Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T18:17:16.420Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Organizational Response of Nonconformity to Repression and Indulgence: The Case of Bedfordshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Richard L. Greaves
Richard L. Greaves
Affiliation:
Professor of history in The Florida State University, Tallahassee.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the 1670s John Bunyan and his Nonconformist colleagues put into effect an organizational plan developed during the imprisonment years prior to 1672. The purpose of the plan was to provide a network of preachers and teachers in the local villages throughout northern Bedfordshire and contiguous areas that would be strong enough to withstand further persecution. As the plan was put into effect, it brought Bunyan into closer contact with other Nonconformists to the south and east, as far away as London. Ironically the plan was formulated when Bunyan and others were imprisoned together at Bedford for their Nonconformity. Their success vividly illustrates the failure of the Stuart government to suppress these men of faith.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 472 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The Christian Progress of That Ancient Servant and Minister of Jesus Christ, George Whitchead (1725), p. 346.Google Scholar

2. William Y. Tindall attributes the absence of publication between 1666 and 1672 to “the profound silence in which Bunyan contemplated the approach of the millennium from 1666 to 1682… ” Tindall, , Bunyan, John, Mechanick Preacher (New York, 1934), p.132.Google Scholar The silence is better attributed to Bunyan's preaching forays and organizational work in these years.

3. Wigfield, W. M., “Recusancy and Nonconformity in Bedfordshire: Illustrated by Select Documents between 1622 and 1842,” Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Records Society (hereafter PBHRS) 20 (1938): 167–169.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., 20: 170–171.

5. The Church Book of Bunyan Meeting, 1650–1821, facsimile ed. with introd. by G. B. Harrison (1928), p. 21.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., pp. 24–25.

7. Ibid., p. 26.

8. Dr. Williams Library (hereafter DWL), Rix MS. 38. 111, fols. 23, 25; Matthews, A. G.. ed., Calamy Revised (Oxford, 1934),Google Scholar s.v.

9. DWL, Turner MS. 89. 18, Bedfordshire, fol.31.

10. Wigfield, , “Recusancy”, pp. 171–172.Google Scholar

11. Turner, G. Lyon, ed., Original Records of Nonconformity under Persecution and Indulgence (1911–1914), 1:63.Google Scholar

12. Wigfield dates the lapse of the Act May 9, 1668; see “Recusancy,” p. 149. R. Tudor Jones gives March 1, 1669; see his Congregationalism in England, 1662–1692 (1962), p. 69.Google Scholar G. Lyon Turner has Desember 19, 1667; see Original Records, 3:45.Google Scholar Jones appears correct. See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic 1668–1669, pp. 256–257.Google Scholar

13. Ogg, David, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1956), pp. 341–342.Google Scholar

14. The Statutes of the Realm (1810–1828), 5:648–651.Google Scholar See Lee, Maurice Jr, The Cabal (Urbana, IIlinois, 1965), pp. 180–181Google Scholar; Cragg, Gerald R., Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution, 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 16–18.Google Scholar

15. A True and Impartial Narrative of Some Illegal and Arbitrary Proceedings… in or near the Town of Bedford (1670), pp. 3, 6–9.Google Scholar

16. Cited, in Wigfield, , “Recusancy,” p. 179.Google Scholar

17. Cardwell, Edward, ed., Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England (Oxford, 1844), 2: 333–337.Google Scholar

18. Bate, Frank, The Declaration of Indulgence, 1672 (1908), p. 100.Google Scholar

19. Whitehead, , The Christian Progress, pp. 350–359.Google Scholar

20. SirReresby, John, Memoirs & Travels. ed. Ivatt, Albert (1904). p. 150.Google Scholar Reresby was appointed High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and in 1675 was elected M.P. for Aldborough.

21. Bray, William, ed., Diary of John Evelyn (1906), 2:276Google Scholar (entry for March 12, 1672). See Lee, , The Cabal, pp. 189–191.Google Scholar

22. It is reproduced in Brown, John, John Bunyan: His Life, Times and Work, rev. ed., Harrison, Frank Mott (1928), between pp. 216–217.Google Scholar

23. For its history see Tibbutt, H. G., Keysoe Brook End and Keysoe Row Baptist Churches (Keysoe, 1959).Google Scholar

24. Turner, , Original Records, 1: 66.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., 1:65.

26. Tibbutt, H. G. ed., Some Eariy Nonconformist Church Books, PBHRS 51 (1972): 20Google Scholar; Tibbutt, . Keysoe Brook End, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

