMAN, an English Presbyterian, Covenanter and Westminster divine who lived c 1607-1675. Leicester born adn educated in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he advocated Presbyterian church government jus divinum and served as the scribe of the Provincial Assembly of London Ministers. Seaman said, concerning the Shorter Catechism, that the answers were framed not according to the knowledge that a child had but according to the knowledge that a child should have. He proposed that the Assembly provide "something annexed by way of caution to shew how the proofs are to be applied" but this proposal was declined by the Assembly.

He was ejected even though he had opposed the execution of Charles I. He kept the minutes of the Provincial Assembly in his personal library once it ceased to meet at Sion College just prior to the Restoration. He wrotes Notes on Revelation which were never published. After his death they were purchased by Joseph Hill when his entire library comprising 5,000 volumes was sold by William Cooper at the first modern book auction in England after his death, which took place in November 1676, and ultimately returned to the library of Sion College. His funeral sermon was preached byWilliam Jenkyn who said that he was "an ocean of Theology, and that he had so thoroughly digested the whole body of divinity, that he could upon all occasions discourse upon any point without labour. He was a living body of Divinity, and his tongue as the pen of a ready writer. He was a person of great stability and steadiness in the truth. I am confident that he valued one truth of Christ, above all the wealth of both the Indies."

ODNB Ejected Ministers 21-40

2007-10-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

1. Bates, William (1625–1699), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of William Bates, gentleman ...
2. Baxter, Richard (1615–1691), ejected minister and religious writer
... born in the village of Rowton, Shropshire ...
3. Baylie, Thomas (1581/2–1663), ejected minister
... born in Wiltshire; his parents are unknown ...
4. Beadle, John (1595–1667), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Bramford, Suffolk ...
5. Benn, William (1600–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in November 1600 at Egremont, Cumberland ...
6. Bennet [Bennett], Robert (d. 1687), clergyman and ejected minister
... a figure whose birth and parentage remain unknown ...
7. Billingsley, John (1625–1683), clergyman and ejected minister
... born on 14 September 1625 at Chatham, Kent ...
8. Bingham, John (1612/13–1689), ejected minister and classical and oriental scholar
... born at Derby ...
9. Birch, Samuel (1620/21–1680), ejected minister and schoolmaster
... baptized in Manchester on 18 February 1621 ...
10. Biscoe [Bisco], John (1605/6–1679), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in High Wycombe, the son of Robert Biscoe 1572–1630, yeoman ...
11. Blackmore, William (1616–1684), clergyman and ejected minister
... second son of William Blackmore, ...
12. Blower, Samuel (d. 1701), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Loughborough, Leicestershire. Little is known of his background ...
13. Boheme [Bohemus], Mauritius (fl. 1646–1662), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Kolberg, Pomerania ...
14. Bradshaw, James (bap. 1613, d. 1685), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized at Bolton, Lancashire, on 7 November 1613 ...
15. Bradshaw, James (bap. 1635, d. 1702), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Hacken, Bolton parish, Lancashire ...
16. Brinsley, John (1600–1665), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, the son of John Brinsley 1581–1624 ...
17. Bromhall, Andrew (bap. 1608, d. 1662), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Richard Bromhall of Shrewsbury ...
18. Brunning, Benjamin (bap. 1623, d. 1680), clergyman and ejected minister
... eldest son of John Brunning 1597–1663, for 40 years \ rector ...
19. Bryan, John (d. 1676), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Susanna Bryan, later Hopkins d. 1673 ...
20. Bull, Daniel (bap. 1633?, d. 1697/8), clergyman and ejected minister
... probably the Daniel, son of Christopher Bull, curate ...

ODNB Ejected Ministers 1-20

2007-10-16T06:38:00.000-07:00

The ODNB considers more than 200 of the ejected ministers of 1662 worthy of an entry. Here are the first 20 listed.
1. Adams, Richard (1626/7–1698), clergyman and ejected minister
... the son of Charles Adams, clerk, of Woodchurch in the Wirral, ...
2. Adams, Thomas (1631/2–1670), ejected minister and writer on Christian doctrine
... born at Woodchurch parsonage, Cheshire, brother of the above ...
3. Agas [Agus], Benjamin (bap. 1622, d. 1689), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Wymondham, Norfolk, the son of Edward Agas, the vicar ...
4. Albin, Henry (1624–1696), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Batcombe, Somerset, on 20 June 1624 ...
5. Alleine, Joseph (bap. 1634, d. 1668), ejected minister and devotional writer
6. Alleine, Richard (1610/11–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
... named after his father, Richard Alleine d. c.1655?, Somerset rector ...
7. Alleine, William (1613/14–1677), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of Richard Alleine d. c.1655?, Somerset rector ...
8. Allen, Thomas (1608–1673), clergyman and ejected minister
... born in Norwich, son of John Allen, a dyer there. ...
9. Alsop, Vincent (bap. 1630, d. 1703), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of George and Judith Alsop. His father was a rector ...
10. Ambrose, Isaac (bap. 1604, d. 1664), Church of England clergyman, ejected minister, author
... baptized at Ormskirk, Lancashire ...
11. Annesley, Samuel (bap. 1620, d. 1696), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Haseley, Warwickshire, and baptized there (grandfather of Wesleys) ...
12. Ashwood, Bartholomew (1622–1678), clergyman and ejected minister
13. Aspinwall, William (d. 1702), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Trumfleet, Kirk Sandall, West Riding of Yorkshire ...
14. Atkins [Adkins], Robert (1628/9–1685), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of a gentleman, Aaron Atkins of Chard, Somerset....
15. Attersoll, William (d. 1640), Church of England clergyman and author - father of eldest son, William Attersoll 1590/91–1664, clergyman and ejected minister, ... born at Mayfield, Sussex. ... attended Tonbridge School before matriculating ...
16. Bachiler [Batchiler, Bachilor], John (d. 1674), clergyman and ejected minister
... parents unknown, admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge ...
17. Baldwin, Thomas (d. 1693), clergyman and ejected minister
... from Middlesex. Nothing certain is known of his parentage or date of birth ...
18. Ball, Nathanael (c.1623–1681), clergyman and ejected minister
... born at Pitminster, near Taunton Dean, Somerset ...
19. Bartlet, John (bap. 1599, d. 1680), clergyman and ejected minister
... baptized at St Mary Major, Exeter, on 22 April 1599, ...
20. Bartlet, William (1609/10–1682), clergyman and ejected minister
... son of William Bartlet of Exeter, goldsmith....

