Robert Browne (Brownist)

Robert Browne (* 1550, † October 7, 1633 ) was the founder of the English Puritan Separatists or Brownists or of English Congregationalism.

Life

Robert Browne was born into a wealthy merchant family from Stamford, which can be traced back to the fourteenth century. Three ancestors were there aldermen, two sheriffs were of Rutlandshire. Browne was born about 1550 in Tolethorpe Hall (Rutland ), the third of seven children of Anthony Browne and his wife Dorothy, daughter of Sir Philip Boteler. He received his education probably at Stamford School. There was a distant kinship with William Cecil. Little is known of Browne's childhood. 1570 (?), He began his studies at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1572 he received his Bachelor of Arts. An important collaborators was his fellow student at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Robert Harrison ( 154 -? 1585 ), later pastor in Norwich and in Middelburg, the Netherlands. Both were likely influenced by the neo- Calvinist lectures of Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603), a Puritan theologian and professor at Cambridge. After leaving the university Browne worked from 1574 to 1577 as a teacher in Southwark Oundle in Northamptonshire, before he was released. During this time he began to address fundamental questions of the Church and the Bible. He also spent time working together with the Puritan pastor Richard Greenham of Dry Drayton. The episcopate, which had retained after their separation from the Catholic Church, the Anglican, Browne appeared increasingly directed against God's will, not of the biblical writings derivable and therefore unacceptable. His views expressed Browne in public sermons to which he had no permit. During an illness or convalescence visited him later Bishop Richard Bancroft, who brought him a letter from the Privy Council, which forbade such sermons. Probably Browne came to London in 1580, but returned to Norwich.

In the spring of 1581 it Browne was succeeded together with Harrison in Norwich, to develop sufficient resistance to the Anglican Church and to organize a separatist church, so that Bishop Freke of Norwich because of this disturbance, and later because of Browne's refusal to follow his instructions, to William Cecil turned for help. Browne was arrested. He was in his life detained a total of 32 times, but was probably through the influence of William Cecil's always free. In August 1582 appeared Browne's first and most famous book A Book Which sheweth the Life and Manners of all true Christians. It contained three different treatises, in which he formulated the theory of " Congregational Independency ," that is, the independence of each congregation of the parent church authorities. Was soon followed by another book, A Treatise of Reformation without tarrying for Any and of the Wickedness Of Those Preachers whichwill not reform till the magistrates command or compel them. This work formulated the inalienable right of the Church to carry out the necessary reforms without authorization by secular authorities.

In order to escape persecution in England, emigrated Browne 1582 with most of his community in the Netherlands Middelburg (Zeeland). While Browne was able to operate as a theological writer largely free in the Netherlands, several of his followers in England were at the same time condemned and hanged, because they sold Browne from an Anglican perspective seditious writings, such as 1583 John Copping and Elias Thacker, members of the Brown ash congregation in Norwich.

In Middleburg has seen increasing conflicts among the separatists. In particular, at the instigation of Robert Harrison, who had become Browne's opponents, this was excluded from the community. He returned with his family in 1584 via Scotland, where he found no attachment for his state church hostile action, to the English state church, while the church remained under Harrison's leadership in the Netherlands. At the request of the Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury had caught hold often long even in this time Browne. William Cecil, Lord Burgley he probably owed his release to his parents' house. In the spring of 1586 he appeared in Norwich and was excommunicated for continued attacks on the state church. Since Browne finally subdued and reconciled with the Church of England, he was readmitted to the once so violently feuded him state church and received in autumn 1586 a teaching job at the Latin School in Southwark and in the fall of 1591, the parish Achurch. Browne died during detention in Northampton, probably as mentally ill. He was said to be mentally changed since the prison time of the year in 1585.

Importance

Browne founded in England (Norwich ) from 1581, the first separatist movement, the " Brownists " (later " Barrowisten "), which completely separated from the Church of England (hence " separatists " ) and later had to dodge in the Netherlands to the pursuit to escape. The Brownists developed their own theological principles that should free their religious beliefs and their exercise of external constraints. Pastors and laymen were equal to each other. Even the latter were allowed to report to the church to speak. This was a consistent application of Martin Luther's doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and John Calvin's church order, elected by the church members church elders ( presbyters ) participate equally in church leadership involved ( four offices doctrine ). Browne rejected each specified exercise of religion and every prayer form. Sacraments were only the self-affirmation of the community. Influenced by the Calvinist federal theology, understood as the separatists true believer, with whom God made a covenant ( covenant ) is closed and to individual communities ( Congregations, derived from " Congregationalism " ) had brought together, which constituted the true Church of Christ. The individual communities were independent of the state and the other communities a sibling. You chose and ordained their own pastors, church elders, teachers, and deacons, and decide on the admission and exclusion of its members. Thus their discipline had a democratic structure, has been omitted without in the sense of Calvin on church discipline.

Although Browne turned back to the Anglican Church in later years, the Congregational principles developed especially in his major work had continued. Henry Barrowe and John Greenwood led away Brownes original work up to their execution ( 1593). Separatist Congregationalists, the 1620, the Plymouth Colony established ( Pilgrim Fathers ), both organized life in their parishes as well as the secular region of their settlement in accordance with the democratic principles that Browne, Barrowe and Greenwood had developed.

Shakespeare and the Brownists

The followers of Robert Browne, the " Brownists " be about 1601 Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It ( Twelfth Night, written with the intent to be listed before the Queen ), mentions pronounce as Sir Andrew "I would as ran be a Brownist as a politician. "