(3) Ill moral quality and influence both of clergy and church Fundamental errors of the current theology Demoralizing tendency of the rites which carried out the theology Indulgences with a copy of one actual in England. Demoralization involved in the doctrine of "sanctuary Four or five hundred let off thus in one small town Romanism at the end of its victim's life The performances around the dying bed presence 19 The mother dying thus in presence of the Protestant son, and outbreak His arrest and excommunication (4) The intolerable tyranny of the Romish Church over the mind Articles of Inquiry, and their force Summary of the condition to which all this had brought the England of A I 500 Dawn-streaks Congregationalists before Congregationalism Harbingers - Grossteste, Wyclif, Colet, Erasmus, Latimer and Ridley, T Luther nearly rediscovered original Congregationalism, and why he did not How Calvin's aristocracy of Presbyterianism found its way into England Some confusion in the Presbyterian idea then existent Three grand objections to the Presbyterian way for England: (1) It was to come from the State . (2) It was to be left under the control of the State. (3) It was as ill suited to reform as that church which it would displace included all the baptized, and it waited for all to move before a could move. Three great things needed, then : (1) That some better philosophy of reform be pointed out (2) That the spell of conservatism be shattered so that motion could beg (3) That heroism be stimulated, until men be ready to risk even life for Lord LECTURE II. ROBERT BROWNE and his Co-workers Robert Browne an elaborately slandered man Difficulty of studying him on account of the scarcity of his books Born at Tolethorpe, Rutlandshire Born a gentleman. His ancestors, etc. Went to Corpus Christi, Cambridge, in 1570 Domestic Chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk Cited before Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and discharged Teaching for three years (most likely) at Southwark . Lecturing in an Islington gravel-pit; going home on account of the plague Who encourages him to preach . He becomes popular, even in Benet Church, Cambridge Pressed to take a Cambridge pulpit, and labored there for six months Sent back their money, and departed, dissatisfied with Bishop's authorizing Soon returned to Norwich, whither Browne followed, and boarded with him and his wife . Here Browne thinks out his new (old) polity Imprisoned for preaching his new way at Bury St. Edmonds His kinsman, Lord Burghley, befriends him . . To escape persecution they émigrate in a body to Middelberg Browne with four or five families, left for Scotland Sick, persecuted, and sent home to his father No better; gets to Stamford Seems to have preached Brownism again at Northampton 68 69 70 70 71 72 72 74 75 76 76 77 78 80 80 81 81 81 81 82 83 83 84 86 87 Cited before Bishop Linsell; refused to appear; excommunicated Master of St. Olave's, Southwark, on six astonishing conditions Reconciled and readmitted to Church of England Writes a crazy letter to Lord Burghley Burghley gives him a living at Achurch Here he lives more than forty years, and dies at last in Northampton jail His co-workers-Harrison . And Glover. What kind of a man was Robert Browne? Usually supposed to have been a bigot and a sneak Hard words said about him by various Church and Dissenting writers 87 87 89 89 Who was Richard Greenham ? Good sign that Browne should have been drawn to such a man Can be no reasonable doubt that it was as a man who walked with God, that His eight books . What his Brownism really was (1) Its exact point of departure from Presbyterian Puritanism, the duty to attain the highest attainable purity of spiritual life • (2) The Church of England so corrupt as to make Separation a duty (4) No reasonable hope of a true reform from the Presbyterian plan (8) Church authority resides in the lordship of Christ over these local affiliations of believers 106 . (9) The officers-pastor, teacher, etc. 107 (10) The sacraments as seals 107 (11) Duty of church members to keep guard over each other (12) Fraternity between such churches - the other focus of the Congrega tional ellipse-fully taught by Browne This a logical and remarkable system to have been elaborated, from the Bible alone, in the 16th century, by a young man of nine and twenty Some qualities of the system Some excellences of it Causes of the Middelberg shipwreck The Congregationalism of the Independents of England, and of the Congreg tionalists of America, to-day essentially Brownism Its essence will leaven all the polities of the future What, on the whole, must we think of this