Puritan separatists Flashcards
Robert Browne (approx. 1550-1633)
After graduating from Corpus Christi College (Cambridge, 1572) and under the influence of Cartwight during these years, he became a lecturer preaching against the Church of England.
He attempted to create his own Church in Norwich but was arrested in 1581.
Once released, he fled to the Netherlands and attempted to establish a Church there without tarrying for the magistrate.
There, he published A Treatise of Reformation without Tarying for Anie, hence rejecting secular authority.
After failed attempts at establishing successive congregations in the Netherlands, he came back to England in 1585. Browne moderated his separatist position after his excommunication resulting from his sermons in Northampton but remained a central figure for separatists such as Henry Barrow or John Greenwood both executed in 1593 for treason. He was eventually ordained deacon in 1591 and came to be considered as a “tired radical”, although he was involved in controversies for much of his life.
Henry Barrow (1550-1593)
Considered a founding father of congregationalism (i.e. a separatist movement emphasizing a religious system based on autonomous congregations, very close to the presbyterian system) by historians, along with Robert Browne.
The seeds of Barrow’s separatism were planted in his mind after hearing a preacher in a church in London, and started to bloom when he read Browne’s writing in an attempt to refute his ideas, before eventually ending up converted by them.
He subsequently became affiliated with Separatist leader John Greenwood, and with the London Underground Church, which he led from 1587 to 1593.
Both men were regarded by Archbishop Whitgift as men to be watched. Greenwood was imprisoned in The Clink in 1586, and when Barrow visited him in 1587, he was detained, brought before Whitgift, but resisted, even refusing to take the ex officio oath.
He was detained 6 more months before Whitgift indicted the both of them under the 1581 Recusancy Act (originally an anti-catholic piece of legislation), fining them and transferring them to the Fleet Prison.
For the duration of his imprisonment, he kept upholding Separatist principle.
He notably wrote a fair number of treaties, which he entrusted friends to smuggle through to the Netherlands for publication. One of those treaties, Brief discoverie of the false church, written in 1590, indicted the Church for false worship, promiscuous membership, false ministry and false and anti-Christian government.
Released in 1592, Barrow and Greenwood were once again arrested in 1593 before being hanged on April 6 of this year, becoming Puritan martyrs in the process. (Sources: Bremer & Webster, Britannica.com, Wikipedia)
