Congregationalism—Robert Browne.
Sir Robert Jermyn, in a letter to Burleigh (1581), alludes to Browne as a man who "had many things that were godly and reasonable, and, as he thought, to be wished and prayed for, but with the same there were other things strange and unheard." He further begged the Lord Treasurer to advise Browne to be more careful in his conduct, and to threaten him with sharp censure as an example to others, since he was but a mere youth in age and experience. The Bishop of Norwich, also, writing to the Lord Treasurer about this troublesome clergyman, observed "that Mr. Browne's late coming into his diocese, and teaching strange and dangerous doctrine in all disordered manner, had greatly troubled the whole country, and brought many to great disobedience of all law and magistrates—that yet, by the good aid and help of the Lord Chief Justice, and Master Justice Anderson, his associate, the chiefest of such factions were so bridled, and the rest of their followers so greatly dismayed, as he verily hoped of much good and quietness to have thereof ensued, had not the said Browne returned again contrary to his expectation, and greatly prejudiced those their good proceedings, and having private meetings in such close and secret manner that he knew not possibly how to suppress the same."[439] Browne, at length, through the influence of his illustrious relative, succumbed to the ecclesiastical authority which before he had daringly resisted, and became master of St. Olave's Grammar-school, in Southwark. His subsequent career covered him with disgrace. He had a wife with whom for many years he never lived, a church in which he never preached, and the circumstances of his death, like the scenes of his life, were stormy and turbulent.[440] Whatever sympathy with some of Browne's principles might be felt by the Independents of the next age, they repudiated any connection with Browne's name, and held his character and history in the utmost abhorrence.
1583.
Browne's influence told considerably in the Eastern Counties, where a strong leaven of ultra-Protestantism has existed ever since the Lollard days. Even Kett's rebellion, often treated as a Roman Catholic outbreak, looks more like a peasants' war in aid of the Reformation than anything else. Bury St. Edmunds, where Brownism flourished, witnessed the death of Copping and Thacker, two Congregational martyrs, hanged in 1583. In Essex, a movement which looked like Congregationalism won some measure of sympathy from the upper classes, and even the wife of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, attended meetings held in Rochford Hall by Mr. Wright, who had been ordained in the Netherlands. Writing to Lord Burleigh, that lady observed, "I hear, them in their public exercises, as a chief duty commanded by God to be done, and also I confess, as one that hath found mercy, that I have profited more in the inward feeling knowledge of God his holy will, though but in a small measure, by such sincere and sound opening of the Scriptures by an ordinary preaching within these seven or eight year, than I did by hearing odd sermons at Paul's well nigh twenty year together."[441]
It is a curious circumstance to find Lord Bacon's mother connected with a minister who maintained, as Wright did, that every pastor was a bishop, and that he should be chosen by his own congregation, opinions which constitute the essence of modern Congregationalism. From these opinions the ecclesiastical authorities sought to convert him by imprisonment; and with that forcible argument another was associated, which is so original that we cannot resist the temptation of quoting it. Mr. Barwick, a conforming clergyman, commended to Wright the Church of England as a church most admirable on account of its being free from the two opposite extremes of Popery and Puritanism. "God delights in mediocrity," says this logician, and the logic is worth being noted for its curiosity: "Man was put in the midst of Paradise; a rib was taken out of the midst of man; the Israelites went through the midst of the Red Sea, and of Jordan; Samson put firebrands in the midst, between the foxes' tails; David's men had their garments cut off by the midst; Christ was hanged in the midst between two thieves."
Congregationalism—Henry Browne.
Perhaps Henry Barrowe,—a lawyer of Gray's Inn, and in his young days a courtier,—of all men in the reign of Elizabeth, propounded the clearest views of Congregationalism. He strongly objected to forms of prayer, especially the Common Prayer Book; to the sacraments, as administered in the Church of England; to the ecclesiastical laws and canons; to the idea that the establishment was a true church; to the extent of the Queen's ecclesiastical supremacy, and to the abolition of the judicial law of Moses. He denied that it was lawful for any private person to intermeddle with the prince's office, and to reform the State without his good liking and licence; but he virtually admitted the right of private Christians to share in the regulation of ecclesiastical matters: for he expressly contended that the government of Christ's Church belongeth not to the profane or unbelieving, neither could it, he said, without manifest sacrilege, be set over parishes as they then stood in confusion, no difference being made between the faithful and unbelieving, all being indifferently received into the body of the Church; but over every particular congregation of Christ he concluded that there ought to be an eldership, and that every such congregation ought to aim at its establishment.[442]
1593.
In 1592 a Church was formed in Nicholas Lane. Spies were on the look out, and a wary doorkeeper admitted the little congregation as they stealthily dropped in one by one. Mr. Francis Johnson and Mr. Greenwood were of the number. The first of these rose and prayed for half an hour, and, opening his Genevan Bible, discoursed to the assembly on the constitution of primitive brotherhood. The brethren formed themselves into such a communion, and gave to each other the right hand of fellowship. Mr. Johnson was chosen pastor, after which he baptized seven persons. "But they had neither godfathers nor godmothers; and he took water and washed the faces of them that were baptized." He afterwards broke the bread, consisting of five white loaves, which, with a cup of wine, were distributed amongst the members by Mr. Bowman and Mr. Lee, who had been elected deacons: after which a collection was made for the poor.[443]
Not only in Nicholas Lane, but in Aldgate and Smithfield, were gatherings of this description, and especially in Islington, where meetings of persecuted Protestants had been held in Mary's reign. As the dew sparkled on the grass, as the birds twittered on the hedges, and as the sun bathed the landscape in golden light—the memories of the congregation in the Islington woods would go back to Roger Holland and his brother confessors, who on that very greensward, and under the shadow of those old trees, had studied their Bibles, and then been burned for doing so.