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 A HISTORY OF LONDON who deemed their ministry a divine commission which they dared not surrender. Many of the ejected ministers continued to hold pastoral relations with ' gathered churches,' or to preach privately in their own or others' houses as opportunity served. Details, for obvious reasons, are not accessible, but various records and traditions of still existing societies mention the names (amongst others) of Richard Adams, Matthew Barker, Thomas Brooks, Joseph Caryl, George Cockayne, Thomas Doolittel, George Griffith, William Jenkyn, Thomas Manton, Philip Nye, John Rowe, Thomas Vincent, Peter Vincke, and Thomas Wadsworth. On the outbreak of the plague many of the conforming clergy fled for their lives ; whereupon several of the ejected Nonconformists ventured to occupy their forsaken pulpits ; Thomas Vincent, in particular, is thus honourably distinguished.-^ In this service they had the co-operation of several ejected or silenced ministers from the country ; among whom were John Chester from Witherley, Leicestershire ; Robert Franklin from Westhall, Suffolk ; Grimes, also called Chambers, from Ireland ; James Janeway from Windsor; and John Turner from Sunbury. The Parliament was now sitting at Oxford for fear of the plague ; and a report that ejected ministers were preaching sedition in the City churches furnished a welcome pretext for further persecution. This took the form of the notorious ' Five Mile Act,' "^ which inter alia forbade any nonconforming minister to reside or be within five miles of London or of any city, corporate town or borough sending members to Parliament, except on condition of taking an oath of non-resistance in a peculiarly humiliating form. However, Chief Justice Sir Orlando Bridgeman devised or sanctioned an evasive explana- tion of the oath," so that Manton, Bates, and about twenty other London ministers were able to take it ; but others felt themselves unable to profit by the evasion and retired to the country. Obviously, Nonconformist worship must at this time have been confined to secret conventicles except where it was connived at by those in local authority. However, it is pretty certain that a few meeting-houses, probably of earlier origin, continued in more or less regular use. Three or four of these escaped the Great Fire in 1666, and were seized by the authorities for the temporary use of conforming congrega- tions whose churches had been destroyed. After the Fire several meeting- houses were hastily erected or large rooms fitted up for worship : by Dr. Annesley in Spitalfields, Thomas Doolittel in Monkwell Street, Robert Franklin near Bunhill Fields, Dr. Manton in Covent Garden, Thomas Wads- worth in Globe Alley, Southwark, and others in Ratcliff, Wapping, Stepney, Bethnal Green, &c.^' These movements were stimulated by the expiration of the Conventicle Act in July 1667, and by the unconcealed sympathy of Sir John Lawrence and Sir William Turner, lord mayors in 1665 and 1669. In 1669 Sheldon, now become Archbishop of Canterbury, being much concerned about the persistent vitality of Nonconformity, obtained more or less complete returns'' of known conventicles in most of the dioceses of his "Calamy, op. ct. passim. "Stat. 17 Chas. II, cap. 2. " Calamy, Life of Baxter (2nd ed.), 313. " B.M. Stovve MS. 1 86. "Lamb. Lib. Tenison MS. 639. Of the sixty named thirty-three were in London and Westminster, seven of which had been ' indicted at Hicks Hall, and the indictment found,' twelve in Southwark, and fifteen within the Bills of Mortality. Three are described as Presbyterian, five Independent, four Presbyterian and Independent, five Baptist, one Baptist and Independent, four Quaker, one Fifth-monarchy, one Indepen- dent and Fifth-monarchy, and thirty-six not specified. Thirteen were in places ' built on purpose,' or specially fitted up ; one, at Wapping, was an old meeting-house enlarged, and one was the Glovers' Hall. 378