episcopacy and an established state church They began to separate themselves from the Church of England and have their own private meetings While Elizabeth I would attempt to get her clergy to conform, many of these dissenters would continue to spread their ideas about church government and worship, attracting more followers In 1620, a group of these dissenters would sail to America on the Mayflower and settle in New England in attempt to find religious freedom in the New World Consequently, they transplanted their own religious dissent to America profoundly shaping both early American religion and national identify in the process During the time of the English Civil War (1642–51) and the interregnum (1649–60), the dissenters seized power and abolished the Church of England They began to practice iconoclasm, destroying churches and stained glass and imprisoning many of the Anglican bishops Parliament was now the head of the Church of England and it quickly instituted a more presbyterian form of church government The Westminster Assembly now became the sole and permanent committee dedicated to the reform of the English Church In May of 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne of England from exile in France He made attempts to ensure some sort of religious toleration with his Declaration of Indulgence However, the now mostly Anglican Parliament had forced him to withdraw this measure Instead they passed what is known as the Clarendon code, which established Anglicanism as the true state religion of England and made overt threats toward any that might not conform The Test Act of 1673 required all persons in civil or military offices to subscribe to the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and to affirm that they did not believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation Furthermore, they had to receive the sacrament of the Anglican Church within three months after admittance to office Eventually, in 1689, Parliament passed the Toleration Act, which allowed the English people to practice whatever religion they desired so long as they were trinitarian Protestants This act however did not suspend any of their civil disabilities that went along with their dissenting religion The Test Act, which was expanded in 1678, was not suspended until 1828 In 1829, Parliament passed the Roman Catholic Relief Act, which began to give freedom to Roman Catholics to practice their religion freely for the first time since before the Reformation Consequently, many of the dissenters in English religious history survive in present-day Christian denominations Many of these are now known as “Free Churches.” divine faith in Europe 107 Some of these are Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Quakers, and Moravians See also Stuart, House of (England) Further reading: Burrage, Champlin The Early English Dissenters: Dissent and Nonconformity Paris, AR: Baptist Standard Bearer, 2000; Collinson, Patrick The Religion of the Protestants: The Church in English Society 1559–1625 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998; Edwards, David L Christian England, Vol 2: From the Reformation to the 18th Century Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983; Haigh, Christopher English Reformations Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993; Spufford, Margaret, ed The World of Rural Dissenters, 1520–1725 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 T W Booth divine faith in Europe Between 1730 and 1760, western Europe experienced a revivalist movement that advocated acceptance of the divine faith doctrine This movement later came to be known as the First Great Awakening The title was used to differentiate this first rise in evangelical revivalism from the second wave of religious fervor that surfaced between 1800 and 1801, which become known as the Second Great Awakening During the First Great Awakening, the acceptance of the divine faith doctrine in Europe was most prevalent in England, Scotland, Wales, and Germany, although the movement also received a good deal of attention in Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, and France At the same time, a similar but separate revivalist movement took place across the Atlantic in the United States Despite the common factors in the teachings of the various evangelists, the divine faith movement was not a single movement but a large number of highly individualistic movements that surfaced around the Western Hemisphere In addition to Anglicans and dissenters in England, the Protestant sects that endorsed divine faith included Calvinists and Arminians in England, Presbyterians in Scotland, Lutherans and Pietists in Saxony, and Puritan Congregationalists in New England All proponents of the divine faith movement advocated a strong faith in the divine will of God Most of them taught that conversion must come from a heartfelt acceptance of Christian teachings rather than from a blind acceptance of religious dogma or from confessional conformity Advocates taught that God was actively involved in shaping history and that he was constantly guiding the