J C Ryle

2007-10-15T08:34:00.001-07:00

Writing in 'Light from old times' on Richard Baxter, the 19th Century Anglican Bishop of Liverpool J C Ryle wrote (see here)

The crowning piece of folly which the majority in the Church of England committed under the Stuarts, was procuring the Act of Uniformity to be enacted in the year 1662. This, you must remember, took place at the beginning of Charles the Second’s reign, and shortly after the re-establishment of the Monarchy and the Church.
This famous act imposed terms and conditions of holding office on all ministers of the Church of England which had never been imposed before, from the time of the Reformation. It was notoriously so framed as to be offensive to the consciences of the Puritans, and to drive them out of the Church. For this purpose it was entirely successful. Within a year no less than 2,000 clergymen resigned their livings rather than accept its terms. Many of these 2,000 were the best, the ablest, and the holiest ministers of the day. Many a man, who had been regularly ordained by bishops, and spent twenty or thirty years in the service of the Church without molestation, was suddenly commanded to accept new conditions of holding preferment, and turned out to starve because he refused. Sixty of the leading parishes in London were at once deprived of their ministers, and their congregations left like sheep without a shepherd. Taking all things into consideration, a more impolitic and disgraceful deed never disfigured the annals of a Protestant Church.
It was a disgraceful deed, because it was a flat contradiction to Charles the Second’s own promise at Breda, before he came back from exile. He was brought back on the distinct understanding that the Church of England should be re-established on such a broad and liberal basis as to satisfy the conscientious scruples of the Puritans. Had it not been for the assistance of the Puritans he would never have got back at all. And yet as soon as the reins of power were fairly in the King’s hands his promise was deliberately broken!
It was a disgraceful deed, because the great majority of the ejected ministers might easily have been retained in the Church by a few small concessions. They had no abstract objection to episcopacy, or to a liturgy. A few alterations in the prayers, and a moderate liberty in the conduct of Divine worship, according to Baxter’s calculation, would have satisfied 1,600 out of the 2,000. But the ruling party were determined not to make a single concession. They had no wish to keep the Puritans in the Church. When some one observed to Archbishop Sheldon, the chief mover in the business, that he thought many of the Puritans would conform, and accept the Act of Uniformity, the Archbishop replied, “I am afraid they will.” To show the spirit of the ruling party in the Church, they actually added to the number of apocryphal lessons in the Prayer-book calendar at this time. They made it a matter of congratulation among themselves that they had thrust out the Puritans, and got in Bel and the Dragon!
It was a disgraceful deed, because the ejected ministers were, many of them, men of such ability and attainments, that great concessions ought to have been made in order to retain them in the Church. Baxter, Poole, Manton, Bates, Calamy, Brooks, Watson, Charnock, Caryl, Howe, Flavel, Bridge, Jenkyn, Owen, Goodwin, are names whose praise is even now in all the Churches. The men who turned them out were not to be compared to them. The names of the vast majority of them are hardly known. But they had power on their side, and they were resolved to use it.
It was a disgraceful deed, because it showed the world that the leaders of the Church of England, like the Bourbons in modern times, had learned nothing and forgotten nothing during their exile. They had not forgotten the old bad ways of Laud, which had brought such misery on England. They had not learned that conciliation and concession are the most becoming graces in the rulers of a Church, and that persecution in the long run is sure to be a losing game.
I dare not dwell longer on this point. I might easily bring forward more illustrations of this sad feature in Baxter’s times. I might speak of the infamous Oxford Act, in 1665, which forbade the unhappy ejected ministers to live within five miles of any corporate town, or of any place where they had formerly preached. But enough has been said to show that when I spoke of the suicidal blindness of the Church of England, I did not speak without cause. The consequences of this blindness are manifest to any one who knows England. The divided state of Protestantism in this country is of itself a great fact, which speaks volumes.
Against the policy of the ruling party in the Church of England, under the Stuarts, I always shall protest. I do not feel the scruples which Baxter and his ejected brethren felt about the Act of Uniformity. Much as I respect them, I think them wrong and misguided in their judgments. But I think that Archbishop Sheldon, and the men who refused to go one step to meet them, were far more wrong and far more misguided. I believe they did an injury to the cause of true religion in England, which will probably never be repaired, by sowing the seeds of endless divisions. They were the men who laid the foundation of English dissent. I believe they recklessly threw away a golden opportunity of doing good. They might easily have made my own beloved Church far more effective and far more useful than she ever has been by wise and timely concessions. They refused to do this, and, instead of a healing measure, brought forward their unhappy Act of Uniformity. I disavow any sympathy with their proceedings, and can never think of them without the deepest regret.

Farewell Sermons Again

2007-10-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

We have mentioned before editions of the farewell sermons. To reiterate, two volumes appeared in 1662 and 1663 containing morning and evening sermons and prayers. In 1816 24 sermons of the 31 in the original edition were reprinted in London. These can be found in the now out of print SDG reproduction from 1992. Seven of those sermons also appeared in the 1962 Banner paperback that contained 9 sermons altogether. This book also contains Samuel Palmer's Nonconformist Catechism from 1773.

