Page "Puritan" Paragraph 13

Dividing themselves from all Christians in the Church of England, the Dissenters established their own separatist congregations in the 1660s and 1670s ; an estimated 1, 800 of the ejected clergy continued in some fashion as ministers of religion ( according to Richard Baxter ).

The government initially attempted to suppress these schismatic organizations by the Clarendon Code.

There followed a period in which schemes of " comprehension " were proposed, under which presbyterians could be brought back into the Church of England ; nothing resulted from them.

The Whigs, opposing the court religious policies, argued that the Dissenters should be allowed to worship separately from the established Church, and this position ultimately prevailed when the Toleration Act was passed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution ( 1689 ).

This permitted the licensing of Dissenting ministers and the building of chapels.

The term Nonconformist generally replaced the term " Dissenter " from the middle of the eighteenth century.