The Origins of Dissent and the Evangelical Revival

A nonconformist tradition within the parish churches of Horsley and Minchinhampton can be traced back to Henry Stubbs, the Puritan preacher who held the benefice of Horsley from 1665 to 1678. Stubbs had not actually taken Holy Orders, and the poor quality of the parish records during his tenure probably reflected a wish to remain inconspicuous by minimizing the performance of baptisms, marriages, and burials.^[8] Stubbs's survival at Horsley, during a period of anti-Puritan reaction in the Church, can be attributed to the leniency of the local authorities and ultimately to the puritan sympathies of the substantial clothiers of the region.^[9] In 1669 the Privy Council complained to Gloucester's Lord Lieutenant about the conventicles that "of late assemble in greater numbers and more dareing than formerly . . . from they're not being suppressed by the Justices of the Peace."^[10] Among these assemblies they cited the example of an open air meeting at Minchinhampton at which forty auditors listened to an unidentified butcher and another speaker called "Mr. Stubbs."^[11] The Privy Councillors enjoined the local authorities to consult one another "about the speedy suppression of th[is] dangerous tumult" and to use "military power to suppress [it] . . . along with the civil power."^[12] In addition, they required the churchwardens of several parishes to "present the names of all kinds of persons [who] come not to your church as well as lewd and profane persons . . . [whom] you may grant your warrants to."^[13]

Although the local magistrates and churchwardens clearly disobeyed these instructions, Stubbs still felt considerable pressure to

flee. "He evidently found his position untenable," remarked one local historian, "for . . . he ejected himself and retired to London" in 1678, joining his friend Richard Baxter, the great Presbyterian Divine and proponent of a moderate Calvinist theology.^[14] Stubbs's tenure at Horsley revealed an ambivalence toward dissent on the part of the Anglican gentry that later facilitated the proliferation of Nonconformist churches. As the severity of persecutions under the Clarendon Code waned, and limited toleration was legalized, practical collaboration between Anglicans and Dissenters became more widely accepted, although not all Dissenters adapted to this development with equal speed. The Society of Friends, because of its distinctive discipline, suffered disabilities the longest, while the Congregationalist church at Forest Green effected a reconciliation quite early, with important consequences for its later history.

The Congregationalists occupied an intermediary position between the Quakers and the Baptists in the history of Dissent at Nailsworth. In church organization they moved away from Presbyterianism, which resembled the Quaker order, toward Independency, which the Baptists adopted in imitation of them. Doctrinally, they adhered to a moderate Calvinist theology that the Baptists also eventually imitated. Yet they differed from the Baptists in the practice of infant baptism and in their ambivalence toward the Evangelical Revival, once that great movement gained momentum.

The Forest Green Congregationalists were the first Nailsworth Dissenters to attract a significant following. They erected their meetinghouse in 1668, but prior to this date had held their "conventicle" in Colliers's Wood, near Forest Green, in order to evade persecution. Their founding of a chapel coincided with their abandonment of Presbyterianism in favor of a Congregationalist church order.^[15] In 1687 "persons of repute in Nailsworth and its neighborhood availed themselves of King James's Indulgence and purchased the plot of ground on which the [meeting] house stands."^[16] These "persons of repute," although very likely associated with the Church of England, clearly had Puritan sympathies; perhaps they had been the same ones who saved Henry Stubbs from the central authorities.^[17]

In 1677 Phillip Sheppard, lord of the manor at Minchinhampton, leased the plot of ground that became the site of the chapel

(situated on a "common or waste called Forest Green") to Richard Barnard, clothworker. Barnard, in turn, sold the lease for £4 to Aaron Osborn, cordwainer and Richard Bird, broadweaver.^[18] The £4, however, was paid by several individuals in whose names the property was then assigned and who, a year later, were mentioned in a conveyance as trustees of the meetinghouse that had been built in the interval. Three clothiers, two dyers, and one maltster were among the seven mentioned,^[19] but it cannot be assumed that all were leading members of the chapel at this time.^[20] By covering the purchase price of the ground and serving as trustees, they appear to have acted as patrons of more humble Dissenters. Why else would they have needed a cordwainer and a broadweaver to act as surrogates for them? Puritan sympathies had probably compelled them to give support, despite their continuing loyalty to the Church of England. Indeed, until the erection of the Anglican chapel at Nailsworth in 1794, the Forest Green Church "[had been] attended by many of the Established Church laity."^[21]

