V

Bound up with this Manual of Theology, Ethics, and Ecclesiastical Polity 36 is a Treatise of Reformation without tarrying for Anie. This brief pamphlet is an assault on the Puritan preachers who deplored the evils of the English Church, and especially its want of discipline, but who were waiting for the Queen and Parliament to effect reformation. The vigour, directness, and eloquence with which Browne presses his attack, explain the immense impression produced by his preaching.

The Puritans say that they must" tarry for the Magistrate." "Are they not ashamed thus to slander the Magistrate? " 37 The reformation of the Church is the duty of those to whom the necessity of reformation has been revealed; it is the duty of the ministers of Christ, not of the Queen. Let the silenced Puritan preachers do the work to which Christ has appointed them, do it at all costs; at present, they are refusing to carry their own burden, and are crying out that "it is not carried by the fault of the Magistrate." 38 Their compromising and cowardly policy makes the will of the magistrate the supreme authority in the Church instead of the will of Christ.39

"How long, therefore, will these men take the inheritance from the right heir, and give it unto the servant ? For the spiritual power of Christ and his Church, and the Keys of binding and loosing, they take from Christ and give to the Magistrate. The Magistrates have the civil sword, and lest they should strike them. therewith, they give them the ecclesiastical also." 40

They say that if they were apostles or prophets they would preach in spite of the magistrate; but as they are only ordinary ministers of Christ, they have no right to preach when the magistrate forbids them. But the apostles, answers Browne, were no more exempted from obedience to magistrates than other preachers. They were just as much under the civil authority of kings and governors as we are. But like them

39 ""

36 But with a separate title-page in the 37 Reformation without Tarrying, 2. Do they not pull down the head, hand of the magistrate?" (Ibid., 2.) 40 Ibid., 6.

Lambeth copy.

38 Ibid., 3. Christ Jesus, to set up the

we must obey God rather than man. Our gifts and calling as preachers came from God; the magistrate cannot take them away. He may shut me up in prison for preaching the truth; but "the magistrate so using me cannot be a Christian, but forsaketh the church: And how then should my office in the church depend on him which is none of the church?" 41

"Except the Magistrates will go into the tempest and rain, and be weather-beaten with the hail of God's wrath, they must keep under the roof of Christ's government. They must be under a Pastoral charge: they must obey to the Sceptre of Christ, if they be Christians. How then should the Pastor, which hath the oversight of the Magistrate, if he be of his flock, be so overseen of the Magistrate, as to leave his flock, when the Magistrate shall unjustly and wrongfully discharge him? Yet these Preachers and Teachers will not only do so, but even holding their charge and keeping with it, will not guide and reform it aright, because the Magistrates do forbid them forsooth." 42

VI

Brown also wrote what he describes as A Treatise upon the 23 of Matthewe, both for an order of studying and handling the Scriptures, and also for avoyding the Popishe disorders, and ungodly communion of all false Christians, and especially of wicked Preachers and Hirelings.43

He gives seven suggestions for studying and expounding any passage of Scripture. In substance these suggestions are (1) Make sure that the translation is correct, and then consider the true meaning and doctrine of the words. (2) If the words are hard to be understood, search out why such words were used to express the meaning. (3) Find out and determine the place of the doctrine in a theological system. (4) Consider what objections and difficulties the doctrine provokes. (5) State the error opposed to it, and make both the truth and the error plain by some parable or illustration 42 Ibid., 3.

41 Reformation without tarrying, 8. 43 This treatise follows the tract Reformation without tarrying for Anie, in the Lambeth copy. Though it has no separate title-page, it is not mentioned in the general title-page prefixed to the volume, and the page-registers run straight on. The third treatise, A Booke which Sheweth, comes next, with a different title-page and separate registers.

or ancient Jewish ceremony. (6) Apply the truth. (7) Close with exhortation.44

After these suggestions comes a keen and a rather amusing attack on preachers. First he attacks them for quoting Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in their sermons.45 Then he attacks their "vain logic "; showing that the methods of formal logic are worse than useless in the study and exposition of Scripture. It is possible, he says, to reason, without using the technicalities of the schools. "Job disputed with his friends; but did he urge them with Syllogisms? Did his proofs walk upon a Major' or a Minor,' or did two such stumps bear up his conclusions?" 46 One of his practical objections to the use of formal logic in exposition throws a light upon the importance whch he attached to free conference on Christian truth and duty.

By it is the exercise of prophecy or mutual edifying, also the right use of Synods or general meetings, of determining controversies, of discussing matters, of communing, disputing, and searching out the truth, clean taken away. By that also the people which have not learned Logic, are shut out and discouraged from talking, pleading, and mutual edifying in the church meetings."

