FIRST CONVENTICLE ACT, The Sylvester Hassell The “first Conventicle Act” in 1664 forbade as many as five or more persons, over sixteen years of age, besides the household, from meeting anywhere for religious worship in any other manner than allowed by the liturgy or practice of the “Church of England;” the penalty for the first offense was three month’s imprisonment, or a fine of five pounds; for the second offense six months’ imprisonment, or a fine of ten pounds; for the third offense banishment to America (the West Indies) for seven years (and death, if they returned without permission), or a fine of one hundred pounds. Vast numbers suffered under this act in every part of the kingdom.
The Five-Mile Act in 1665 forbade Non-conformist ministers from going within five miles of any city or town that sent members to Parliament, or within five miles of any place where there was stated service in the Established Church; also declared them incapable of teaching any public or private schools. The penalty for each offense was forty pounds. This Act inflicted great suffering upon the true ministers of the word and upon their families; and it caused many Baptist Churches to be formed in villages, nooks and corners of the land, beyond the reach of the Five-Mile Act.
The Second Conventicle Act in 1670 was still more searching and extensive than the first. “All persons attending conventicles (or religious meetings of Nonconformists) were to be fined five shillings for the first offense; ten shillings for the second; the preachers were to be fined twenty pounds for the first offense; forty pounds for the second; the owners of the houses, barns, buildings or yards in which the meetings were held were to be fined twenty pounds each time; the fines were to be levied by distress and sale of the offender’s goods and chattels; the money was to be divided into three parts, one-third for the king, one-third for the poor, and one-third for the informer and his assistants. In case of the poverty of the ministers, their fines were to be levied on the goods and chattels of any other present.
If the first Act scourged the Dissenters with whips, the second was a scorpion plague. They were plundered and imprisoned without remorse. Many of the Bishops exerted themselves in every possible way to enforce the Act. They sent circulars to the clergy, directing them to stimulate and aid the civil authorities; and some of the Bishops went in person to the places where the meetings were supposed to be held, in order to encourage the constables, or insure the rigorous discharge of their duty.
The activity of the informers was excited by the promised share of the penalties. Their infamous trade became lucrative, and many of them amassed large sums, mercilessly filched from the servants of God. A more degrading and detestable occupation cannot well be imagined. They spent their time in prowling about the retired streets and by-lanes of towns, or in exploring about the retired streets and by-lanes of towns, or in exploring the recesses of woods, and wild, desolate places, if happily they might hear the voice of singing or prayer, or watch the movements of some straggler hastening to join his brethren.
With savage glee they darted upon the secret assembly, gloating over their confusion and distress, and specially rejoicing when they seized the preacher, because of the heavier fine. They accompanied the constables when they executed warrants of distress on property; and they attended the sales of the goods seized, taking care to get bargains for themselves.
They scrupled not to take the bed from under the sick; they robbed of their bread children whose fathers were languishing in prison. The law created their calling, and encouraged them in diligently pursuing it. Magistrates urged them on. Clergymen and country squires applauded their cleverness; and judges on the bench commended them for their zeal.
There was an unholy alliance against truth and righteous-ness, in which the titled and the learned were willing to associate themselves with the meanest, the wickedest, and the most brutal of men. The prisons were crowded. Families were ruined. Houses were desolated. Estates were impoverished and abandoned. Numbers fled their native shores, and sought in Holland or in the American wilderness for freedom to worship God.
But all this severe persecution did not succeed in putting an end to the religious meetings of the Dissenters in England. They met for worship in private houses, in the lanes, in the fields, in the woods, at all hours of the day and of the night, wherever and whenever they could best escape the vigilance of the authorities.
The word of the Lord was very precious in those days. There was a very lively spirit of faith and prayer among the people of God; their numbers increased; it was a spiritual spring-time with them, though a period of great outward gloom; they felt and declared that the time of the singing of birds was come, and that the voice of the turtle was heard in the land. They blessedly realized the holy rejoicing of the prophet Habakkuk, not in worldly prosperity, but in the God of their salvation, Hab. 3:17-19.
It has been computed that, from 1660 to 1689, in England, seventy thousand persons suffered on account of religion, eight thousand perished, and two millions pounds sterling (ten million dollars) were paid in fines. “The Baptists,” says Sir James McIntosh, “suffered more than any others under Charles II., because they had publicly professed the principles of religious liberty.” (Hassell’s History ppg 521, 522) (See also under Persecution in MASSACHUSETTS)