Gods grace in England, as I trust shall never bee putte out." It was a grand prophetic strain, and has been often quoted with thrilling force. Not many wise men after the flesh were called to reërect upon its original foundations the obsolete church of the New Testament, but God chose the weak things of the world to confound the things which were mighty. By consequence the martyrs of Congregationalism filled a humbler place in the eye of their generation; and so far as they were allowed to say anything with the halter round their necks, no John Fox was there to embalm it for the ages. But I found in the handwriting of Henry Barrowe, among the Harleian MSS.,135 a letter from which I copied three sentences which seem to me worthy at least to stand on the same page with the words of Latimer: "Euer for our partes our liues are not dear unto us, so we may finish up our testimony wth. ioy. We are alwaies ready through God's grace to be offred up upon that testimony of our faith wh. we have made. We purpose to embrace the chief pillers of their Church, & carry them wth. us to our grave." Ne, grex pusille, formides Dentes leonis perfidos, Pastor bonus nam pascua Vobis dabit cœlestia. Agnum Dei qui candidum Manus latronis impias Ne, grex pusille, formides. Beda Venerabilis, De Nat. Innocent., 25. Affligit sanè, sed diverso modo. Flent & rident utrique, sed diverso item modo. Fideles ut Pater; infideles, ut justus Judex affligit. Rident ut fleant infideles; flent ut rideant fideles, & rident liberali gaudio ex divinæ bonitatis sensu. J. Heidfeldius, Sphinx, etc. (1621), 582. Themistocles, after he was banished, and had wrought himself into great favor afterwards, so that he was honored and sumptuously served; seeing his present glory, said unto one of his friends: If I had not been undone, I had been undone. Lord Bacon's Apothegms, Resuscitatio, 153. The Arke had cleane and vncleane beasts; Abraham had Ishmael and Isaac; the Common wealth true and false subiects; an house hath thriftie and vnthriftie seruants; the bodie members and excrements; the Church good and bad. Richard Greenham, Works, 733 The Independant Party had many very godly Ministers and People, but with them many young injudicious Persons, inclined much to Novelties and Separations, and abounding more in Zeal than Knowledge; usually doing more for Subdivisions, than the few sober Persons among them could do for unity and Peace. Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, etc., Part ii: 145. And though they suffer paine before men, pet is their hope full of immortalitie. They are punished but in fewe things, pet in many things shall they bee well rewarded: For Cod producth them, and findeth them meete for himselfe. He trieth them as the gold in the furnace, and receiueth them as a perfite fruite offering. Wisdome of Salomon (Genevan version), iii: 4-6. T is not easy at this distance of time minutely to trace with exactness the earlier steps of that first Separatist movement which appears to have possessed vitality enough, not merely to transplant itself beyond the German sea, but to gain and maintain, in itself and its affiliations, a permanent place in history. Nor have we the means of estimating how much of the impulse thereto may have been due to the labors of Robert Browne, and how much to those of Barrowe and others at a later date. But at some time, at least as early as 1587 or 1588, we begin to find references to little gatherings of Separatists in and around London. We trace these people in The churches to which Geo. Johnson referred, in 1603 [Discourse of Certain Troubles, etc., 205], as having existence at Norwich and Chatham, we cannot fix either as to their origin or continuance. In 1588, Stephen Bredwell said of the Brownists, "for though their ful swarme and store be (as it is most likely) in London and the partes neare adioyning; yet haue they sparsed of their companies into seuerall partes of the Realme, and namely, into the West, almost to the vttermost borders there of." [Rasing Foundations, iv.] This, however, is extremely vague and unsatisfactory. Penry in one of his letters says: "Comfort the brethren in the West and North Countries." But this was in 1593. [Life, 176.] Francis Johnson, in 1606, referred to a "church in the west of England" from which Thomas White and his company came to Amsterdam, and with whom correspondence was had. Inquirie and Answer, etc., 53. 2 A deposition of William Clerke, taken 8 winter to as many as seven or eight different private houses in various parts of the city;3 and in milder weather to a garden house near Bedlam, and to the woods of Deptford and Ratcliffe, and the secluded gravel-pits of Islington.' We have glimpses of as many as twelve or fourteen different expounders who appear to have labored with them. And there is evidence that they were accustomed thus to assemble to the number sometimes of sixty or one hundred; while, when the officers were very diligent in hunting them, so many of them might be put in prison, that their meetings would fall in attendance to a score or less. Sometimes they would be nearly all incarcerated at once, and then manage to have a little service together in prison perhaps, after the midnight manner of Paul and Silas at Philippi. We have the names of twenty-four who-some of them after long and wasting confinement-died in various dungeons the majority in Newgate." Fifty-nine who were at one time in durance thus for conscience' sake in the Gatehouse, the Fleet, Newgate, Bridewell, the Clink, the White Lion, the Wood Street Counter, and the Poultry Counter, united in signing a petition to the Lord Treasurer; stating that they had endured great hardships, many of them having been shut up for a year and a half, some in irons, some in straits for proper food, and suffering from the miasmas of their confinement; pleading that they might have a fair public hearing, and be made examples of, if they were found worthy of death or of bonds; but if not, that they might be bailed out, so as to be in a condition to provide by honest labor for the support of their families and themselves; March, 1592, says: "He sayth he hath bene of the forsayd congregation these foure or fyve years, and made promise to stand with the sd. congregation so long as they did stand for the truth and glory of God, being then of that congregation at that tyme present about twenty, or thereabouts." Harleian MSS., 7042: 110. See also 116, 117, etc. 3 Mention is made of "the constable's house at Islington, Barnes's in Smithfield, Dan. Buck's near Aldgate, Bilson's, Lee's in Smithfield, Rippon's in Southwark, Lewe's in Stepney, Foxe's in St. Nicholas Lane, and Penry's. Ibid, 59, 60, 61, 62, 112, 114, 116, 399. 4 Ibid, 59. 5 Ibid, 59, 60, 66, 114, 116. 7 Ibid, 59, 66, 116. 8 The names are given of Mr. Colshill [Ibid, 117]; Mr. Cooper [or Cowper] [62, 65]; Mr. Egerton [65]; Mr. Gardner [65]; George Johnson [114, 399]; Mr. Phillips [59]; James Forester [59]; Mr. Settle [61]; Mr. Smyth [62]; Mr. Sparke [62]; Mr. Stanhope [114]; and Mr. Wygginton [65]. 9 Ibid, 114. There are one or two references in point, which I have mislaid. 10 See list previously given, page 207 ante. |