BROWNISTS means only the promulgation of 'pure doctrine out of the seed of love.' Although the conduct of some members was apparently correct and irreproachable', 'divers fell into gross and enormous practices; pretending in excuse thereof that they could, without evil, commit the same act which was sin in another to do2. On this account especially they were exposed to the tribunals of the bishops and the civil magistracy, and in the course of the next generation the sect appears to have gradually died out3. BROWNISTS, OR INDEPENDENTS. ROBERT BROWNE1, although he did not graduate in Cambridge, was a member of Corpus Christi College. There, attracted by the zeal and talents of Thomas Cartwright, he allied himself with the earlier race of English Puritans, and swelled the clamour they were raising against the liturgy, the ritual and the organisation of the Church. As early as 1571, the founder of the Brownists, then domestic chaplain to the duke of Norfolk, refused to sign those Articles of Religion which related to public 1 This is reluctantly admitted, for example, by Wilkinson, in his Epis tle Dedicatorie; and in the judgement of a godly learned man, W. C.,' prefixed to Knewstub's work (as above, p. 292, n. 3), we have the following passage: 'But howsoever they seduce some goodly and zealous men and women of honest and godly conuersation, placing them at the porch of their Synagogue, to make a shewe of holinesse, and to stand there as baites and stalles to deceive others: yet alas who can without blushing vtter the shame that is committed in the inwarde roomes, and as it were in the heart of that Synagogue of Satan?' 2 Such is the confession of William Penn (Pref. to the Journal of George Fox, 1. 7, 8, Lond. 1852), who finds, however, many germs of truth among the mystics of the sixteenth century. 3 One of their last assailants was Henry More, in his Mystery of Iniquity, e. g. pp. 187, 188, Lond. 1664. On the founder of Brownism and its early fortunes, see Neale, Hist. of the Puritans, 1. 374 sq. Lond. 1732; Heylin, Hist. of the Presbyterians, pp. 295 sq. Oxf. 1670; and Hanbury's Hist. Memorials relating to the Independents, 1. 18 sq. Lond. 1839. Fuller (Church. Hist. Cent. XVI. pp. 166 sq. Lond. 1656) may also be consulted. Brown, he says, returned from Zealand with a full crie against the Church of England, as having so much of Rome, she had nothing of Christ in her discipline.' 5 See above, pp. 253 sq. 6 Neale, 1. 280. worship and ecclesiastical government. In 1581 the vio- BROWNISTS. lence of his invectives against the whole church-system led to his temporary incarceration at Norwich. About the same time he put forth a Treatise on Reformation without tarrying for any, which brought him once more under the sentence of the magistrate, and after his dismissal he reverted to his former courses, traversing the country and denouncing bishops, vestments, ecclesiastical courts, and other matters. then distasteful to the Puritans. He next attempted to establish a separate congregation, where his principles might be fully carried out; but on perceiving the approach of danger he fled with some of his admirers to Middleburg, near Flushing, where a party of Englishmen united in acts of worship on the model recommended by himself and Cartwright. He did not, however, experience the satisfaction he expected, and about 1585 we find him in his native country, where he was reconciled to the community he formerly maligned, and instituted to the rectory of Thorpe-Achurch, near Oundle in Northamptonshire (1591) 10. But his conformity was not fatal to the sect he had established. Many of his followers continued to meet together in various parts In 1582 appeared at Middleburg, where the press was unrestrained, A Book which sheweth the Life & Manners of all true Christians. Browne, the author, seems to have been already on the Continent. In 1584 he retreated to Scotland, and perhaps in 1585 to England: Hanbury, p. 23. 8 It is to this period that John Prime refers in his Exposition and Observations vpon Saint Paul to the Galathians (Oxf. 1587), pp. 248, 249, writing of Brown that shameles reuiler of our sacraments, a railer at our ministerie, that saucy reproacher of the state and parliament by name, and the very divider, as much as in him lieth, of the body of Christ which is His Church.' 9 A new Prayer-Book, derived from the Genevan form of Calvin, 10 Browne was excommunicated man. BROWNISTS. of England', and after being persecuted with great severity, were driven across the Channel, and settled at Amsterdam and other parts of Holland about the year 15952. The controversies of this body with the English theologians did not involve discussions of specific dogmas. They held' indeed that the church-system was full of 'antichristian abominations,' that the Prayer-Book was substantially the pope's mass-book, that ordination according to the present form was blasphemous, and therefore that the Church of England had entirely forfeited its Christian character: yet one ground on which they rested their secession was the principle that every congregation of Christian men constitutes a Church, of which all the members are equal, and equally entitled to govern and instruct themselves. Hence their preachers were simple delegates of the congregation made and unmade by the popular voice, and only authorized to minister within the limits thus prescribed to them. These democratic elements, inherent more or less in the constitution of Reformed communities, at length obtained a perfect mastery in England during the time of the Great Rebellion. Sir Walter Raleigh (quoted in Neale 1. 