27. Tibbutt, , Nonconformist Church Books, p. 20.Google Scholar

28. Ibid.

29. Turner, , Original Records, 1: 68;Google Scholar 2:857.

30. Church Book, pp.86–87.

31. Ibid., pp. 27, 50–51.

32. Brown, , John Bunyan, p. 394.Google Scholar

33. Turner, , Church Book, p. 25.Google Scholar

34. Turner, , Original Records, 1:63.Google Scholar

35. Church Book, pp. 50–51.

36. Ibid., p. 70.

37. Turner, , Original Records, 1:64.Google Scholar

38. Church Book, p. 19.

39. Ibid., pp. 21, 25, 26.

40. Ibid., p. 26.

41. Turner, , Original Records, 2:855Google Scholar; DWL, Turner MS. 89. 18, Bedfordshire, fols. 26–28.

42. Church Book, pp. 50–51.

43. DWL, Turner MS, 89, 18, Bedfordshire, fols. 23, 23a-c.

44. Church Book, pp. 16, 26, 70.

45. Ibid., pp. 27, 44–46, 49–52, 54.

46. Whitley, W. T., The Baptists of London, 1612–1928 [1928], p. 105.Google Scholar

47. DWL, Turner MS 89. 18, Bedfordshire, fol. 41.

48. Church Book, pp. 29, 51, 66, 75; Turner, Turner, Original Records, 1:37–64.Google Scholar

49. Turner, , Original Records, 1:66.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., p. 37.

51. Church Book, pp. 29, 51.

52. Ibid., pp. 32–34, 52, 53.

53. Ibid., p. 53.

54. Turner, , Orignal Records, 1:37.Google Scholar

55. Church Book, pp. 29, 51.

56. Tibbutt, , Nonconformist Church Books, p. 23.Google ScholarChurch Books, p. 81.

57. Turner, , Original Records, 1:64–65.Google Scholar

58. Matthews, Calamy Revised, s.v.

59. DWL, Turner MS. 89. 18, Bedfordshire, fols. 17:18.

60. Church Book, p. 20.

61. Tibbutt, , Nonconformist Church Books, pp. 28, 30.Google Scholar

62. Ibid., p. 26.

63. Ibid., p. 29.

64. Ibid., pp. 7–8.

65. Church Book, p. 16.

66. Ibid., p. 20.

67. Ibid., pp. 44–45.

68. Tibbutt, , Nonconformist Church Books, p.5.Google Scholar

69. Matthews, Galamy Revised, s.v.; Coleman, Thomas, Memorials of the Independent Churches in Northamptonshire (1853), pp. 344–345.Google Scholar

70. Matthews, Calamy Revised, s.v.; Turner, , Original Records, 3:407ff.Google Scholar; Cater, F. Ives, Northamptonshire Nonconformity 250 Years Ago (Northampton, 1912), pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

71. Turner, , Original Records, 1:83.Google Scholar

72. Cited in Frederick Bull, W., “History of the Independent Church, Newport Pagnell,” Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society 4 (1909–1910): 262.Google Scholar

73. Church Book, pp. 21, 24.

74. Cited in Bull, “History of the Independent Church,” p. 260.

75. Martin, R. G., The Chapel, 1660–1960: The Story of the Congregational Church, Newport Pagnell, Bucks. (Newport Pagnell, 1961), p. 4.Google Scholar

76. Church Book, p.26.

77. Turner, , Original Records, 1:68, 84.Google Scholar

78. Williams, W., Concerning the Ministers Ejected in 1662 in North Bucks and North Oxon, and the Conventicles Held Therein in 1669 and 1672 (Aylesbury, 1912), p. 12.Google Scholar

79. Hewett, Maurice F., “John Gibbs, 1627–1699,” The Baptist Quarterly 3 (1926–1927): 320–321.Google Scholar

80. Matthews, Calamy Revised, s.v.; Bull, “John Gibbs,” Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society 10 (1927–1929):81–87Google Scholar; [Garnerl, J. J.], History of the Congregatioiwl Church at Olney (Olney, Buekinghamshire, 1929), pp.3–4.Google Scholar

81. Church Book, p. 16.

82. Ibid., p. 51.

83. Ibid., pp. 20–22.

84. Ibid., p. 26.

85. See R. L. Greaves, “John Bunyan and Nonconformity in the Midlands and East Anglia,” Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society (forthcoming).