The practice of open communion adopted at Forest Green made possible Anglican attendance at services and the paternalist exercise of trusteeship. In the early eighteenth century, especially, this meant that Anglicans could exercise a social predominance enforced by a novel species uniformity. The waning of Puritan "enthusiasm" permitted Anglicans and Congregationalists to converge in the mutual adoption of a more rational theology, grounded in the moderation or abandonment of Calvinism.^[22] Anglican patronage therefore undercut the dissenting edge of Nonconformity. The social and political consensus this created persisted until the 1740s, when the beginning of the Evangelical Revival disrupted it.

"Enthusiasm" experienced a powerful rebirth with the appearance at Minchinhampton Common in 1743 of George Whitefield, the founder of Calvinistic Methodism. An anti-Methodist riot accompanied his appearance and polarized relations between Anglicans and Dissenters.^[23] In 1747 the middle- and upper-class trustees of the Forest Green Church suddenly curtailed their relations with it, thereby registering the impact of Whitefield's preaching.^[24] Early evangelicalism had made Congregationalism momentarily more plebeian and sectarian. Still, enthusiasm laid the groundwork for whatever future prosperity the Forest Green

Church would enjoy and offered a basis for the new Anglican-Nonconformist consensus, which emerged in the late eighteenth century.

The extent of the Forest Green Church's prosperity after 1750 is difficult to measure because of the paucity of its records.^[25] We must rely mainly on the narrative of a Chapel history composed in 1849 by one of the church's ministers. From this history, and from the demographic records analyzed later,^[26] the Congregationalists appear to have occupied an intermediary position, in the chronology of their settlement and in their relative strength after 1780, between the Society of Friends and the Shortwood Baptists. The history of the Forest Green Church is of interest primarily because it represented an Independent tradition that proved a comparative failure. Although the Revival affected its members earlier than it did the Baptists, they do not seem to have sustained their enthusiasm with equal ardor. Certainly there were great enthusiasts among them, such as William Biggs, whose conversion experience epitomized the meaning of millenarianism. Biggs had had terrible dreams about sin, and one in particular proved instrumental in his conversion:

He says that he saw in the middle of the night a strange representation in the heavens which appeared directed to him, it awoke him in a awful state of terror and alarm—he felt as though instant destruction awaited him, his sins appeared in their naked deformity—he felt himself as if he were sinking beneath their load; so great was the mental distress on this occassion that the perspiration issued from the pores of his body—he struggled to his knees, and there begged for mercy—he prayed, cried, wrestled—at length he saw . . . a representation of the great Redeemer, shining in the glory of the Godhead, looking toward him with pardon and love bespoken in his very countenance—this his heart instantly seized, and all terminated in gratitude inexpressible—he now dreaded the thought of ever committing another sin.^[27]

Still, the membership's rigid insistence on infant baptism, which led to the resignation of at least one minister,^[28] in the long term detracted from the evangelical emphasis on conversion. What an historian of early Methodism said of John Wesley applies with singular aptness to the entire evangelical movement: "The birthday of a Christian was . . . shifted from his baptism to his conversion, and in that change the partition line of two great systems is

crossed."^[29] The church's success, however, depended to a considerable degree on the qualities of its ministers, many of whom after 1750 did not always follow an evangelical course. Reverend Jarvis, the pastor from 1753 to 1769, was considered "a man of considerable attainment [who] kept a school of very respectable character,"^[30] which in this period was not likely to predispose him to the "coarseness" then associated with enthusiasm. His appointment seems to have reflected a retreat from enthusiasm by the church and a restabilization of its membership, following the social schism of 1747.

From the 1770s leadership of the church rested in the hands of middle-class individuals such as William Biggs and members of the Thomas family, who were clothiers.^[31] Another pastor, Revd. Frames, who held office from 1788 to 1799, was "a Homerton [Cambridge] student, and rather formal in his mode of preaching";^[32] although the neighborhood regarded him highly, his formidable intellectual style did not attract a large congregation. It was during the ministry of his successor, Revd. Paine (1800-1817), that the church began to tap the resources created by the Revival. Paine was "a preacher with a warm heart and by his ministry large numbers were converted."^[33] Thomas Edkins, who followed him in the ministry, held this position longer than did any other and maintained Paine's evangelical approach.^[34] The schism of 1821, however, which led to the establishment of a second Congregationalist church, severely marred his efforts.

