In 1662, the Church of England ejected thousands of ministers from their ministerial positions. At that point, the civil war was over and England had seen the restoration of Charles 11.
Back in those days the dispute was concerning the nature of the faith when contrasted with the new revisions of the Book of Common Prayer. Today these revisions would be seen as unimportant, but maybe they were.
Outstanding ministers, preachers, thinkers and writers such as Richard Baxter, John Flavel, Thomas Watson, Simeon Ashe, Thomas Brooks and thousands more were forced out of the Church by revisionists, who wanted to sway the church with the flow of the wind.
In Albert Square Manchester, a 19th century building called “Memorial Hall” stands to commemorate this important history.
This unnecessary historic division caused the C of E to lose the very people it needed to keep. Of which the Bishop of Liverpool, J. C. Ryle, rightly commented that the great ejection was “an injury to the cause of true religion in England which will probably never be repaired.”
This Bishop of Liverpool was correct and I hope the present Church of England remembers this.
Simon Peter Sutherland 