543) estimated their number in 1592 at 20,000, dispersed chiefly in Norfolk and Essex. Brandt, Reform. I. 479, who gives the eleven Articles alleged by the Brownists in justification of their schism. On their previous sufferings see Neale, I. 379, 389, 545 sq. 3 See, among other evidence, a controversy between Francis Johnson, a Brownist, and H. Jacob. Jacob's chief work is entitled A defence of the churches and ministery of Englande, Middlebourg, 1599. Johnson published an answer in the following year. In George Gyfford's Short Reply vnto the last printed books of Henry Barrow and John Greenwood, the chiefe ringleaders of our Donatists in England, (Lond. 1591), we have other indications of the state of feel ing among these early Nonconformists. Two of the charges brought against them are as follows (p. 97): That ye say the best part of the booke of common praier is no better then a peece of swines flesh, and abomination to the Lord.' 'That ye say the greatest minister hath no more power to binde or loose the least member, then the said member hath to binde or loose him; and so with the Swinckfeldians, destroy the whole power of the ministry:' cf. Egerton Papers (ed. Lond. Camd. Soc. 1840) pp. 166 sq. CHAPTER VI. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. PARTY. WHILE Some who had originally embraced the principles MEDIATING of Luther were disposed to push them into scandalous consequences, and while others used them as a cloak of heresy and a pretext for the wildest innovations, a different party, hovering on the opposite borders of the Reformation-movement, shewed a very keen desire to check the progress of confusion, and if possible to re-establish concord in those quarters where the central facts and verities of Christianity were held alike by all the combatants. his principles. At the head of this mediating school was Desiderius Erasmus and Erasmus, whom we saw5 allied with the Saxon and Swiss Reformers in the opening stages of their work, but afterwards recoiling from many of their positions and evincing no wish to break entirely with the Medieval system. The plan of reconciliation he propounded was of course provisional, designed to terminate as soon as the prevailing doubts could be authoritatively settled by the convocation of a council fairly representing all branches of the Western Church. Till then at least he pleaded for much greater latitude in points of doctrine; he recommended the 4 See Tabaraud's Hist. critique des projets formés depuis trois cents ans pour la réunion des Communions Chrétiennes (Paris, 1824), ch. ix. 5 Above, p. 47, and n. 6. The treatise there referred to seems to have been his commentary on the 83rd Psalm, which he dedicated under the title De amabili Ecclesiæ Concordia Liber. Tabaraud, p. 288. 6 He dwells on the same topic in an epistle written 'ad J. Carondi- MEDIATING curtailment of those rites and usages which gave offence PARTY. to the Reformers and ministered to superstition; but was, notwithstanding, anxious at all hazards to reduce the vehemence of controversy and preserve intact the visible unity of Christendom. Wizel : his chief suggestions. Another of these moderators was George Wizel1 (Vicelius), who as early as 1525 officiated as a Lutheran pastor, but abandoned his calling at the end of six years, apparently through apprehension lest some branches of the 'new learning', and more especially the doctrine of justification as stated by the Wittenbergers, might issue in licentiousness of life and civil anarchy. In 1533 he published2 his Methodus concordiæ ecclesiastica, and subsequently in 1564 a kindred work entitled Via Regia. His object was to bring about a general pacification, by recalling men to the more earnest study of the Bible and the earlier Fathers, instead of Mediæval class-books then current in the schools3; by using the vulgar tongue in public worship; by reducing the number of private masses; by reforming the whole system of indulgences; by forbidding all direct addresses tempus, cum sublato speculo et ænig- 1 See Neander's Comment, de G. 2 Tabaraud, pp. 295 sq. Both these treatises (with others by the same writer) are reprinted in Brown's Fasciculus, II. 703 sq. In his Adhortatio ad Concilium (Ibid. p. 783), he expresses a hope that the schisin will be quickly healed: Nec diffido facile reduci posse, si amputentur modo superstitiosa, inutilia, perniciosa, immodica, idque dolenter magis, quam inimice. Audio undique qui percupiant redire, si non ita deterrerent odiosa offendicula.' 3 Thus he commences his Methodus Concordia (in Brown, p. 752) as follows: Ecclesia contra concedat aliquid parti, in excussione dogmatum, quæ vocant scholastica, quibus multi tragicum hoc et immane sæculum acceptum ferunt. Nam si moderni theologi prisca theologia contenti esse quam recentem excogitare maluissent, vix fuisset tot hæresibus pressa Ecclesia. Carere ea absque detrimento potest multis vocum inanitatibus, quas sæculis aliquot præter necessitatem invenit monastica atque academica scientia, et inventas imprudenter ingessit quorundam fastus, adeo ut carnificina simul et gehennæ tradatur ovicula Christi, quæ illas non certo crediderit. Suaserim itaque sobrietatem iis, qui e scholis supersunt. Ineant obsecro cum animo suo rationem, quam minime Christianæ professioni congruat, non solum novum docendi genus invehere, verum etiam nova quædam docere quæ nescivit antiquitas.' |