Norwich Nonconformists, in times of the fiercest persecution, held many prohibited meetings, which were sometimes discovered in different parts of the city. Norfolk, situated as it is in the eastern coast, was the refuge of many protestants, who fled from the Netherlands to escape from the severe persecutions of the infamous Duke of Alva. Even before this time, there were many in the county and city who objected to the new service book, or English liturgy, published by the authority of Edward VI.
The Reformation made much progress here in the reign of this young and pious king; but even then a disposition lingered to retain and enforce some of the Romanist rites and ceremonies. The excellent Bishop Hooper, who after all became a martyr, would probably have lost his life simply for refusing to wear the priestly vestments, through the rigour of Bishop Ridley (who himself afterwards suffered martyrdom) had he not at length consented to wear them at his consecration. The Baptists, the Unitarians, and all who went beyond the new state model were consigned to the flames.
Bishop Hooper was born in the year 1495, and was burnt in the reign of Queen Mary. The sixty years of his life formed the most important period of English history. When he was born, the Reformation had just begun; when he died it had struck such deep roots amongst the people, especially of Norwich and Norfolk, that neither force, nor persecution, nor argument could stop its progress. In Bishop Hooper’s time, and in his diocese of Gloucester, the ignorance of the clergy was amazing. Out of 311 of his clergy he found 168 unable to repeat the ten commandments; 31 out of the 168 could not tell in what part of the Bible the ten commandments were to be found; 40 could not tell where the Lord’s prayer was given, and 31 did not know who was the author of it. In Norfolk and Norwich the clergy were quite as ignorant of Scripture. They practised all kinds of impositions on the people who were debased by superstition, immorality, and vice. There was over all the land a darkness which might be felt. The people had no bibles nor testaments, and the prayers of the church were all in Latin, and of course the people could not understand them. There was scarcely any preaching at all, but instead thereof profane miracle plays were performed in the cathedral, and were paid for like any other dramatic performance.
In 1574, so notorious was the city for the nonconformity of many of the ministers, that when orders were given to Archbishop Parker “to punish the Puritan ministers, and put down the prophecyings, and readings, and commenting on the Scriptures, which had been introduced into the church,” the queen gave him private orders to begin with Norwich. Accordingly, in 1576, many of the Norwich ministers were suspended and treated so severely, that even the Norfolk justices presented a petition to Her Majesty, praying for lenity towards them.
Robert Brown, a clergyman of Norwich, originated the sect of the Brownists, afterwards called the Independents. He was at one time a zealous promoter of that system, but English societies existed before him, holding similar views. According to Sir Walter Raleigh, 20,000 persons at least held independent principles of ecclesiastical polity. Amongst these were many men of great learning and distinction, all of whom were commanded to quit the realm. Wherever found, they were imprisoned, with or without law, for life. Elias Thacker and John Copping suffered death at Bury St. Edmund’s. John Lewis was burnt at Norwich. Francis Kett, M.A., for holding “detestable opinions,” was also burnt alive in Norwich. William Dennys was a martyr in the same cause, at Thetford. Greenwood, Barrow, and Penry fell as martyrs of conscience. Johnson, Smith, Answorth, Canne, Robinson, and Jacob, only escaped by flight to Holland, and found liberty there to form several churches, and to compose an elaborate account of their doctrines and principles, a fact which testifies to their enlightened piety and superior learning.
In the reign of James I. no favour was shown to the Puritans, but on the contrary, severities were continued. The king amply fulfilled his threat to the Puritans at the Hampton Court conference;—“If this be all your party has to say, I will make them conform or harrie them out of the land, or else do worse.” By these proceedings the country was rendered almost destitute of preachers, and scandalous men undertook the care of souls in place of the zealous refugees. This King James published the “Book of Sports,” in vindication of the encouragement of various games on the sabbath day. Bishop Kennett styles it “A trap to catch tender consciences,” and a means of promoting the ease, wealth, and grandeur of the bishops. This book was, in the next reign, (Charles I.) republished by the bigotted Archbishop Laud; and it was ordered to be read in every church throughout the kingdom. The bishop of Norwich, then Bishop Wren, was very peremptory on this and other points. He is said to have driven upwards of 3000 persons to seek bread in a foreign land. The woollen trade of Norwich, which had been created by the Flemish refugees, was mostly in the hands of the Puritans, and the rigorous measures of this prelate nearly destroyed it by banishing them.
Mr. W. Bridge, M.A., was the lecturer of St. George Tombland, Norwich, up to the year 1637. He was a pious and learned man, who held other livings and performed his duties well. To him, on a certain day, came Bishop Wren’s order to read the “Book of Sports” on the next Sunday in church. He sat in dejection, with the odious volume before him, abhorring the profaneness of its contents and its daring contradiction of Scripture. He resolved not to read it. He took counsel of his brethren, and several of them together refused compliance, fled to Yarmouth, and thence with sad hearts embarked for Holland, where they spent many anxious years, hoping to be allowed to return. Laud informed King Charles I. that Bridge had left two livings and a lectureship and had fled to Holland; and the king wrote against his name this bitter sentence: “We are well rid of him.” It was an expression worthy of a bigoted and worldly mind. Thus it appears that the reformation was not the work of kings or bishops, or the great and learned. The history of those times is the history of persecuting power in opposition to the progress of the Gospel—an opposition the more dreadful inasmuch as it was carried on under the pretence of doing service to religion.
The Reformed Church of England acknowledged the right of private judgment in theory, but ignored it in practice. The Puritans, on the other hand, carried it out to its legitimate consequences; and Milton, their great champion, advocated absolute freedom of thought and speech as the birthright of every man. No doubt Puritanism ran into some excesses of bigotry and intolerance, but it was an intolerant age. Puritanism, however, preserved civil and religious liberty and the right of private judgment, and perpetuated that right to all sects and classes of the nation. Puritanism has been charged with the sin of schism, but the early reformers were forced into it by persecution for conscientious scruples respecting points of doctrine and discipline. William Bridge, Asty, Allen, Cromwell, and Fynch, all were thrown out of their livings by the Act of Uniformity, and became Nonconformist ministers in Norwich. Without any conference the question put to them was, “Will you upon oath conform?” The answer was, “We cannot.” Immediate expulsion followed. Where, then, was the sin of schism? Their sin would have been in conformity. They would have proved to the world that they were mere hirelings, like the “Vicar of Bray,” who changed his religion to please the reigning sovereign of the day. Bridge, returning with some others to his native county, founded the first Independent church at Yarmouth about 1642. A year later the church at Norwich was formed into a distinct body. They met at first in a brew-house in St. Edmund’s, afterwards in the refectory over the cloisters in the convent formerly belonging to the Black Friars.
The Independents.
We shall now briefly advert to the rise of the Nonconformist religious denominations in this city, and quote a passage from a discourse by the Rev. A. Reed, delivered at the Old Meeting House, Norwich, on February 27th, 1842, on the occasion of the second centenary. He said,—