Nonconformists
NONCONFORMISTS
Those who refuse to join the established church. Nonconformists in England may be considered of three sorts.
1. Such as absent themselves from divine worship in the established church through total irreligion, and attend the service of no other persuasion.
2. Such as absent themselves on the plea of conscience; as Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, &c.
3. Internal Nonconformists, or unprincipled clergymen, who applaud and propagate doctrines quite inconsistent with several of those articles they promised on oath to defend. The word is generally used in reference to those ministers who were ejected from their livings by the act of Uniformity, in 1662. The number of these was about two thousand. However some affect to treat these men with indifference, and suppose that their consciences were more tender than they need be, it must be remembered, that they were men of as extensive learning, great abilities, and pious conduct as ever appeared. Mr. Locke, if his opinion have any weight, calls them “worthy, learned, pious, orthodox divines, who did not throw themselves out of service, but were forcibly ejected.” Mr. Bogue thus draws their character: “As to their public ministration, ” he says, “they were orthodox, experimental, serious, affectionate, regular, faithful, able, and popular preachers.
As to their moral qualities, they were devout and holy; faithful to Christ and the souls of men; wise and prudent; of great liberality and kindness; and strenuous advocates for liberty, civil and religious. As to their intellectual qualities, they were learned, eminent, and laborious.” These men were driven from their houses, from the society of their friends, and exposed to the greatest difficulties. Their burdens were greatly increased by the Conventical act, whereby they were prohibited from meeting for any exercise of religion (above five in number) in any other manner than allowed by the liturgy or practice of the Church of England. For the first offence the penalty was three months imprisonment, or pay five pounds; for the second offence, six months imprisonment, or ten pounds; and for the third offence, to be banished to some of the American plantations for seven years, or pay one hundred pounds; and in case they returned, to suffer death without benefit of clergy. By virtue of this act, the gaols were quickly filled with dissenting Protestants, and the trade of an informer was very gainful. So great was the severity of these times, says Neale, that they were afraid to pray in their families, if above four of their acquaintance, who came only to visit them, were present: some families scrupled asking a blessing on their meat if five strangers were at table. But this was not all (to say nothing of the Test act:) in 1665, an act was brought into the House to banish them from their friends, commonly called the Oxford Five Mile Act, by which all dissenting ministers, on the penalty of forty pounds, who would not take an oath (that it was not lawful, upon any pretence whatever, to take arms against the king, &c) were prohibited from coming within five miles of any city, town corporate, or borough, or any place where they had exercised their ministry, and from teaching any school.
Some few took the oath; others could not, consequently suffered the penalty. In 1673, “the mouths of the high church pulpiteers, were encouraged to open as loud as possible. One, in his sermon before the House of Commons, told them, that the Nonconformists ought not to be tolerated, but to be cured by vengeance. He urged them to set fire to the faggot, and to teach them by scourges or scorpions, and open their eyes with gall.” Such were the dreadful consequences of this intolerant spirit, that it is supposed near eight thousand died in prison in the reign of Charles II. It is said, that Mr. Jeremiah White had carefully collected a list of those who had suffered between Charles II. and the revolution, which amounted to sixty thousand. The same persecutions were carried on in Scotland; and there, as well as in England, many, to avoid persecution, fled from their country. But, notwithstanding all these dreadful and furious attacks upon the Dissenters, they were not extirpated. Their very persecution was in their favour. The infamous characters of their informers and persecutors; their piety, zeal, and fortitude, no doubt, had influence on considerate minds; and, indeed, they had additions from the established church, which “several clergymen in this reign deserted as a persecuting church, and took their lot among them. In addition to this, king James suddenly altered his measures, granted a universal toleration, and preferred Dissenters to places of trust and profit, though it was evidently with a view to restore popery. King William coming to the throne, the famous Toleration Act passed, by which they were exempted from suffering the penalties above-mentioned, and permission given them to worship God, according to the dictates of their own consciences. In the latter end of Queen Anne’s reign they began to be a little alarmed.
An act of parliament passed, called the Occasional Conformity Bill, which prevented any person in office under the government entering into a meeting-house. Another, called the Schism Bill, had actually obtained the royal assent, which suffered no Dissenters to educate their own children, but required them to be put into the hands of Conformists; and which forbade all tutors and schoolmasters being present at any conventicle, or dissenting place of worship; but the very day this iniquitous act was to have taken place, the Queen died (August 1, 1714.) But his majesty king George I. being fully satisfied that these hardships were brought upon the Dissenters for their steady adherence to the Protestant succession in his illustrious house against a tory and jacobite ministry, who were paving the way for a popish pretender, procured the repeal of them in the fifth year of his reign; though a clause was left that forbade the mayor or other magistrate to go into any meeting for religious worship with the ensigns of his office.