The schism had no explicit doctrinal cause and in two respects reflected the impact of secularizing changes. The desire of the wealthier members to shift the church's location to Lower Forest Green was the heart of the dispute. They hoped to attract a wider audience by proximity to Nailsworth, which had grown into a small town, while those who opposed them clung to older traditions. Both class division and urbanization, therefore, engendered difficulties soon to be compounded by trade depression: high rates of outmigration dealt a near death blow to any immediate chances for the recovery of the Congregationalist influence.

Under these conditions, Edkins was unable to hold together the unraveling thread of church membership. Outmigration was a much greater problem at Lower Forest Green (which retained the great majority of Congregationalists) than at Shortwood, and in

1844 Edkins had to face the virtual collapse of his church. Following his resignation in that year "such was the state of the church that it could scarcely be ascertained who were the acknowledged members."^[35] In 1845 John Burder, minister of the Stroud Congregationalists,^[36] and for many years a leading figure in the political life of the region, helped to reorganize it. By 1851 Congregationalism had recovered sufficiently, but not for very long. "[T]he church seems to have suffered considerably," from the sudden departure of its minister, Revd. Clapham in October 1851;^[37] and Revd. Leifchild, his replacement, was more content to follow his interest in geology than his vocation as minister, reflecting indirectly the negative effect on the church of secularizing trends.

It was not only the quality of the church's ministers that mattered but also continuity in the ministry (see table 17)- Although the Forest Green Church had a few ministers with reasonably long tenures, the general pattern, depicted in table 17, was one of frequent change punctuated by several periods in which the pastorate laid vacant. The Congregationalists began auspiciously, but their membership later fluctuated erratically in proportion to the turnover among their ministers. By contrast, the Shortwood Baptists were small and considerably more doctrinaire at the outset but were led from 1758 by four able ministers, three of whom served for especially long terms, and this continuity contributed greatly to their growth. To appreciate better their later success, it is necessary to set forth the events and conditions surrounding their origins and early history.

The Shortwood Baptist Church was founded in the aftermath of the schism of 1707 that occurred among the Forest Green Congregationalists. The issues were doctrinal and underscored the more conservative character of the schismatics at a time when the Congregationalists were effecting a rapprochement with the Establishment. It was Revd. Giles's "preaching up the Presbyterian Scheme," which touched on the issues of Election and infant baptism, that precipitated the crisis.^[38] William Harding and John Horwood, two broadweavers from Horsley, were troubled by Giles's "Baxterianism," and to obtain doctrinal clarification, they visited the Baptist church at Kings Stanley. There they reaffirmed their high Calvinist principles and their commitment to believers' baptism.^[39] Horwood later succumbed to Giles's persuasiveness,

but Harding did not, and in an effort to sway him Giles agreed to "preach up" the issues in dispute. Giles did so for fourteen consecutive Sundays, but succeeded only in creating more dissatisfaction; fifty members, after another pilgrimage to the Baptist church at Kings Stanley, decided to withdraw from membership at Forest Green.

This schism fit a national pattern. Richard Baxter, the great Presbyterian divine, had introduced Dissenters to a moderate form of Calvinism in the late seventeenth century. "Moderate Calvinism" involved the retreat from a strict adherence to predestinarian doctrine and, correspondingly, a willingness to embrace the idea of

universal redemption. Because it appeared dangerously liberal in its implications, the change produced a number of schisms. As "Baxterianism" spread among Presbyterians in the late seventeenth century, dissatisfied members formed Congregationalist churches, and as the Calvinism of these churches gradually moderated, further schisms occurred that led to the formation of Particular Baptist churches.^[40] In the atmosphere of the early eighteenth century, the Shortwood Baptists were to remain a small and isolated sect. Yet, paradoxically, their survival depended from the outset on sympathizers from the Church of England.

