Chap. 2.] ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 65 



It may not be considerod out of place to give the following quotation 

 from Mr. J. E. Green, the historian of England, as his remarks are 

 eminently just : — 



A more deadly blow was dealt at the Puritans in the renewal of the Act of Uni- 

 formit}-. Not only was the use of the Prayer Book, and the Prayer Book only, 

 enforced in all public worship, but an unfeigned coi sent and assent was demanded 

 from every minister of the Church to all which was contained in it. It was in vain 

 that Ashley opposed the bill fiercely in the Lords, and that even Clarendon, who 

 felt that the King's word was at stake, pressed for the insertion of clauses enabling 

 the Crown to grant dispensations from its provisions. On St. Bartholomew's Day, 

 nearly two thousand rectors and vicars, or about a fifth of the English clergj', were 

 driven from their parishes as Nonconformists. No such sweeping change in the 



religious aspect of the Church had ever been seen before The rectors 



and vicars who ware ilriven out were the most learned and active of their order. 

 The bulk of the great livings throughout the country were in their hands. They 

 occupied the higher posts at the two universities. No English divine, save Jeremy 

 Taylor, rivalled Howe as a preacher ; no parson was so renowned a controversialist, 



or so indefatigable a parish priest, as Baxter The expulsion of these 



men was far more to the Church of England than the loss of their individual 

 services. It was the definite expulsion of a great party which, from the time of 

 the Fieformation, had played the most active and popular part in the life of the 



Church The Church of England stood from that moment isolated and 



alone among all the churches of the Christian world From that time 



to this (1S74) the Episcopal CI. urch has been unable to meet the varying spiritual 

 needs of its adherents by any modification of its government or its worship. 



Mr. Green then goes on to point out how this ejection of con- 

 scientious clergymen proved of the highest advantage to the cause of 

 religious liberty — the right of every man to worship God according to 

 the bidding of his own conscience. 



Into the birth of Dissent and the sufferings of the Nonconforming 

 ministers, we have no space to enter. AH know how John Bunyan, 

 who was a Baptist, suffered ; and as he suffered, so, in a greater or 

 less degree, did the bulk of the Nonconformists suffer in the latter 

 half of the seventeenth century. 



EEV. THOMAS FELGATE 1701-30. 



The Rev. Thomas Felgate was nominated to the curacj- of Longridge 

 by the Eev. George Ogden, Yicar of Eibchester. No other information 

 can be obtained from the registers at Chester, or other sources.^ 



^See Appendix B. 



