The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662

Act of Uniformity 1662

The Act of Uniformity was an Act of the Parliament of England, 13&14 Ch.2 c. 4 ,The '16 Charles II c. 2' nomenclature is reference to the statute book of the numbered year of the reign of the named King in the stated chapter...

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Two thousand Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 ministers left their positions as Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 clergy, following the changes after the restoration to power of Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

.

The Act of Uniformity

Act of Uniformity 1662

The Act of Uniformity was an Act of the Parliament of England, 13&14 Ch.2 c. 4 ,The '16 Charles II c. 2' nomenclature is reference to the statute book of the numbered year of the reign of the named King in the stated chapter...

 prescribed that any minister who refused to conform to the Book of Common Prayer

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

by St. Bartholomew's Day 1662 should be ejected from the Church of England. This date became known as Black Bartholomew's Day, among dissenters, a reference to the fact that it occurred on the same day as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre

St. Bartholomew's Day massacre

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave of Roman Catholic mob violence, both directed against the Huguenots , during the French Wars of Religion...

 of 1572. Oliver Heywood

Oliver Heywood (minister)

Oliver Heywood was a British nonconformist minister, ejected for his beliefs.-Early life and education:Oliver Heywood, third son of Richard Heywood, yeoman, by his first wife, Alice Critchlaw, was born at Little Lever, near Bolton, Lancashire, in March 1630, and baptised at Bolton parish church...

 estimated the number of ministers ejected at 2,500. This group included Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long...

, Edmund Calamy the Elder

Edmund Calamy the Elder

Edmund Calamy was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.-Early life:...

, Simeon Ashe

Simeon Ashe

Simeon Ashe or Ash was an English nonconformist clergyman, a member of the Westminster Assembly and chaplain to the Parliamentary leader Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester.-Life:He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge...

, Thomas Case

Thomas Case

Thomas Case was an English clergyman of Presbyterian beliefs, member of the Westminster Assembly where he was one of the strongest advocates of theocracy, and sympathizer with the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy.-Life:...

, William Jenkyn

William Jenkyn

William Jenkyn was an English clergyman, imprisoned during the Interregnum for his part in the ‘presbyterian plot’ of Christopher Love, ejected minister in 1662, and imprisoned at the end of his life for nonconformity.-Life:...

, Thomas Manton

Thomas Manton

Thomas Manton was an English Puritan clergyman.-Life:Thomas Manton was baptized March 31, 1620 at Lydeard St Lawrence, Somerset, a remote southwestern portion of England. His grammar school education was possibly at Blundell's School, in Tiverton, Devon...

, William Sclater

William Sclater

-Life:He was second son of Anthony Sclater, who is said to have held the benefice of Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire for fifty years, and to have died in 1620, aged 100. William Sclater was born at Leighton in October 1575. A king's scholar at Eton College, he was admitted scholar of King's...

, and Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson (Puritan)

Thomas Watson was an English, non-conformist, Puritan preacher and author.He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was noted for remarkably intense study. In 1646 he commenced a sixteen year pastorate at St. Stephen's, Walbrook...

. Biographical details of ejected ministers and their fates were later collected by the historian Edmund Calamy

Edmund Calamy (historian)

Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman, divine and historian.-Life:A grandson of Edmund Calamy the Elder, he was born in the City of London, in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. He was sent to various schools, including Merchant Taylors', and in 1688 proceeded to the university of...

, grandson of the elder Calamy.

Although there had already been ministers outside the established church, the Great Ejection created an abiding concept of non-conformity. Strict religious tests left a substantial section of English society excluded from public affairs, and also university degrees, for a century and a half. Culturally, in England and Wales, nonconformism endured longer than that.

Iain Murray

Iain Murray

Iain Hamish Murray was educated in the Isle of Man and at the University of Durham. He entered the Christian ministry in 1955. He served as assistant to Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel and subsequently at Grove Chapel, London and St. Giles Presbyterian Church, Sydney, Australia,...

 argues that the issue was deeper than "phrases in the Book of Common Prayer

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

 and forms of church order," but regarded the "nature of true Christianity." The Bishop of Liverpool, J. C. Ryle, referred to the Ejection as an "injury to the cause of true religion in England which will probably never be repaired."