"' 47

Then he condemns the use in sermons of the technical terms of rhetoric, and ridicules the preachers who cannot expound the Scriptures without talking of an hyperbole, a trope, a synecdoche, and the rest. Finally he condemns their "curious methods and divisions."

Browne was an orator as well as a theologian and a controversialist. While he insisted that the substance of sermons should be solid and weighty, he insisted with equal earnestness that their form should be free and popular.48

He also wrote, either while he was at Middelberg, or immediately after leaving it, An Answer to Master Cartwright his letter for joining with the English Church; whereunto the true copy of his said letter is annexed.49

An Order of studying the Scriptures, 4-5. 45 Ibid., 5-6.

46 Ibid., 8.

47 Ibid., 6.

"the

48 In 21-40 he illustrates his principles by practical application to his text, and ends his treatise by a vigorous onslaught upon Parishe Preachers and hired Lecturers, and all that Popish rabble— the Scribes and the Pharisees [who] sit in Moses' seat" (Matt. xxiii. 2). ❝ Published probably in 1583.

VII

Grave troubles disturbed the Church of the exiles at Middelberg. Browne was charged with being too severe and peremptory in the exercise of his pastoral authority. Three times he resigned his pastorate, and three times he resumed it. But at the end of November, 1583, he and a few of his friends sailed for Scotland. The Presbyterians retained for many years the impression of horror produced by what they regarded as his wild and revolutionary talk about church polity. In January, 1583-4, he was cited to appear before the Edinburgh Presbytery. Articles defining his heresies were drawn up to be presented to the King; but the ecclesiastical authorities appear to have received an intimation that the case against him was not to be pressed. It is probable that he remained in Scotland for several months.

In the summer of 1584 the restless, eager man was in London, and was again rescued from the bishops by Lord Burleigh, who, in October, 1585, sent him home to his father in Rutlandshire with a kindly letter.

"I thought good," wrote the Lord Treasurer, "considering he was your son, and of my blood, to send unto my lord of Canterbury on his behalf that he might find what reasonable favour he could shew him, before whom I perceive he hath answered in some good sort . . . and, therefore, for that he purposeth to repair to you, I have thought good to accompany him with these my letters, and to pray you for this cause, or any his former dealings, not to withdraw from him your fatherly love and affection; not doubting but with time he will be fully recovered and withdrawn from the relics of some fond opinions of his, which will be the better done if he be dealt withal in some kind and temperate manner." 50

Here he remained as a kind of "ecclesiastical prisoner on parole." 51 But Lord Burleigh's hope that he might be 66 recovered and withdrawn from the relics of some fond opinions of his " was not fulfilled. At his father's request, and with Lord Burleigh's consent, he left Tolethorpe for Stamford in February, 1585-6. At that time there were no indications that his hostility to the English Church was relenting.

50 In Fuller, v. 65-66.

61 Joseph Fletcher, History of Independency, ii. 123.

VIII

52

What happened during the next six months is uncertain ; but on November 21 of the same year (1586) he was chosen master of St. Olave's Grammar School, Southwark, and subscribed six articles: (1) Not to keep conventicles; (2) To go with the children to church; (3) To conform to the doctrine of the Church of England; (4) To use no catechism but that authorised by public authority; (5) To communicate at the parish church according to law; (6) And, if he be not content to keep these articles, no longer to keep the school-mastership. In June, 1589, Burleigh wrote to the Bishop of Peterborough asking that Browne might be received again into the ministry “as a means and help for some ecclesiastical preferment,' and assuring the bishop that he had for “ a good time" given up his "strange manner of writing and opinions" and "submitted himself to the order and government established in the Church.” 53

IX

Two years later-September, 1591-Browne resigned his mastership and became rector of Achurch-cum-Thorpe, a small hamlet and parish in Northampton. The living was in the gift of Lord Burleigh. Here he remained for forty years. Thomas Fuller, who was born a mile from Achurch, says that in his time Browne "had a wife with whom for many years he never lived "--and a church "wherein he never preached." "He was of an imperious nature," says Fuller, "offended if what he affirmed but in common discourse were not instantly received as an oracle." 54 In a passion he struck the constable of the parish, who had somewhat roughly required him to pay a rate, and the constable had him committed to Northampton gaol, where he died—an old man of eighty. The date of his death is uncertain; but it was between June 2, 1631, and November 8, 1633.

52 See Note A, p.136.

53 The letter is given by Strype, Whitgift, i. 620.

54 Fuller, v. 68-69, says that when he was a "youth" he often saw Browne. He must have been more than twenty-two years of age at the time of Browne's death.