See Bogue’s Charge at Mr. Knight’s Ordination; Neale’s History of the Puritans; De Laune’s Plea for the Nonconformists; Palmer’s Nonconformists; Mem. Martin’s Letters on Nonconformity; Robinson’s Lectures; Cornish’s History of Nonconformity; Dr. Calamy’s Life of Baxter; Pierce’s Vindication of the Dissenters; Bogue and Bennet’s History of the Dissenters.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
nonconformists
Those who refused to accede to the demands of the four “Acts of Uniformity” passed in England from the reign of Edward VI to that of Charles II. By these it was required of all ministers that they accept certain conditions as to the conduct of public worship, especially the use of the Book of Common Prayer with certain prescribed ceremonies. Those who would not conform set up for themselves separate conventicles, and became the foundation of English Protestant sectarianism. In later usage the term Nonconformist includes every denomination outside the Church of England, Catholicism alone excepted.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Nonconformists
A name which, in its most general acceptation, denotes those refusing to conform with the authorized formularies and rites of the Established Church of England. The application of the term has varied somewhat with the successive phases of Anglican history. From the accession of Elizabeth to the middle of the seventeenth century it had not come into use as the name of a religious party, but the word “conform”, and the appellatives “conforming” and “nonconforming”, were becoming more and more common expressions to designate those members of the Puritan party who, disapproving of certain of the Anglican rites (namely, the use of the surplice, of the sign of the cross at baptism, of the ring in marriage, of the attitude of kneeling at the reception of the sacrament) and of the episcopal order of church government, either resigned themselves to these usages because enjoined, or stood out against them at all costs. However from 1662, when the Fourth Act of Uniformity had the effect of ejecting from the benefices, acquired during the Commonwealth, a large number of ministers of Puritan proclivities, and of constraining them to organize themselves as separatist sects, the term “Nonconformist” crystallized into the technical name for such sects.
History
The history of this cleavage in the ranks of English Protestantism goes back to the reign of Mary Tudor, when the Protestant leaders who were victorious under Edward VI retired to Frankfort, Zurich, and other Protestant centres on the continent, and quarreled among themselves, some inclining to the more moderate Lutheran or Zwinglian positions, other developing into uncompromising Calvinists. When the accession of Elizabeth attracted them back to England, the Calvinist section, which soon acquired the nickname of Puritans, was the more fiery, the large in numbers and the most in favour with the majority of the Protestant laity. Elizabeth, however, who had very little personal religion, preferred an episcopal to a presbyterian system as more in harmony with monarchism, and besides she had some taste for the ornate in public worship. Accordingly she caused the religious settlement, destined to last into our own times, to be made on the basis of episcopacy, with the retention of the points of ritual above specified; and her favour was bespoken for prelates like, Parker, who were prepared to aid her in carrying out this programme. For those who held Puritan views she had a natural dislike, to which she sometimes gave forcible expression, but on the who she saw the expediency of showing them some consideration, lest she should lose their support in her campaign against Catholicism.
These were the determining factors of the initial situation, out of which the subsequent history of English Protestantism has grown by a natural development. The results during Elizabeth’s reign was a state of oscillation between phases of repression and phases of indulgence, in meeting the persistent endeavours of the Puritans to make their own ideas dominant in the national Church. In 1559, the third Act of Uniformity was passed, by which the new edition of the Prayer Book was enjoined under severe penalties on all ministering as clergy in the country. In 1566, feeling that some concession to the strength of the Puritan opposition was necessary, Archbishop Parker, on an understanding with the queen, published certain Advertisements addressed to the clergy, requiring them to conform at least as regards wearing the surplice, kneeling at communion, using the font for baptism, and covering the communion table with a proper cloth. These Advertisements were partially enforced in some diocese, and let to some deprivations, but that their effect was small is clear from the boldness with which the Puritans took up a more advanced position a few years later, and demanded the substitution of a presbyterian regime. This was the demand of Thomas Cartwright, in his First and Second Admonitions, published in 1572, and followed in 1580 by his Book of Discipline, in which he collaborated with Thomas Travers. In this latter book he propounded an ingenious theory of classes, or boards of clergy for each district, to which the episcopal powers should be transferred, to be exercised by them on presbyterian principles, to the bishops being reserved only the purely mechanical ceremony or ordination. So great was the influence of the Puritans in the country that they were able to introduce for a time this strange system in one or two places.
In 1588 the Marprelate tracts were published, and by the violence of their language against the queen and the bishops stirred up the queen to take drastic measures. Perry and Udal, authors of the tracts, were tried and executed, and Cartwright was imprisoned; whilst in 1593 an act was passed inflicting the punishment of imprisonment, to be followed by exile in case of a second offence, on all who refused to attend the parish church, or held separatist meetings. This caused a division in the party; as many, though secretly retaining their beliefs, preferred outward conformity to the loss of their benefices, whilst the extremists of the party left the country and settled in Holland, Here they were for a time called Brownists, after one who had been their leader in separation, but later they took the name of Independents, as indicating their peculiar theory of the governmental independence of each separate congregation. From these Brownists came the “Pilgrim Fathers” who, on 6 December, 1620, sailed from Plymouth in the “Mayflower”, and settled in New England.
