King James I of England, VI of Scotland had said "no bishop, no king"; Cromwell capitalised on that phrase, abolishing both upon founding the Commonwealth of England. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the episcopacy was reinstalled and the rights of the Dissenters were limited: the Act of Uniformity 1662 required Anglican ordination for all clergy, and many instead withdrew from the state church. These ministers and their followers came to be known as Nonconformists, though originally this term referred to refusal to use certain vestments and ceremonies of the Church of England, rather than separation from it.
Rational Dissenters 
In the eighteenth century, one group of Dissenters became known as "Rational Dissenters". In many respects they were closer to the Anglicanism of their day than other Dissenting sects; however, they believed that state religions impinged on the freedom of conscience. They were fiercely opposed to the hierarchical structure of the Established Church and the financial ties between it and the government. Like moderate Anglicans, they desired an educated ministry and an orderly church, but they based their opinions on reason and the Bible rather than on appeals to tradition and authority. They rejected doctrines such as the Trinity and original sin, arguing that they were irrational. Rational Dissenters believed that Christianity and faith could be dissected and evaluated using the newly emerging discipline of science, and that a stronger belief in God would be the result.
List of Dissenting groups 
Historical Dissenting groups 
In existence during the English Interregnum (1649–60):
The Adamites took their name and practises from a North African Christian sect that first existed between the 2nd and 4th centuries. The Adamites that emerged in the 17th century held similar beliefs, believing that they existed in a state of grace, claiming to have regained the innocence that Adam and Eve possessed prior to the Fall.
Very little is known about these English Adamites, as most information on them comes from their critics, who believed them to be radicals.
During the Interregnum, the term Anabaptist was often used to describe sects who seemed to hold or practiced believers baptism or baptism by immersion by their opponents. These included the General Baptist, the Particular Baptist, Barrowists, and other nonconformists groups.
It is generally assumed that the Baptists and other dissenting groups absorbed the British Anabaptists. Despite this, evidence suggests that the early relations between Baptists and Anabaptists were quite strained. In 1624, the then five existing Baptist churches of London issued an anathema against the Anabaptists. Even today there is still very little dialogue between Anabaptist organizations (such as the Mennonite World Conference) and the Baptist bodies.
Henry Barrowe maintained the right and duty of the Church to carry out necessary reforms without awaiting the permission of the civil power; and advocated congregational independency. He regarded the whole established church order as polluted by the relics of Roman Catholicism, and insisted on separation as essential to pure worship and discipline.
The Behmenists religious movement began on continental Europe and took its ideas from the writings of Jakob Böhme (Behmen being one of the adaptations of his name used in England), a German mystic and theosopher who claimed Divine Revelation. In the 1640s, his works appeared in England and English Behmenists developed. Eventually, some of these merged with the Quakers of the time.
Böhme's writings primarily concerned the nature of sin, evil, and redemption. Consistent with Lutheran theology, Böhme believed that humanity had fallen from a state of divine grace into a state of sin and suffering, that the forces of evil included fallen angels who had rebelled against God, and subsequently that God's goal was to restore the world to a state of grace.
By 1580, Robert Browne had become a leader in the movement for a congregational form of organization for the Church of England and attempted to set up a separate Congregational Church in Norwich, Norfolk, England. He was arrested but released on the advice of William Cecil, his kinsman. Browne and his companions were obliged to leave England and moved to Middelburg in the Netherlands in 1581.
Their original name came from their belief in economic equality based upon a specific passage in the Book of Acts. The Diggers tried (by "levelling" real property) to reform the existing social order with an agrarian lifestyle based on their ideas for the creation of small egalitarian rural communities. They were one of a number of nonconformist dissenting groups that emerged around this time.
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The Family of Love, or the Familists, were a religious sect that began in continental Europe in the 16th century. Members of this religious group were devout followers of a Dutch mystic named Hendrik Niclaes. The Familists believed that Niclaes was the only person who truly knew how to achieve a state of perfection, and his texts attracted followers in Germany, France, and England.
The Familists were extremely secretive and wary of outsiders. For example, they wished death upon those outside of the Family of Love, and re-marriage after the death of a spouse could only take place between men and women of the same Familist congregation. Additionally, they would not discuss their ideas and opinions with outsiders and sought to remain undetected by ordinary members of society: they tended to be members of an established church so as not to attract suspicion and showed respect for authority.
The group were considered heretics in 16th century England. Among their beliefs were that there existed a time before Adam and Eve, heaven and hell were both present on Earth, and that all things were ruled by nature and not directed by God.
The Familists continued to exist until the middle of the 17th century, when they were absorbed into the Quaker movement.
Fifth Monarchists 
The Fifth Monarchists or Fifth Monarchy Men were active from 1649 to 1661 during the Interregnum, following the English Civil Wars of the 17th century. They took their name from a prophecy in the Book of Daniel that four ancient monarchies (Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman) would precede Christ's return. They also referred to the year 1666 and its relationship to the biblical Number of the Beast indicating the end of earthly rule by carnal human beings. They were one of a number of nonconformist dissenting groups that emerged around this time.
