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
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.
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