After having withdrawn from the Forest Green Church, the band of schismatics decided to meet at William Harding's home, since the distance of three miles to Kings Stanley seemed prohibitive.^[41] They continued to do so until 1716, when they succeeded in founding a meetinghouse. From a copy of the original trust deed, one can judge just how plebeian were these founders. Six others besides William Harding were broadweavers; one was a clothworker and another a mason.^[42] Their patrons, however, came from middle- and upper-class backgrounds and were often resident at some distance. Henry Allen of Froom, Somerset, a dyer, together with a Mr. Ball, "seeing the people's poverty," gave £10 toward establishing a meetinghouse and raised additional contributions from among their relations.^[43] Among the other trustees were Samuel, Henry's brother and a Bristol druggist; Robert Houlton of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, a clothier; John Grant of Trowbridge, a gentleman; and Samuel Sevil of Bisley and Pains-wick, another gentleman.^[44]

The early Baptist church received the kind of support from Sevil that probably saved it from extinction. By the time of the founding of the meeting house, the original band of schismatics had dwindled to thirteen,^[45] and for the next three years, two others besides Sevil carried on the ministry of the church. One contemporary history described Sevil as being "a young gentleman of Painswick who came of from [sic ] the Church of England and was a very zealous preacher."^[46] He died in 1719 and bequeathed £10 to the church to add an extra room to the meetinghouse,^[47] an act that testfied to his success; and following his death no preaching took place for about four or five months.^[48]

Because of its exclusiveness, the Shortwood church did not

attract a large following for a considerable period. From Sevil's death in 1719 until 1732 only twelve persons joined in fellowship.^[49] Between 1737 and 1752 the church met with greater success, as fifty-four were added to the membership. Yet during the last three years of this period a "perplexed and divided condition" prevailed among the members.^[50] Nor did this atmosphere abate from 1752 to 1757, the period of Samuel Bowen's ministry. Bowen had made the first tentative move toward adopting an evangelical approach, although he lacked the force of personality to make it effective. On his accession, he had insisted that the members "endeavor to make the ordinance of singing more general."^[51] Although the congregation formally agreed to his demand, they "were at one with the Quakers" on this issue and tacitly resisted its implementation. Like the Friends, they valued an austere atmosphere, in keeping with their adherence to high Calvinism. The "unanimity" at Bowen's accession, therefore, "was not lasting, the hopes not realized, the conditions of its acceptance not fulfilled."^[52]

Benjamin Francis's accession to the ministry in 1758, by contrast, marked a great watershed in Shortwood's history. Under his tutelage, the church moderated the High Calvinism of its founders, while informing it with a Methodist-like evangelicalism. Francis imported into the locality from Wales a revivalist approach,^[53] partially inspired by George Whitefield and based doctrinally on moderate Calvinism.^[54] Once Revd. Joshua Thomas of the Leominster Baptist Church had asked him, "When may one conclude that he enjoys God in the performance of Duty?" Francis replied in a manner that testified both to his' evangelical ardor and his belief in Calvinist Free Grace:

When his heart is so filled with sacred joy and overpowered with heavenly light: and when the Holy Spirit witnesseth to his spirit, his Election and Vocation so clearly and irresistibly that he can't forbear breaking out in such language as this, "O, my GOD! My GOD indeed! Now I can't question thy Love: O, I feel it! I feel it!"^[55]

Despite its origins in "Baxterianism," moderate Calvinism was an eclectic doctrine that first Whitefield and then Francis transformed into a radical evangelizing instrument. By reconciling the doctrines of Particular Election and Universal Redemption, mod-

erate Calvinism made possible the conversion of "sinners." The schismatics of 1707, although artisans,^[56] became Baptists because of their adherence to High Calvinism. In the seventeenth century such people often embraced High Calvinist doctrine since it confirmed their belief that God had chosen the "poor" among His elect. Such a doctrine conferred a sense of nobility that uplifted converts psychologically: "Men fought for God's cause and expected it to prevail because it was God's," Christopher Hill has observed. "The humbler the agents of divine Providence, the more manifest God's favor in their success."^[57] In the late eighteenth century, however, when the Industrial Revolution began to fashion a proletariat, the democratic doctrine of universal redemption started to supplant the doctrine of Election in popular favor. These considerably poorer and more dependent people regarded themselves as sinners in need of healing; their spiritual condition became one of "affliction," mirroring their temporal state.

