The Ranters were a radical English sect in the time of the Commonwealth, 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. A sect is a small religious or political group that has branched off from a larger established group. ... The Commonwealth was the republican government which ruled first England and then the whole of Britain, Ireland, the colonies and other Crown possessions during the periods from 1649 (the monarch Charles I being beheaded on January 30 and An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth being passed by the... Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. ... Pantheism (Greek: pan = all and Theos = God) literally means God is All and All is God. It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. ... Many religions and spiritual movements hold certain written texts (or series of spoken legends not traditionally written down) to be sacred. ... This 11th-century portrait is one of many images of Jesus in which a halo with a cross is used. ... Immortality is the concept of existing for a potentially infinite or indeterminate length of time. ... The heresy of the Free Spirit was a pantheistic heresy of the European middle ages. ...

They seem to have been regarded by the government of the time as a genuine threat to social order. Ranters were accused of antinomianism, fanaticism, and sexual immorality, and put in prison until they recanted. Antinomianism, or lawlessness, in theology is the idea that members of a particular religious group are under no obligation to obey the laws of ethics or morality as presented by religious authorities. ...

The Ranters were largely recruited from the common people, and there is plenty of evidence to show that the movement was widespread throughout England. They came into contact and even rivalry with the early Quakers, who were often (inaccurately) associated with them. The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ...

In the middle of the 19th century the name was often applied to the Primitive Methodists, with reference to their crude and often noisy preaching. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Primitive Methodism was a major separate movement in English Methodism in the first part of the nineteenth century. ...

In the twentieth century some historians, such as J.C. Davis, have suggested the Ranters did not exist at all. ...

See also

• Abiezer Coppe
• Seekers
• Ranter

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain. Abiezer Coppe (1619-1672) was one of the English Ranters and a writer of prophetic religious pamphlets. ... The Seekers were a dissenting group in the time of the Commonwealth of England. ... Supporters contend that the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) represents, in many ways, the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...