In a sermon preached at Paul's Cross on 11 February 1627, and published under the title of The White Wolfe, 1627, Stephen Denison, minister of St. Catherine Cree, charges the 'Gringltonian (sic) familists' with holding nine points of an antinomian tendency. These nine points are repeated from Denison by Ephraim Pagitt in his Heresiography (2nd ed. 1645, p. 89), and glanced at by Alexander Ross, Πανσεβεια (2nd ed. 1655, p. 365). In 1635 John Webster, curate at Kildwick, was before a church court charged with being a Grindletonian, and simultaneously in New England John Winthrop thought that Anne Hutchinson was one. The last known Grindletonian died in the 1680s.
The Muggletonians, named after Lodowicke Muggleton, were a small Protestant Christian movement which began in 1651 when two London tailors announced they were the last prophets foretold in the biblical Book of Revelation. The group grew out of the Ranters and in opposition to the Quakers. Muggletonian beliefs include a hostility to philosophical reason, a scriptural understanding of how the universe works and a belief that God appeared directly on this earth as Christ Jesus. A consequential belief is that God takes no notice of everyday events on earth and will not generally intervene until it is meet to bring the world to an end.
Muggletonians have avoided all forms of worship or preaching and, in the past, met only for discussion and socializing amongst members. The movement has been egalitarian, apolitical, pacifist and has resolutely avoided evangelism. Members attained a degree of public notoriety by cursing those who reviled their faith. This practice, which proved uncannily effective, ceased in the mid-nineteenth century and one of the last to suffer was the novelist Sir Walter Scott.
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. The designation "Puritan" is often incorrectly used, notably based on the assumption that hedonism and puritanism are antonyms: historically, the word was used to characterize the Protestant group as extremists similar to the Cathari of France, and according to Thomas Fuller in his Church History dated back to 1564. Archbishop Matthew Parker of that time used it and "precisian" with the sense of stickler. T. D. Bozeman therefore uses instead the term precisianist in regard to the historical groups of England and New England.
The Philadelphians, or the Philadelphian Society, were a Protestant 17th century religious group in England. They were organized around John Pordage (1607–1681), an Anglican priest from Bradfield, Berkshire, who had been ejected from his parish in 1655 because of differing views, but then reinstated in 1660 during the English Restoration. Pordage was attracted to the ideas of Jakob Böhme, a Lutheran theosophist and Christian mystic.
The Quakers were a loosely knit group of teachers that grew out of the Seekers. George Fox's journal attributes the name "Quaker" to judge in 1650 calling them Quakers "because I bid them tremble before the Lord".
The Ranters were a sect in the time of the Commonwealth (1649–1660) who were regarded as heretical by the established Church of that period. Their central idea was pantheistic, that God is essentially in every creature; this led them to deny the authority of the Church, of scripture, of the current ministry and of services, instead calling on men to hearken to Jesus within them. Many Ranters seem to have rejected a belief in immortality and in a personal God, and in many ways they resemble the Brethren of the Free Spirit in the 14th century. The Ranters revived the Brethren of the Free Spirit's beliefs of amoralism and followed the Brethren's ideals which “stressed the desire to surpass the human condition and become godlike.” Further drawing from the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Ranter embraced antinomianism and believed that Christians are freed by grace from the necessity of obeying Mosaic Law. Because they believed that God was present in all living creatures, the Ranters' adherence to antinomianism allowed them to reject the very notion of obedience, thus making them a great threat to the stability of the government.
Sabbatarians were known in England from the time of Elizabeth 1 (1558–1601). Access to the Bible in English allowed anyone who could read English to study scripture and question Church doctrines, including challenging the Christian day of worship (sabbath) being on Sunday rather than the Judaic and early Christian Saturday. Some Dutch Anabaptists embraced Sabbatarianism, and may have helped to introduce these practices into England. Socinians and Reformed Church members were also know to hold Sabbatarian beliefs. Sabbatarian practitioners were also to be found within the Church of England in one form or another. Even the Puritans were known to harbor Sabbatarian views. English Sabbatarianism is generally associated with two individuals: John Traske (1585–1636); and, Theophilus Brabourne (1590–1662). Dorothy Traske (1585?-1645) was also a major figure in keeping the early Traskite congregations growing in numbers.
The Seekers were not a distinct religion or sect, but instead formed a religious society. Like other Protestant dissenting groups at the time, they believed the Roman Catholic Church to be corrupt, which subsequently applied to the Church of England as well through its common heritage.
Seekers considered all Churches and denominations to be in error, and believed that only a new Church established by Christ upon His return could possess His grace. Their anticipation of this event was found in their practises. For example, Seekers held meetings as opposed to religious services, and as such had no clergy or hierarchy. During these gatherings they would wait in silence and speak only when felt that God had inspired them to do so.
The followers of Socinianism were Unitarian or Nontrinitarian in theology and influenced by the Polish Brethren. The Socinians of 17th century England influenced the development of the English Presbyterians, the English Unitarians, and the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland.
Dissenting groups continuing today 
See also 
- 17th century denominations in England
- Christian anarchism
- Dissenting academies
- English Independents
- Freedom of religion
- Religion in the United Kingdom
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- Campbell 2009, p. 129.
- The True Levellers Standard A D V A N C E D: or, The State of Community opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men. "That we may work in righteousness, and lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich and Poor, That every one that is born in the Land, may be fed by the Earth his Mother that brought him forth, according to the Reason that rules in the Creation. Not Inclosing any part into any particular hand, but all as one man, working together, and feeding together as Sons of one Father, members of one Family; not one Lording over another, but all looking upon each other, as equals in the Creation;"
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- ExLibris, Early English dissenters