Did England have covenanters?

[Sam Jer]

What happened to the English Presbyterian non-conformists after 1662? Did the ejected ministers of such persuations survive, preservere and maintain some sort of presence? Or were they succesfully supressed and forced out of existance?
If there was such a movement, did they have any ties with the Covenanters in Scotland?

Does the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales (EPCEW) have historical ties to the non-conformists, or is it the result of Presbyterianism being re-planted much later along the line?

 

[Theoretical]

What happened to the English Presbyterian non-conformists after 1662? Did the ejected ministers of such persuations survive, preservere and maintain some sort of presence? Or were they succesfully supressed and forced out of existance?
If there was such a movement, did they have any ties with the Covenanters in Scotland?

Does the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales (EPCEW) have historical ties to the non-conformists, or is it the result of Presbyterianism being re-planted much later along the line?

The Presbyterians in England fell off a cliff both due to the persecution and internal decline. My understanding is that English Presbyterianism by the 1700s had a lot of Unitarian and Socinian tendencies. Orthodoxy seemed to be situated in the low church Anglican (typically folks less particular about the Book of Common Prayer one way or another and ditto with bishops) and dissenting independent sides (such as the Particular Baptists and some Congregationalists) more than it did in the middle.

The EPCEW is only about 30-40 years old and started with a Presbyterian conference in London in the 1980s, coalescing into a denomination in the mid-1990s. Some friends and I recently got to hear the Oxford church pastor when he visited, and that church's story is impressive.

 

[Sam Jer]

Orthodoxy seemed to be situated in the low church Anglican (typically folks less particular about the Book of Common Prayer one way or another and ditto with bishops)

Are hese the ones who took oaths to conform to the approved liturgies, accept the king's headship of the church and abjure the covenant? Or am I mixing categories?
Also, this raises the question of whether there was a puritan holdout within the established Church of England, and what happened with it.

 

[Northern Crofter]

Also, this raises the question of whether there was a puritan holdout within the established Church of England

Yes, they were known as Separatists, but they were not homogenous and not necessarily presbyterian or supportive of continuing the attainments of the SL&C.

 

[Sam Jer]

Based on the answers here, it would seem that:
- Some Puritan Presbyterian mimisters did not subscribe to the prayerbook, and preached in conventicles. Many of these assemblies ended up tolerating heresy. Wikipedia suggests those who didn't were in close cooperation with the occasional Scottish immigrant's church. By the 20th century they became liberal and joined the United Reformed Church. Remaining conservative Presbyterians eventually formed EPCEW.
- Other Puritan Presbyterian ministers did not subscribe to the prayerbook, and remained in the King's church, effectively acting as laypeople.
- Other's still took the oaths, abjured the covenant and became lowchurch Anglicans.

Is that accurate?

 

[Theoretical]

Based on the answers here, it would seem that:
- Some Puritan Presbyterian mimisters did not subscribe to the prayerbook, and preached in conventicles. Many of these assemblies ended up tolerating heresy. Wikipedia suggests those who didn't were in close cooperation with the occasional Scottish immigrant's church. By the 20th century they became liberal and joined the United Reformed Church. Remaining conservative Presbyterians eventually formed EPCEW.
- Other Puritan Presbyterian ministers did not subscribe to the prayerbook, and remained in the King's church, effectively acting as laypeople.
- Other's still took the oaths, abjured the covenant and became lowchurch Anglicans.

Is that accurate?

That seems to be my understanding. I'd tend to be looking at it from the 18th and 19th century perspectives more than those who specifically conformed or did not conform with the 1662 Great Ejection. The soundness or non-soundness of late 17th century English Presbyterians I know relatively little about. It's their children and especially grandchildren where the differences seem to manifest themselves most.

The parallel lives of John Newton and Richard Price I think give some insight. I recently read a biography of Newton that outlined his dilemma between being a dissenting vs an Anglican minister. Price was a liberal Presbyterian/Unitarian who was quite the radical supporter of the American Revolution and a top Welsh public intellectual in the 18th century (I studied him for my undergraduate political science thesis research).

Newton was fairly doctrinally broad in the mainstream of the Reformed faith, so he could have gone in either a dissenting or established direction. He ultimately was ordained by a bishop who accepted some minor scruples about the Prayer Book on Newton's part (whether the bishop was really allowed to or not is a different question). The biography outlined not just the prestige/class difference between the dissenting chapels and the established church but also that there were sound men in both bodies.

Price was a top intellectual in Unitarian and liberal circles and had been born to a dissenting family. As with many of the American intellectuals, the Enlightenment rationalism showed up quite a bit in his political and religious thinking. He seems to have been a key influence on Mary Wollstonecraft who had become a parishioner.

 

[Sam Jer]

That seems to be my understanding. I'd tend to be looking at it from the 18th and 19th century perspectives more than those who specifically conformed or did not conform with the 1662 Great Ejection. The soundness or non-soundness of late 17th century English Presbyterians I know relatively little about. It's their children and especially grandchildren where the differences seem to manifest themselves most.

The parallel lives of John Newton and Richard Price I think give some insight. I recently read a biography of Newton that outlined his dilemma between being a dissenting vs an Anglican minister. Price was a liberal Presbyterian/Unitarian who was quite the radical supporter of the American Revolution and a top Welsh public intellectual in the 18th century (I studied him for my undergraduate political science thesis research).

Newton was fairly doctrinally broad in the mainstream of the Reformed faith, so he could have gone in either a dissenting or established direction. He ultimately was ordained by a bishop who accepted some minor scruples about the Prayer Book on Newton's part (whether the bishop was really allowed to or not is a different question). The biography outlined not just the prestige/class difference between the dissenting chapels and the established church but also that there were sound men in both bodies.

Price was a top intellectual in Unitarian and liberal circles and had been born to a dissenting family. As with many of the American intellectuals, the Enlightenment rationalism showed up quite a bit in his political and religious thinking. He seems to have been a key influence on Mary Wollstonecraft who had become a parishioner.

So there is a direct historical continuity from the Westminster Assembly to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales?

 

[iainduguid]

So there is a direct historical continuity from the Westminster Assembly to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales?

There is a direct spiritual continuity between them, but the history of Presbyterianism in England is fraught with challenges. Many of them became Unitarians in the 18th century. The 19th century Presbyterian church was largely an ethnic church for Scottish exiles and never completely overcame it's foreignness (there's a reason so many of them were named St Andrew's or St Columba's). The makeup of Cambridge Presbyterian, one of the first EPCEW churches, was an eclectic mix of Scots, Welsh, Americans, Dutch, Northern Irish, and devotees of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I was probably one of the few that had spent time in an English United Reformed Church growing up (the combination of Congregational and Presbyterian churches; not to be confused with the US version), and I owed it nothing theologically for it had nothing to give. Anyone who sees no difficulties merging Congregationalism with Presbyterianism isn't generally much into theology. The International Presbyterian Church, as its name suggests, was an import, with two strongly Francis Schaefer/L'abri influenced English speaking churches and a number of Korean churches. Both churches have grown and prospered (by UK standards), with the EPCEW being more like the OPC and the IPC being more like the PCA, but neither one really claims any direct line of historical continuity to the English state church of the 17th century, which was, after all, only very briefly Presbyterian.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

There is a history of English Presbyterianism by Drysdale, History of the Presbyterians in England: Their Rise, Decline and Revival (1889). He was perhaps overly optimistic about their revival? One or both of the Carruthers (historians and the then text experts on the Westminster Standards) were associated with English Presbyterians, if I'm not misremembering.