1662 1962

2007-10-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

This article I found here. Thanks Tim Ashcraft.

After an introduction referring to the Act of uniformity he says

In 1962 Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave an address at Westminster Chapel’s Puritan Conference to commemorate the tercentennial of this event. You can read that address in his book, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors. It is the chapter titled, “Puritan Perplexities—Some Lessons from 1640-1662.” Lloyd-Jones considered the Great Ejection a watershed event on an almost equal footing with the Reformation itself. I would like to give a summary of his points as to the causes of this tragedy and its lessons.

Causes
The mixing of politics and religion. From the time of the English Reformation many prominent Anglicans also held public office and had influence with the King, like the hated Archbishop Laud. The Puritans had grievances with Laud and his party, and so did others whose motives were not motivated by religion as were the Puritans’. These disenfranchised parties banded together in an unscriptural alliance to fight a common enemy. “To mix politics with religion in the church is always a danger” (Lloyd-Jones, p. 61).
Divisions among the Puritans. “This is what makes the story a real tragedy. Fundamentally these men were all agreed about doctrine” (Lloyd-Jones, p. 61). But they had endless disagreements over other matters, especially church government. Among the various groups of Puritans, Lloyd-Jones faulted the Presbyterians the most for this divisive spirit because “they were the most intransigent” (p. 62). Ironically, the Presbyterians “were always ready to make agreements with the king,” but they tended to fight those with whom they were in agreement on the essential matters of the Christian faith.
The idea of a State-Church. “The Presbyterians believed in a State Church quite as much as the Anglicans” (p. 63). They inherited this position and continued to fight for their version of it rather than inquiring what the New Testament said about the nature of the church as it relates to the government. “The Presbyterians believed, quite as much as the Anglicans, that people should be compelled by Act of Parliament and the power of the State to submit to their particular view of the Church” (p. 65). While other groups simply wanted toleration to worship freely, the Anglicans and Presbyterians were fighting for supremacy, and the Anglicans won in 1662.
Lessons

The thing of supreme importance is “the gospel of salvation which is also ‘the gospel of the glory of God’” (p. 67). That is what all believers are agreed upon—a right view of the gospel.
“Coupled with that, there was their emphasis upon the necessity of having able and good ministers, and the primacy and the centrality of preaching” (pp. 67-68).
Our view of the church should be in line with the New Testament. How should doctrine and practice be determined? Our faith should stand squarely on the Scriptures.
Our divisions should be over the fundamental things of the faith, not things of lesser importance. That’s been a hot one for the last sixty years. Lloyd-Jones is arguing against a divisive spirit that won’t budge on non-essential matters. But to the intransigent there are no “non-essential” matters. Everything is seen in black and white; anything else is compromise.
We must fight this battle “in a spiritual manner, and not with carnal weapons” (p. 70). Many Presbyterians actually allied themselves with those who hated everything they stood for to gain political advantage. Some Puritans, like John Owen, stood against such carnality, and so should we. If we view party success as more important than the glory of God and the purity of the Church, “our cause is already lost” (p. 71).
“The ultimate lesson to be learned from this period is this: ‘The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own’” (p. 72). “If we see what the Truth is, well then, I say, we must hold to it and fight for it, and to refuse to compromise about it, whatever it may cost us” (p. 72).
Like Tim I do commend the Lloyd-Jones volume. He closes with Lloyd-Jones' own closing words: “We thank God for the memory of these men, who, having seen the position clearly, acted upon it at all costs. May God give us grace to follow in their train!”

Farewell Prayers

2007-10-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

Some 13 farewell prayers that accompanied the farewell sermons can be found here.

Pepys' Diary 24/08

2007-10-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

Sunday 24 August 1662
(Lord’s day). Slept till 7 o’clock, which I have not done a very great while, but it was my weariness last night that caused it. So rose and to my office [see pic] till church time, writing down my yesterday’s observations, and so to church, where I all alone, and found Will Griffin and Thomas Hewett got into the pew next to our backs, where our maids sit, but when I come, they went out; so forward some people are to outrun themselves. Here we had a lazy, dull sermon. So home to dinner, where my brother Tom came to me, and both before and after dinner he and I walked all alone in the garden, talking about his late journey and his mistress, and for what he tells me it is like to do well. He being gone, I to church again, where Mr Mills, making a sermon upon confession, he did endeavour to pull down auricular confession, but did set it up by his bad arguments against it, and advising people to come to him to confess their sins when they had any weight upon their consciences, as much as is possible, which did vex me to hear. So home, and after an hour’s being in my office alone, looking over the plates and globes, I walked to my uncle Wight's, the truth is, in hopes to have seen and been acquainted with the pretty lady that came along with them to dinner the other day to Mr Rawlinson, but she is gone away. But here I staid supper, and much company there was; among others, Dr Burnett, Mr Cole the lawyer, Mr Rawlinson, and Mr Sutton, a brother of my aunt’s, that I never saw before. Among other things they tell me that there hath been a disturbance in a church in Friday Street; a great many young people knotting together and crying out “Porridge” [derogatory nickname for the Book of Common Prayer] often and seditiously in the church, and took the Common Prayer Book, they say, away; and, some say, did tear it; but it is a thing which appears to me very ominous. I pray God avert it. After supper home and to bed.