With the death of Elizabeth the hopes of the Puritans revived. Their system of doctrine and government was dominant in Scotland, and they hoped that the Scottish King James might be induced to extend it to England. So they met him on his way to London with their Millenary Petition, so called though the signatories numbered only about eight hundred. In this document they were prudent enough not to raise the question of episcopal government, but contented themselves for the time with a request that the ritual customs which they disliked might be discontinued in the State Church. James promised them a conference which met the next year at Hampton Court to consider their grievances, and in which they were represented by four of their leaders. These had some sharp encounters with the bishops and chief Anglican divines, but, whilst the Puritans were set more on domination than toleration, the king was wholly on the side of the Anglicans, who in this hour of their triumph were in no mood for concessions. Accordingly the conference proved abortive, and the very same year Archbishop Bancroft, with the king’s sanction, carried through Convocation and at once enforced the canons known as those of 1604. The purpose of this campaign was to restore the use of the rites in question, which, in defiance of the existing law, the Puritan incumbents had succeeded in putting down in a great number of parishes. This result was effected to some extent for the time, but a quarter of a century later, when Laud began his campaign for the restoration of decency and order, in other words, for the enforcement of the customs to which the Puritans objected, he was met by opposition so widespread and deep-rooted that, though ultimately it had lasting results, the immediate effect was to bring about his own fall and contribute largely to the outbreak of the Rebellion, the authors of which were approximately co-extensive with the Puritan party.
During the Civil War and the Commonwealth the Puritan mobs wrecked the churches, the bishops were imprisoned and the primate beheaded, the supremacy over the Church was transferred from the Crown to the Parliament, the Solemn League and Covenant was accepted for the whole nation, and the Westminster Assembly, almost entirely composed of Puritans, was appointed as a permanent committee for the reform of the Church. Next the Anglican clergy were turned out of their benefices to make way for Puritans, in whose behalf the Presbyterian form of government was introduced by Parliament. But though this was now the authorized settlement, it was found impossible to check the vagaries of individual opinion. A religious frenzy seized the country, and sects holding the most extravagant doctrines sprang up and built themselves conventicles. There was licence for all, save for popery and prelacy, which were now persecuted with equal severity. When Cromwell attained to power, a struggle set in between the Parliament which was predominantly Presbyterian, and the army which was predominantly Independent. The disgust of all sober minds with the resulting pandemonium had much to do with creating the desire for the Restoration, and when this was accomplished in 1660 measures were at once taken to undo the work of the interregnum. The bishops were restored to their sees, and the vacancies filled. The Savoy Conference was held in accordance with the precedence of Hampton Court Conference of 1604, but proved similarly abortive. The Convocation in 1662 revised the Prayer Book in an anti-Puritan direction, and, the Declaration of Breda notwithstanding, it was at once enforced. All holding benefices in the country were to use this revised Prayer Book on and after the Feast of St. Bartholomew of that year. It was through this crisis that the term Nonconformist obtained it technical meaning. When the feast came round a large number who refused to conform were evicted. It is in dispute between Nonconformist and Anglican writers how many these were, and what were their characters: the Nonconformist writers (see Calamy, “Life of Baxter”) maintain that they exceeded 2000, while Kennett and other reduce that number considerably, contending that in the majority of cases the hardship was not so grave. At least it must be acknowledged that the victims were suffering only what they, in the days of their power, had inflicted on their opponents, for many of whom the ejection of the Puritans meant a return to their own. The fact that they organized themselves outside the Established Church under the name of Nonconformists, naturally made them the more offensive to the authorities of Church and State, and, during the remainder of the reign of Charles II, they were the victims of several oppressive measures. In 1661 the Corporation Act incapacitated from holding office in any corporation all who did not first qualify by taking the sacrament according to the Anglican rite; in 1664 the Conventicle Act inflicted the gravest penalties on all who took part in any private religious service at which more than five persons, in addition to the family were present; in 1665 the Five Mile Act made liable to imprisonment any Nonconformist minister who, not having taken an oath of non-resistance, came within five miles of a town without obtaining leave; and in 1673 the scope of the Corporation Act was extended by the Test Act.