Francis's enthusiasm thus attracted large congregations, and his preaching to neighboring villages led to the growth of the Baptist interest far beyond Shortwood. His itinerant travels covered a range of ninety miles into Worcester and Wiltshire, and he preached for a week at a time over a period of seventeen years.^[58] In 1774 the congregation drew itself from more than fifteen adjacent parishes, a fact offering testimony to the depth of its commitment, since distances of more than two miles in this period were not easily traversed. "Any friend of evangelical religion," one contemporary recalled,

must have enjoyed the sight of the several companies descending the surrounding hills on the Lord's day, to assemble at Shortwood, where on the rising ground above the meeting house one group after another would appear emerging from the woods; some of them coming from ten miles distant and upwards; nor was it uncommon for persons to unite in worship under that roof whose dwellings were thirty miles apart.^[59]

Between 1758 and 1774, when the second major renovation of the Shortwood church fabric took place, the conversion rate averaged 2.1 percent per annum and annual membership levels rose at a rate of 6.5 percent per annum because of the relative immobility of the local population at this time. By February 1775, Francis had added 193 members to the church roll, and the general congrega-

tion in that year stood between 500 and 600 communicants, according to one contemporary estimate.^[60] In 1760, 1774, and again in 1787, the meetinghouse required enlargement in order to accommodate the growing number of members and hearers.^[61]

The composition of Francis's audience also began to change. Under his ministry the church drew its leaders primarily from among the middle class, while "the general congregation consist[ed] of clothworking people."^[62] Francis often spoke of "my poor affectionate people at Horsley," a phrase he meant literally. Referring once to their ability to give him a higher salary, he observed; "I have discountenanced them from doing this hitherto; they can make but a dull sound in the harping upon this string while their own circumstances are so extremely indigent."^[63]

Thomas Flint, who succeeded Francis as minister, gave an equally apt description of the congregation, linking its social status to its spiritual condition. In a diary entry, circa 1800, he commented: "Many residing at a considerable distance—poor and afflicted—and requiring a degree of watchful superintendance of which none can judge who are not acquainted with the nature of manufacturing districts."^[64] The accent Flint placed on the words "afflicted" and "watchful superintendance" illustrates the significant shift toward moderate Calvinism that had occurred at Shortwood since 1758. If the doctrine of universal redemption made the salvation of the "afflicted" possible, it also established the groundwork of their spiritual enthusiasm.^[65]

Thomas Flint's tenure, however, had lasted only four years (1799-1803). Having developed a scruple against believers' baptism, he moved to Uley, in the neighboring district, where he presided for eleven years over "a mixed society of Independents and Baptists, the former . . . considerably preponderating both in numbers and influence."^[66] His shift to Congregationalism seems to have accompanied a reversion to High Calvinism. If moderate Calvinism had grown evangelical and found many of its adherents among the poor of the manufacturing districts, High Calvinism in the early nineteenth century, because of its exclusive nature, became associated with wealthier Dissenting congregations. Following his tenure at Uley, Flint settled at Weymouth, where he "preached to a select class of people,"^[67] and his son, Benjamin F. Flint, whom he had strongly influenced, became a prominent

deacon at a Baptist church in Margate that was "tinctured with High Calvinism."^[68] Flint's failure as an enthusiast clearly accounted for his limited tenure at Shortwood. William Winterbotham (1804-1829) and Thomas Fox Newman (1830-1864), by contrast, maintained the evangelical traditions of Benjamin Francis. Like him, they provided stable, long-term ministries and figured prominently in local society. Winterbotham served a prison term in the 1790s for preaching a politically radical sermon and was widely praised as a "great man."^[69] "Both in politics and religion," Shortwood's chronicler concluded, T. F. Newman "was a man of mark in this neighborhood, and was well known throughout the country as a powerful and attractive preacher."^[70] Consequently, Shortwood drew ever larger numbers of adherents. In 1758 its membership stood at sixty-six, but by the time of the erection of a new chapel in 1839, had risen to over 500 with a congregation of 1,000.^[71] The year 1758 had, indeed, marked the beginning of Shortwood's transition from sect to denomination.