Pepys' Diary 17/08

2007-10-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday 17 August 1662
(Lord’s day). Up very early, this being the last Sunday that the Presbyterians are to preach, unless they read the new Common Prayer and renounce the Covenant, and so I had a mind to hear Dr Bates's farewell sermon, [Dr William Bates, eminent Puritan divine. He took part in the Savoy Conference. His collected writings (1700) fill a large folio volume. The Dissenters called him silver-tongued Bates. Calamy affirmed that if Bates would have conformed to the Established Church he might have been raised to any bishopric in the kingdom. He died in 1699, aged 74] and walked thither, calling first at my brother's, where I found that he is come home after being a week abroad with Dr Pepys, nobody knows where, nor I but by chance, that he was gone, which troubles me. So I called only at the door, but did not ask for him, but went to Madam Turner's to know whether she went to church, and to tell her that I would dine with her; and so walked to St Dunstan's, where, it not being seven o’clock yet, the doors were not open; and so I went and walked an hour in the Temple-garden, reading my vows, which it is a great content to me to see how I am a changed man in all respects for the better, since I took them, which the God of Heaven continue to me, and make me thankful for. At eight o’clock I went, and crowded in at a back door among others, the church being half-full almost before any doors were open publicly; which is the first time that I have done so these many years since I used to go with my father and mother, and so got into the gallery, beside the pulpit, and heard very well.

His text was, “Now the God of Peace—;” the last Hebrews, and the 20th verse: he making a very good sermon, and very little reflections in it to any thing of the times. Besides the sermon, I was very well pleased with the sight of a fine lady that I have often seen walk in Gray's Inn Walks, and it was my chance to meet her again at the door going out, and very pretty and sprightly she is, and I believe the same that my wife and I some years since did meet at Temple Bar gate and have sometimes spoke of. So to Madam Turner’s, and dined with her. She had heard Parson Herring take his leave [John Herring (d c 1672). Presbyterian Vicar of St Bride, Fleet Street c 1656-62. Excluded for non-conformity. Possibly a minister in Coventry c 1648-50]; tho’ he, by reading so much of the Common Prayer as he did, hath cast himself out of the good opinion of both sides.

After dinner to St Dunstan’s again; and the church quite crowded before I came, which was just at one o’clock; but I got into the gallery again, but stood in a crowd and did exceedingly sweat all the time. He pursued his text again very well; and only at the conclusion told us, after this manner: “I do believe that many of you do expect that I should say something to you in reference to the time, this being the last time that possibly I may appear here. You know it is not my manner to speak any thing in the pulpit that is extraneous to my text and business; yet this I shall say, that it is not my opinion, fashion, or humour that keeps me from complying with what is required of us; but something which, after much prayer, discourse, and study yet remains unsatisfied, and commands me herein. Wherefore, if it is my unhappiness not to receive such an illumination as should direct me to do otherwise, I know no reason why men should not pardon me in this world, and am confident that God will pardon me for it in the next.” And so he concluded.

Parson Herring read a psalm and chapters before sermon; and one was the chapter in the Acts, where the story of Ananias and Sapphira is. And after he had done, says he, “This is just the case of England at present. God he bids us to preach, and men bid us not to preach; and if we do, we are to be imprisoned and further punished. All that I can say to it is, that I beg your prayers, and the prayers of all good Christians, for us.” This was all the exposition he made of the chapter in these very words, and no more. I was much pleased with Dr Bates’s manner of bringing in the Lord’s Prayer after his own; thus, “In whose comprehensive words we sum up all our imperfect desires; saying, ‘Our Father,’” &c.

Church being done and it raining I took a hackney coach and so home, being all in a sweat and fearful of getting cold. To my study at my office, and thither came Mr Moore to me and walked till it was quite dark. Then I wrote a letter to my Lord Privy Seal as from my Lord for Mr._ to be sworn directly by deputy to my Lord, he denying to swear him as deputy together with me. So that I am now clear of it, and the profit is now come to be so little that I am not displeased at my getting off so well. He being gone I to my study and read, and so to eat a bit of bread and cheese and so to bed.

I hear most of the Presbyters took their leaves to-day, and that the City is much dissatisfied with it. I pray God keep peace among us, and make the Bishops careful of bringing in good men in their rooms, or else all will fly a-pieces; for bad ones will not [go] down with the City.

Pepys' Diary 10/08

2007-10-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

Sunday 10 August 1662
(Lord’s day). Being to dine at my brother's, I walked to St Dunstan's, the church being now finished; and here I heard Dr Bates, who made a most eloquent sermon; and I am sorry I have hitherto had so low an opinion of the man, for I have not heard a neater sermon a great while, and more to my content. So to Tom’s, where Dr Fairebrother, newly come from Cambridge, met me, and Dr Thomas Pepys. I framed myself as pleasant as I could, but my mind was another way. Hither came my uncle Fenner, hearing that I was here, and spoke to me about Pegg Kite's business of her portion, which her husband demands, but I will have nothing to do with it. I believe he has no mind to part with the money out of his hands, but let him do what he will with it. He told me the new service-book (which is now lately come forth) was laid upon their deske at St Sepulchre's for Mr Gouge to read [Thomas Gouge (1605-1681), eminent Presbyterian minister, son of William Gouge DD (lecturer at and afterwards Rector of St Anne’s, Blackfriars). Thomas was vicar of St Sepulchre from 1638 until ejected in 1662]; but he laid it aside, and would not meddle with it: and I perceive the Presbyters do all prepare to give over all against Bartholomew-tide. Mr Herring, being lately turned out at St Bride's, did read the psalm to the people while they sung at Dr Bates’s, which methought is a strange turn. After dinner to St Bride’s, and there heard one Carpenter, an old man, [Richard Carpenter (d c 1670), an Anglican, formerly an Independent and three times joined the Roman church. Author of A new play call’d the pragmatical Jesuit new leven’d (c 1669). ‘A fantastical man that changed his mind with his clothes, and that for his juggles and tricks in matters of religion…was esteemed a theological mountebank” {Wood}] who, they say, hath been a Jesuit priest, and is come over to us; but he preaches very well. So home with Mrs Turner, and there hear that Mr Calamy hath taken his farewell this day of his people, and that others will do so the next Sunday. Mr Turner the draper, I hear, is knighted, made Alderman, and pricked for Sheriffe, with Sir Thomas Bluddel, for the next year, by the King, and so are called with great honour the King’s Sheriffes. Thence walked home, meeting Mr Moore by the way, and he home with me and walked till it was dark in the garden, and so good night, and I to my closet in my office to perfect my Journall and to read my solemn vows, and so to bed.

