Coleman on the 2000 Confessors of 1662

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

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

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

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

                      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

This is a 46 page Carey Kingsgate booklet from 1962 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

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

James Forbes

(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

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. See here.

Grandsons of the Ejected

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.