man? Fuller's mean portrait false Sir Geo. Paule's testimony in his favor Browne had no wife, in Fuller's young manhood, to be separated from Three hypotheses exhaust his case (1) But he was not always, and in all, bad (2) Nor did he relapse, after an honest beginning, into scandalous sin (3) Real key to his strange career, that the larger portion of his life was one of mental disorder, sometimes almost, or quite, deepening into absolute insanity Considerations in proof of this: (a) His natural constitution nervous, fitful, fiery and easily gliding into mental disease (b) His physical constitution a feeble one (c) He underwent great sufferings (d) Insane peculiarities about him His letter to Burghley about the Latin "tables," etc. His disappearance for more than eight years. His strange entries on the parish records His insane conduct at St. Olave's Stephen Bredwell's testimony Bredwell, a physician, calls Browne "madde He was sane therefore, and insane. A like case We need not then blush for him, nor seek to dislodge him from his natural primacy among the great thinkers of Liberalism, and modern Congregation alism A fit epitaph LECTURE III. THE MARTIN MAR-PRELATE CONTROVERSY Mr. Punch supposed to discomfit the old master in presence of the boys Martin Mar-prelate bounces similarly in upon the Bishops Ecclesiastical satire as yet unknown in the English tongue Erasmus and his Moria Encomium, etc. Luther's Colloquium inter Lutherum et Diabolum, etc. Beza's Epistola M. B. Passauantij, etc. Walter Map's Apocalypsis Golia Episc., etc. A Commission sente to the Pope, etc. 155 156 156 156 How this tract went everywhere - Earl of Essex; Cambridge and Oxford students, etc. Four assaulted Bishops organize for reply Proclamation against Martin Main object of it to criticise the Dean of Sarum The Bishops' answer - An Admonition, etc., by the hands of T. C.. Third Martin- Certaine Minerall and Metaphisicall School Points, etc. Now comes forward Antimartinvs, etc., heavy with good advice Plaine Percevall the Peace-maker of England, etc. The First parte of Pasquils Apologie, etc. Some serious answers to Martin: R. Harvey's Theological discourse, etc. L. Misapprehensions as to these Martins 167 Puritans nothing to do with Martin, but repudiated him Martin not the work of the Jesuits! 186 These Martins not "foul-mouthed," "obscene" and "shameless," etc., neither It is a pity as much can not be said of the tracts gotten up by the Bishops to answer them. Udall thought no minister wrote them; there seems to be colorable internal evidence that some lawyer wrote them And Martin, when speaking in all seriousness, declares himself to have neither wife nor child Henry Barrowe was a bachelor barrister, who, in point of sentiment, could have written them 196 Similarities between Barrowe's acknowledged books and the Martins-in epithets . And in severe invective Barrowe's books were widely criticised at the time for the very qualities which distinguish Martin Further, (1) Martin and Barrowe were always asking for a public conference (4) Martin almost anticipated Barrowe's language in accepting martyrdom . (6) There was special security in Barrowe's being Martin, who had already If Barrowe were Martin, since he and Penry took the close secret to Heaven LECTURE IV. THE MARTYRS OF CONGREGATIONALISM Without shedding of blood is no remission 20 Browne had outlined a polity, and Martin damaged the spell of the Bishops' Aside from many who were worn out in prison, there were six Congregational Copping and Thacker imprisoned Tried and executed. John Greenwood and his arrest Henry Barrowe goes to see him, and is himself arrested without warrant . The two examined at Lambeth Again examined four months later Barrowe examined further. The scene, from Barrowe's own pen 2 Barrowe and Greenwood address Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Travers, and other Puritans Fifty-two Separatist prisoners parcelled out, for personal labor, among fortythree clergymen The "Briefe" furnished in aid of these conferences The prisoners manage to get a little printing done in Dort Some interviews. The insufferable meanness of Mr. Andrews Barrowe's reasons, in brief, for refusing to conform More conferences, in 1590. Some mitigation in 1592 of the closeness of imprisonment, and Greenwood out The hearing of this alarms the Bishops, who hurry Greenwood back to jail, Prison pen-work- The True Description, etc., A Collection of certaine Sclanderovs Articles, etc. In 1591 another quarto, as to which something curious happened Barrowism and how it differed from Brownism on one hand, and Genevan Puritanism on the other Barrowe and Greenwood indicted for felony 2 |