Thomas Brooks Farewell

2007-10-02T08:25:00.001-07:00

The following excerpt is from the farewell sermon of Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) called A Pastor’s Legacies. [Again from Mr Brooker here]. Mr Brooker says 'He was never able to deliver it in person because of his ejection, but it was read aloud to the congregation as a parting encouragement to the people he loved. In typical Brooks fashion, it is beautiful prose with almost every line quotable on its own.'
I shall proceed, as I said, and leave some legacies with you, which may, by the finger of the Spirit, be made advantageous to you, to whom am not advantaged to speak in person.
The first legacy I would leave with you, shall be this: Secure your interest in Christ; make it your great business, your work, your heaven, to secure your interest in Christ. This is not an age, an hour, for a man to be between fears and hopes, between doubting and believing.

Make Christ and Scripture the only foundation for your souls and faith to build on: as the apostle saith, 1 Cor. 3:11, ‘Other foundations can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ.’ Isa. 28:6, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, a sure foundation.’ Since it is a very dangerous thing, as much as your souls and eternity is worth, for you to build on anything beside Jesus Christ, many will say, Come, build on this authority and that, on this saying and that; but take heed.
Take more pains, and make more conscience of keeping yourselves from sin than suffering; from the pollutions and defilements of the day, than from the sufferings of the day. This legacy I would beg that you would consider; take more pains, and make more conscience of keeping yourselves from the evil of sin than the evil of punishment, from the pollutions and corruptions of the times than the sufferings of the times: Acts 2:40, ‘Save yourselves from this untoward generation.’ Phil. 2:15, ‘The children of God must be harmless and blameless, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.’ If you will be tasting and sipping at Babylon’s cup, you must resolve to receive more or less of Babylon’s plagues.
I would leave this with you: Be always doing or receiving good. Our Lord and Master went up and down in this world doing good; he was still doing good to body and soul; he was motivated by an untired power. Be still doing or receiving good. This will make your lives comfortable, your deaths happy, and your account glorious, in the great day of our Lord. Oh! how useless are many men in their generation! Oh! that our lips might be as so many honey-combs, that we might scatter knowledge!
I would leave this with you: Set the highest examples and patterns before your face of grace and godliness for your imitation. In the business of faith, set an Abraham before your eyes; in the business of courage, set a Joshua; in the business of uprightness, set a Job; of meekness, a Moses &c. Christians disadvantage themselves by looking more backwards than forwards. Men look on whom they excel, not on those they fall short of. Of all examples, set them before you that are most eminent for grace and holiness, for communion with God, and acting for God. Next to Christ, set the pattern of the choicest saints before you.
Take no truths upon trust, but all upon trial, 1 Thes. 5:21, also 1 John 4:1, Acts 17:11. It was the glory of that church, that they would not trust Paul himself; Paul, that had the advantage above all for external qualifications; no, not Paul himself. Take no truth upon trust; bring them to the balance of the Scripture. If they will not hold weight there, reject them.
Look upon all the things of this world as you will look upon them when you come to die. At what a poor rate do men look on the things of this world when they come to die! What a low value do men set upon the pomp and glory of it, when there is but a step between them and eternity! Men may now put a mask upon them, but then they will appear in their own colours. Men would not venture the loss of such great things for them did they but look on them now, as they will do at the last day.
Eye more, mind more, and lay to heart more, the spiritual and eternal workings of God in your souls, than the external providences of God in the world. Beloved, God looks that we should consider the operations of his hand; and despising the works of his hands is so provoking to him that he threatens to lead them into captivity for not considering them. But above all look to the work that God is carrying on in your souls. Not a soul but he is carrying on some work or other in it, either blinding or enlightening, bettering or worsening; therefore look to what God is doing in thy soul. All the motions of God within you are steps to eternity, and every soul shall be blessed or cursed, saved or lost to all eternity, not according to outward dispensations, but according to the inward operations of God in your souls. Observe what humbling work, reforming work, sanctifying work, he is about in thy spirit; what he is doing in that little world within thee. If God should carry on never so glorious a work in the world, as a conquest of the nations to Christ, what would it advantage thee if sin, Satan, and the world should triumph in thy soul, and carry the day there?
Keep up precious thoughts of God under the sourest, sharpest, and severest dispensations of God to you: Psa. 22:1-3, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.’ There was the psalmist under smart dispensations, but what precious thoughts had he of God after all: ‘But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel: though I am thus and thus afflicted, yet thou art holy;’ Psa. 65:5, ‘By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation.’
Always make the Scripture, and not yourselves, nor your carnal reason, nor your bare opinion, the judges of your spiritual state and condition. I cannot see my condition to be good. I cannot perceive it. What! must your sense and your carnal reason be the judge of your spiritual state? Isa. 8:20, ‘To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this rule, it is because there is no light, no morning in them,’ John 12:48, ‘The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge you in the last day.’ The Scripture is that which must determine the case in the great day, whether you have grace or no, or whether it be true or no.
Make much conscience of making good the terms on which you closed with Christ. Do not turn your backs on Christ; the worst of Christ is better than the best of the world. Make conscience of making good your terms, to deny yourself, your natural self, your sinful self, your religious self, to follow him; and if you do so, oh! what an honour will it be to Christ, and advantage to your souls, and a joy to the upright!
Walk by no rule but such as you dare die by and stand by in the great day of Jesus Christ. You may have many ways prescribed to worship by; but walk by none but such as you dare die by, and stand by, before Jesus Christ. Walk not by a multitude, for who dares stand by that rule when he comes to die?
And lastly, sit down and rejoice with fear: Psa. 2, ‘Let the righteous rejoice, but let them rejoice with fear.’ Rejoice, that God hath done your souls good by the everlasting gospel; that he did not leave you till he brought you to an acceptance of, to a closing with, and a resignation of, your souls to Christ, and the clearing up of your interest in him. Rejoice, that you have had the everlasting gospel! in so much light, purity, power, and glory, as you have had for many years together. Rejoice in the riches of grace that hath carried it in such a way towards you. And weep, that you have provoked God to take away the gospel, that you have no more improved it; that you have so neglected the seasons and opportunities of enriching your souls. When you should have come to church-fellowship, anything would turn you out of the way. Oh! sit down and tremble under your barrenness, under all your leanness.
Here are your legacies, and the Lord make them to work in your souls, and then they will be of singular use to you, to preserve you so that you may give up your account before the great and glorious God with joy. Labour to make conscience of putting these legacies into practice, of sucking at these breasts, which will be of use to us, till we shall be gathered up into the fruition of God, where we shall need no more ordinances, no more preaching or praying.

Farewell Sermons

2007-10-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

D R Brooker wrote on a blog now removed:

Anyone with a passing interest in the history of 17th century Puritanism knows what happened in the year 1662. ... Iain Murray called this event a “spiritual watershed which which divides two eras of our religious history.” ... These men ... ruled themselves by principle and would rather rely on God to provide for them than opt for the comforts of employment and participate in what they deemed to be the mechanical worship of God. They acted to their own detriment for the honour of Christ.
[He gives John Stoughton's description of the last Sunday before expulsion when most farewell sermons were preached.]

Upon their ouster from the pulpit, many of these men preached “farewell sermons” to their beloved congregations. Many of them were wonderful exhortations to remain faithful to Christ and diligent in their study of the Scriptures. A number of these original sermons were collected and published as Sermons of the Great Ejection in two separate editions: 1662 and 1663; the latter containing more material. This volume of sermons has never been reprinted in its entirety. (We can only hope that Jon Dorsey of Dust & Ashes Publications keeps this volume on his list of planned books to republish in the future. I know he’s wanted to do this for some time). Both Banner of Truth (1962) and Soli Deo Gloria (1992) published a book of Ejection sermons drawing on materials from the original editions, but sadly, both books are long out of print. If I had to recommend one over the other, Farewell Sermons by SDG would be my choice as it contains more material, however, it is also the harder of the two books to find.

No Sunday like it

2007-10-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

In 1662 a storm broke. A Parliamentary Act, first passed back in 1549, was resurrected and reconstituted - the Act of Uniformity. It required all ministers in the Church of England give ‘unfeigned assent and consent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer, [and] re-ordination for those not episcopally ordained.’ It also demanded a renunciation of the Solemn League and Covenant (a 1643 religious alliance between England and Scotland — accepted by the English Parliament — which guaranteed the maintenance of the reformed Church of Scotland and promised to reform the churches of England and Ireland according to the Scriptures). Knowing that the Puritans would not submit to such terms, the Authorities framed the Act to secure their expulsion.
The Act was ratified by Charles II and every pastor was given an ultimatum requiring him to conform or else be expelled. The deadline was the 24th of August 1662. Thus on that fateful day- 'Black Bartholomew’s Day' — more than 2000 ministers were ejected from their churches for refusing to comply. By this one decree, the vast majority of England’s evangelical preachers were immediately silenced. The action was no sudden whim on the part of the King but a deliberately and carefully contrived plot by the Establishment to rid the land once and for all of the greatest preachers the nation had ever known.
Most of those who refused to comply preached their ‘farewell’ sermon to their congregation on the Sunday before the ‘Great Ejection.’ What a day it must have been. In the 19th Century John Stoughton wrote in his Religion in England Vol 3 (p 267)
‘No Sunday in England ever resembled exactly that which fell on the 17th of August, 1662, one week before the feast of St Bartholomew. There have been "mourning, lamentation, and woe," in particular parish churches when death, persecution, or some other cause has broken pastoral ties, and severed from loving congregations their spiritual guides; but for many hundreds of ministers on the same day to be uttering farewells is an unparalleled circumstance. In after years, Puritan fathers and mothers related to their children the story of assembled crowds, of aisles, standing-places and stairs, filled to suffocation, of people clinging to open windows like swarms of bees, of overflowing throngs in churchyards and streets, of deep silence or stifled sobs, as the flock gazed on the shepherd - "sorrowing most of all that they should see his face no more."

The effect was devastating. It was said that - as a result of the enforcement of the Act - 'religion in the Church of England was almost extinguished and in many of her parishes the lamp of God went out.' Another historian said: ‘After we had cast out so much faith, and zeal, and holiness, after we had in this manner almost cast out the doctrine of Christ crucified from the pale of our church; we had to travel through a century of coldness and dreariness, and barrenness, of Arminianism and Pelagianism, of Arianism and latent Socinianism, all which were found compatible with outward conformity.’

However, the Act of Uniformity did not stop the ejected men from continuing to preach and teach. They began meeting with their congregations in homes and barns or wherever worship could be conducted and the Word of God expounded. This gave rise to the the Conventicle Act (1664). The Conventicle Act forced the congregations into the countryside. They met deep in the woods and began gathering during the night to worship and hear the Scriptures expounded. The Authorities were infuriated, and so, in 1665 passed the Five Mile Act. This forbade and made illegal any religious meetings held by Nonconformist ministers within five miles of any town or village. (This effectively prevented most poor village people - with no means of transport - from attending any form of worship other than in their local Church of England). Moreover, it stated that no Nonconformist preacher or teacher could live within five miles of a town or village and, further, he was debarred from teaching in any school - virtually the only occupation open to a deprived minister in those days. Breach of these Acts could be punishable by a fine, imprisonment, deportation or even death. It was also possible that all one’s belongings could be confiscated. Although these laws could not be strictly enforced, they nevertheless led to appalling persecution and suffering among the Dissenters.
Iain Murray writes

“By almost every method which men knew, an attempt was thus made to shut the mouth of Nonconformists, and for continuing to claim the liberty to speak not a few of the Nonconformists lost their lives ... There could be few more scathing reproofs for modern English Christianity than for us really to attend to the words of these men who gave up livings, homes, liberties, goods and sometimes lives rather than surrender any part of the teaching of the Word of God. Their highest ambition was to be able to say with William Tyndale, “I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God’s Word against my conscience, nor would this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, might be given me.””

Drawn chiefly from some work on Bunyan by John Dunn here.

Black Bartholomew's Day

2007-10-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

St Bartholomew's day was traditionally kept on August 24th each year. On that day in 1572 there was a terrible massacre of defenceless Protestants in France, known as Black Bartholomew's Day. The same epithet is sometimes used to refer to the Great Ejection on August 24th, 1662.

On that date, all the reforming plans of the last 20 years completely out of public favour, the Church of Englans was reconstituted under the Act of Uniformity, in a way that made things very unpleasant once more for the Puritans. By its provisions, on that day, every clergyman was to be expelled from his charge if he failed to declare his assent to everything contained in the revised Book of Common Prayer. Similarly all who had failed, during the period of the Commonwealth, to obtain episcopal ordination, was commanded now to obtain it and take an oath of canonical obedience. The theories on which the old 'Solemn League and Covenant' had been based were to be renounced and the doctrine of the king's supremacy over the church accepted.

The result was that some 2000 clergy marked Bartholomew Day by coming out of the church. Richard Baxter, Richard Alleine, Edmund Calamy, John Owen and a host of toehrs were among them.

The act became the more harsh from its coming into operation just before a whole year's tithes were due. Two thousand families, hitherto dependent on stipends for support, were driven hither and thither in search of a livelihood. This was rendered more and more difficult by a number of subordinate statutes passed in rapid succession. The ejected ministers were not allowed to exercise, even in private houses, the religious functions to which they had been accustomed. Their books could not be published without episcopal sanction, previously applied for and obtained. A statute, called the 'Conventicle Act,' punished with fine, imprisonment or transportation, every one present in any private house where religious worship was carried on - if the total number exceeded by more than five the regular members of the household. Another act, the 'Oxford Act,' imposed on these ministers an oath of passive obedience and non-resistance. If they refused to take it, they were prohibited from living within five miles of any place where they had ever resided, or of any corporate town, and from eking out their scanty incomes by keeping schools, or taking in boarders. A second and stricter version of the Conventicle Act deprived the ministers of the right of trial by jury, and empowered any justice of the peace to convict them on the oath of a single informer, who was to be rewarded with a third of the fines levied. No flaw in the legal document, called the mittimus, was allowed to vitiate it and the 'benefit of the doubt' in any uncertain cases, was to be given to the accusers, not to the accused.
Writers who take opposite sides on this subject naturally differ as to the causes and justification to be assigned for the ejection; but there is very little difference of opinion as to the misery suffered during the years 1662-1688. Those who, in one way or other, suffered homelessness, hunger, and penury on account of the Act of Uniformity and the ejection that followed it, have been estimated at 60,000 persons, and the amount of pecuniary loss at £12-14 million. Defoe, Penn and other contemporary writers, set down up-wards of 5000 Nonconformists as the number who perished within the walls of prisons. Many others, like Baxter, were hunted from house to house, from chapel to chapel, by informers, whose only motive was to obtain a portion of the fines levied for infringement of numerous statutes.
Considered as a historical fact, dissent may be said to have begun in England on this 24th August 1662, when the Puritans, who had before formed a body within the church, now ranged themselves as a dissenting or Nonconformist sect outside it.

Edmund Calamy the Elder

2007-10-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

The historian Edmund Calamy's second entry is his own grandfather Edmund Calamy (1600-1666) known as "the elder". An English Presbyterian church leader, he was of Huguenot descent and was born in Walbrook, London and educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his opposition to Arminianism excluded him from a fellowship. Nicholas Felton, Bishop of Ely, nevertheless made him his chaplain and gave him the living of St Mary, Swaffham Prior, which he held till 1626. He then removed to Bury St Edmunds, where he lectured for 10 years, retiring when his bishop (Wren) insisted on the observance of certain ceremonial articles. In 1636 he was appointed rector (or perhaps only lecturer) of Rochford, Essex, but had to leave for the sake of his health. In 1639 he was elected to the perpetual curacy of St Mary Aldermanbury, London, where he had a large following.
At the opening of the Long Parliament he distinguished himself in defence of the Presbyterian cause and contributed to the conciliatory work known as Smectymnuus, against Bishop Joseph Hall's presentation of episcopacy. The initials of the names of the several contributors formed the name under which it was published, viz., Stephen Marshall, E Calamy, T Young, Matthew Newcomen and W Spurstow. Calamy was an active member in the Westminster Assembly of divines, and, refusing to advance to Congregationalism found in Presbyterianism the middle course which best suited his views of theology and church government. He opposed the execution of King Charles, lived quietly under the Commonwealth, and was assiduous in promoting the king's return; for this he was afterwards offered the bishopric of Coventry and Lichfield, but declined, perhaps for his wife's sake.
He was made one of Charles's chaplains, and vainly tried to secure the legal ratification of Charles's declaration of 1660. He was so affected by the sight of the devastation caused by the Great Fire of 1666 that he died shortly afterwards. He was buried in the ruins of his church, near the place where the pulpit had stood. His publications are almost entirely sermons.
His eldest son Edmund Calamy "the younger", followed a similar religious path, and was also ejected (from the rectory of Moreton, Essex). He was of a retiring disposition and moderate views. He died 1685.

