The Great Ejectment of 1662

Its Antecedents, Aftermath, and Ecumenical Significance

Alan P.F. Sell, Sell

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610973885
  9781498260428
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630875725
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

By Bartholomew's Day, 24 August, 1662, all ministers and schoolmasters in England and Wales were required by the Act of Uniformity to have given their "unfeigned assent and consent" to the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. On theological grounds nearly two thousand ministers--approximately one fifth of the clergy of the Church of England--refused to comply and thereby forfeited their livings. This book has been written to commemorate the 350th Anniversary of the Great Ejectment. In Part One three early modern historians provide accounts of the antecedents and aftermath of the ejectment in England and Wales, while in Part Two the case is advanced that the negative responses of the ejected ministers to the legal requirements of the Act of Uniformity were rooted in positive doctrinal convictions that are of continuing ecumenical significance.

Part One: Historical

1

The Growth of Puritanism c.1559–16621

John Gwynfor Jones

Historians have differed in their definition of ‘Puritanism’ in Elizabethan England and the impact it had in a period that saw far-reaching changes in politics, social life, and economy as well as religion. A. G. Dickens, Patrick Collinson, Peter Lake, Christopher Haigh, Paul Christianson, and Basil Hall among several others have attempted to evaluate what constituted the Puritan ethos and have come to varying conclusions.2 It was the Puritan Richard Baxter who stated in 1680 that those who were called Puritans were ‘the most serious, conscionable, practical, sober and charitable Christians that ever he knew . . . the apple of God’s eye.’3 Such a definition was far too rash, vague, and contradictory when it is considered that he had already three years earlier stated that ‘Puritan . . . is an ambiguous ill-made word used in many ways.’4 There are many other more dispassionate concepts of Puritanism that are offered according to the manner in which historians and theologians interpret a movement and period which were to have a tremendous impact on the history of a wide spectrum of historical experience over the last five centuries. What is broadly acceptable to most historians, however, is that Puritans, unlike conformist Protestants, believed more intensely in the need for further reform in the Elizabethan settlement of 1559 while remaining within the Church. They were also known as precisionists because of their attention to duties of conduct, especially with regard to religious observance. That was reflected in their pietism and discipline and their firm adherence to Calvinist teachings. They comprised moderate as well as extreme minority groups who, created a ‘religious sub-culture’ separate from Protestant conformism attempting to amalgamate various interpretations of the Scriptures. ‘The meaning of Puritanism,’ Collinson maintains, ‘is not only doctrine, applied and internalized, but a social situation . . . which contributed to a significant change in the pattern of cultural and social relations.’5

The origins of Puritanism go back before the days of Elizabeth I. Some historians in the past have associated it with the growth of Lollardy in the fifteenth century and the anabaptism movement on the continent. While it cannot be denied that there were traits that might be associated with earlier movements, the chief features of English Puritanism were its connections with Genevan Calvinism rather than with Barrowites and Brownists, the seed of future separatism.6 The reformist exiles that returned to England on Elizabeth’s accession were reluctant to conform fully with her new Church Settlement in the following year and aimed to reform it from within.7 In other words, they wished to see the Reformation progress to its natural conclusion, rejecting what they regarded as vestiges of popery in the new Church and the apostolic succession. Puritanism emphasized justification by faith and the literal acceptance of God’s Word in the Scriptures. This lay at the basis of Presbyterianism, the reform movement within the Elizabethan church. To them episcopalianism lay not at the root of the early Christian church but rather was a system, as prescribed in the Book of Acts, based on ministers and elders within a parochial or presbyterial structure and regional synods. That implied that Presbyterianism co-operated with the state but remained independent of it.

On her accession in 1558 Elizabeth I, who had inherited much of her father’s character and determination, regarded her primary task to be to establish her authority in ecclesiastical and secular affairs within her realm. From the outset she set about tackling the problems that threatened the unity of church and state. The Church of England had experienced many upheavals during the previous two decades because changes in religious policies and the long-term impact of her father’s reign had forced Elizabeth, judiciously applying her authority, to face the challenge to defend the realm’s interests at home and abroad. Much was expected of her and the pageants performed on her coronation underlined a strong feeling of a restored Tudor stability. Among the similies used to describe her, one of the most appropriate was that of Deborah, the judge and ‘prophet of Israel,’ who reigned firmly for forty years and became a symbol of power and unity.8 The English realm needed a ruler who would adopt a strong policy at the outset to restore political stability after Mary’s reign. Elizabeth was soon to be regarded as the powerful leader known for her strong will, self-confidence, and arrogance, and although lacking in experience she doubtless possessed remarkable political acumen which made her mindful of the problems that beset her realm on her accession to the throne and Church Settlement. As a younger daughter of Henry VIII, reared as a Protestant, she had to tread carefully. The shadow of Mary’s reign still hung over her and in order to strengthen her realm she soon became aware of the need to establish her rule on firm foundations. She insisted on conformity and made that clear to Archbishop Matthew Parker in a letter on 25 January 1564, barely six years after her accession. She had become aware of ‘diversities of opinion’ and ‘novelties of rites and manners’ which had grown within her realm, and she reminded the primate that she had no intention ‘to have . . . dissension or variety grow, by suffering of persons, which maintain the same, to remain in authority.’ And she continued: ‘yet in sundry places of our realm of late . . . with sufferance of sundry varieties and novelties, not only in opinions, but in external ceremonies and rites, there is crept and brought into the Church by some few persons, abounding more in their own senses then wisdom would, and delighting in singularies and changes, an open and manifest disorder, and offence to the godly, wise and obedient persons, by diversity of opinions, and specially in the external decent, and lawful rites and ceremonies to bee used in the churches.’9

Bishops in their dioceses, particularly the remoter ones, found it a frustrating task to enforce obedience to the new religious settlement. John Best, Bishop of Carlisle, for example, had to contend with the hostility of conservative Catholic families of aristocratic stock, such as the Dacres and Cliffords, and he despondently reported to Sir William Cecil, the Queen’s Chief Secretary, in January 1562:

The rulers and justices of peace wink at all things and look through their fingers. For my exhortation to have such punished I have had privy displeasure. Before the great men came into these...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contributors
• Preface
• Part 1: Historical
• Chapter 1: The Growth of Puritanism c.1559–1662
• Chapter 2: From Ejectment to Toleration in England, 1662–89
• Chapter 3: From Ejectment to Toleration in Wales, 1662–89
• Part 2: Theological
• Chapter 4: The Doctrinal and Ecumenical Significance of the Great Ejectment