ABSTRACT
The significance of the issue of conformity has increasingly been recognised not just in Britain but also in Ireland and America. This chapter explores the reasons with two points important in relation to deserve. First, there was a substantial divide on this issue between the clergy and the laity. Bernard Cottret remarked with insight that in France "a crisis probably existed in Calvinist society, before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Moreover, there had been growing tensions between the Christian flock and their betters whom they suspected of lacking zeal". The jostling between French conformist and nonconformist refugees in England could have provided him with useful illustrations. For London, however, with its extraordinary concentration of refugees, the Anglican ordination of some of the ministers going to serve nonconformist congregations was an initiative that had advantages for everyone. Second, the ministers were religious professionals.