[A Mr Lee the LEcturer here was also ejected]

Haslefoot Bridges

2007-10-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

In his Nonconformist Ministers Memorial Edmund Calamy begins with ejected or silenced ministers in the cities of London and Westminster and in Southwark. He begins at St Alban's, Wood Street, and says of

MR. HASLEFOOT BRIDGES of St. John's College, Cambridge. He was a gentleman and a scholar; much, admired, though of a reserved disposition. About the year 1680, he lived at Enfield, Middlesex; but whether he preached there or not, doth not appear. He was possessed of an estate, and was disposed to do good with it. His only daughter being unhappily married, he gave the whole of it (on condition of her dying childless, as she did in 1695) to charitable uses: principally to the college where he was educated, and to the parish of which he was minister.

[It is added: Dr Wm Watts was sequestered from this rectory. He had been chaplain to Charles I and, from Walker's account, appears to have been a respectable and learned man. If it be true, as that writer relates, that he and his family were treated with severity on the change of the times, Mr Bridges was in no sort accessary to it; nor did he immediately succeed him, but a person of the name of Glendon, so that probably he might not enjoy the living till after Dr Watts's death, as he died some time before the Restoration. Mr. Fisher as assistant to Mr Bridges was ejected with him.]

Five Mile Act 1665

2007-10-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

The Five Mile Act or Oxford Act, is an Act of Parliament passed in 1665 with the long title "An Act for restraining Non-Conformists from inhabiting in Corporations". It was one of the English penal laws that sought to enforce conformity to the established Church of England. It forbade clergymen from living within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been banned, unless they swore an oath never to resist the king, or attempt to alter the government of Church or State.

Conventicle Act 1664

2007-10-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

The Conventicle Act of 1664 was an Act of parliament under Charles II that forbade religious assemblies of more than five people outside the auspices of the Church of England. This law was part of the programme of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, to discourage nonconformity and to strengthen the position of the Established Church. These prohibitions led many, such as the Covenanters, to vacate their parishes rather than submit to the new Episcopal authorities. Just as the ministers left so too did the congregations, following their old pastors to sermons on the hillside. From small beginnings these field assemblies - or conventicles - were to grow into major problems of public order for the government.
Other statutes that were part of Clarendon's programme include:
the Quaker Act of 1662, which required people to swear an oath of allegiance to the king, which The operation of these laws at least as far as Protestants were concerned was mitigated somewhat by Charles II's Royal Declaration of indulgence in 1672, which suspended the execution of penal laws and allowed a certain number of non-conformist chapels to be staffed and constructed, with the pastors subject to royal approval.
The Conventicle Act and Five Mile Acts were repealed in 1689.

Corporation Act 1661

2007-10-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

The Corporation Act of 1661 is an Act of Parliament (13 Cha. II. St. 2 c. 1). It belongs to the general category of test acts, designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices in England to members of the Church of England.
Though commonly spoken of as one of the "Penal Laws", and enumerated by Butler in his Historical Account of the Laws against the Roman Catholics of England, it was not directly aimed against them, but against the Presbyterians. It was passed in December 1661, the year after the Restoration, by Charles II. Parliament was at that time entirely reactionary. The Cavavliers were in power, and they aimed at nothing short of restoring England to its state before the time of the Commonwealth. It required all the prudence of the Earl of Clarendon, the Lord Chancellor, to restrain them. The Corporation Act represents the limit to which he was prepared to go in endeavouring to restrict the power of the Presbyterians. They were influentially represented in the government of cities and boroughs throughout the country, and this act was designed to dispossess them.
The Act provided that no person could be legally elected to any office relating to the government of a city or corporation, unless he had within the previous 12 months received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Church of England. He was also commanded to take the Oaths of Allegiance adn Supremacy, to swear belief in the Doctrine of Passive Obedience, and to renounce the Covenant (ie Solemn League and Covenant).
In default of these requisites the election was to be void. A somewhat similar act passed 12 years later, known as the Test Act, prescribed for all officers, civil and military, further stringent conditions, including a declaration against transubstantiation.
These two acts operated very prejudicially on Catholics, forming an important part of the general Penal Code which kept them, like nonconformists, out of public life. In later times the number who qualified for civil and military posts in accordance with their provisions was very small, and an Act of Indemnity used to be passed annually, to relieve those who had not done so from the penalties incurred.

The Corporation Act remained nominally in force throughout the 18th Century. It was eventually repealed in 1828.

Act of Uniformity 1662

2007-10-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

The Act of Uniformity was an Act of the English Parliament, passed, in the time of Charles II, in 1662. It required the use of all the rites and ceremonies in the Book of Common Prayer in Church of England services. It also required episcopal ordination for all for all ministers (ie by recognised bishops). As a result, nearly 2,000 clergymen left the established church in what became known as the Great Ejection.
The Test and Corporation Acts, which lasted until 1828, excluded all nonconformists from holding civil or military office. They were also prevented from being awarded degrees by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
The Act of Uniformity was an act of Parliament, prescribing the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments and other rites of the Established Church of England. Its provisions were modified by the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act of 1872.
The 1662 act re-introduced episcopal rule back into the Church of England after the Puritans had abolished many features of the Church during the Civil Wars. The Act of Uniformity itself is only one of four crucial pieces of legislation, known as the Clarendon Code, after the Earl of Clarendon.