In 1672 Charles II attempted to mitigate the lot of the Nonconformists by publishing a Declaration of Indulgence in which he used in their favour the dispensing power, till then recognized as vested in the Crown. But Parliament, meeting the next year, forced him to withdraw this Declaration, and in return passed the Test Act, which extended the scope of the Corporation Act. James II, though despotic and tactless in his methods like all the Stuarts, was, whatever prejudiced historians have said to the contrary, a serious believer in religious toleration for all, and was, in fact, the first who sought to impress that ideal on the legislature of his country by his two Declarations of Indulgence, in 1687-88, he dispensed Nonconformists just as much as Catholics from their religious disabilities, and his act was received by the former with a spontaneous outburst of gratitude. it was not to their credit that shortly after they should have been induced to cast in their lot with the Revolution on the assurance that it would give them all the liberties promised King James without the necessity of sharing them with Catholics. This promise was, however, only imperfectly carried out by the Toleration Act of 1689, which permitted the free exercise of their religion to all Trinitarian Protestants, but did not relieve them of their civil disabilities. Some, accordingly, of their number practiced what was called Occasional Conformity, that is, received the Anglican sacrament just once so as to qualify. This caused much controversy and led eventually in 1710 to the Occasional Conformity Act, which was devised to check it. This Act was repealed in 1718, but many of the Nonconformists themselves disapproved of the practice on conscientious grounds, and, though it was often resorted to and caused grave scandals, those who resorted to it cannot be fairly taken as representatives of their sects. The Test Act was not repealed till 1828, the year before the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed; the Catholics and the Nonconformists combined their forces to obtain both objects.
Although by the passing of the Toleration Act of 1689 the condition of the Nonconformists was so much ameliorated, they lapsed in the second quarter of the eighteenth century into the prevailing religious torpor, and seemed to be on the verge of extinction. They were rescued from this state by the outbreak of the great Methodist movement, which resulted both in arousing the existing Dissenting sects to a new vigour, and in adding another which exceeded them all in number and enthusiasm.
———————————–
SYDNEY F. SMITH Transcribed by Jim Holden
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Nonconformists
a term which has come into use in quite recent times as a general designation of Protestant Dissenters (q.v.). It is sometimes given in a general sense to all sectaries who, at any period in English history since the establishment of Protestantism, have refused to conform to the doctrine and practices of the Episcopal Church. It is, however, more frequently used in a restricted sense to denote the two thousand clergymen who, in 1662 two years after the Restoration left the Church of England, rather than submit to the conditions of the Act of Uniformity. SEE NONCONFORMITY.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Nonconformists
dissenters from the church of England; but the term applies more particularly to those ministers who were ejected from their livings by the Act of Uniformity in 1662; the number of whom, according to Dr. Calamy, was nearly two thousand; and to the laity who adhered to them. The celebrated Mr. Locke says, Bartholomew-day (the day fixed by the Act of Uniformity) was fatal to our church and religion, by throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines, who could not come up to this and other things in that act. And it is worth your knowledge, that so great was the zeal in carrying on this church affair, and so blind was the obedience required, that if you compare the time of passing the act with the time allowed for the clergy to subscribe the book of Common Prayer thereby established, you shall plainly find, it could not be printed and distributed, so as one man in forty could have seen and read the book before they did so perfectly assent and consent thereto.
By this act, the clergy were required to subscribe, ex animo, [sincerely,] their assent and consent to all and every thing contained in the book of Common Prayer, which had never before been insisted on, so rigidly as to deprive them of their livings and livelihood. Several other acts were passed about this time, very oppressive both to the clergy and laity. In the preceding year 1661, the Corporation Act incapacitated all persons from offices of trust and honour in a corporation, who did not receive the sacrament in the established church. The Conventicle Act, in 1663 and 1670, forbade the attendance at conventicles; that is, at places of worship other than the establishment, where more than five adults were present beside the resident family; and that under penalties of fine and imprisonment by the sentence of magistrates without a jury. The Oxford Act of 1665 banished nonconforming ministers five miles from any corporate town sending members to parliament, and prohibited them from keeping or teaching schools. The Test Act of the same year required all persons, accepting any office under government, to receive the sacrament in the established church.
Such were the dreadful consequences of this intolerant spirit, that it is supposed that near eight thousand died in prison in the reign of Charles II. It is said that Mr. Jeremiah White had carefully collected a list of those who had suffered between Charles II and the revolution, which amounted to sixty thousand. The same persecutions were carried on in Scotland; and there, as well as in England, numbers, to avoid the persecution, left their country. But, notwithstanding all these dreadful and furious attacks upon the dissenters, they were not extirpated. Their very persecution was in their favour. The infamous character of their informers and persecutors; their piety, zeal, and fortitude, no doubt, had influence on considerate minds; and, indeed, they had additions from the established church, which several clergymen in this reign deserted as a persecuting church, and took their lot among them. King William coming to the throne, the famous Toleration Act passed, by which they were exempted from suffering the penalties above mentioned, and permission was given them to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. In the reign of George III, the Act for the Protection of Religious Worship superseded the Act of Toleration, by still more liberal provisions in favour of religious liberty; and in the last reign the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed.