Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
The fact that many men in England were thinking along the same lines as the Separatists; that Browne had recanted just as Barrowe and Greenwood were thrust into prison; and that they both disapproved in some measure of Browne's teachings, might account for a denial of discipleship. Browne's influence might even have been unrecognized by the men themselves.
In order to appreciate the changes in church polity and in the religious temper of the people for which Browne and Barrowe labored, one must survey the field in which they worked and note such preparation as it had received before their advent.
This authority of the elders was defined more clearly and elaborated by Barrowe's followers in their True Confession, published in Amsterdam in 1596-98. H. Barrowe, A True Description; Discovery of False Churches, p. 188; A Plain Refutation of Mr. A. E. Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 61.
These theories and these convictions soon crystallized out. And the transatlantic crystallization was found to yield results, some of which were very similar to the modifications which time had wrought in England upon the rough and embryonic forms of Congregationalism as set forth by Robert Browne and Henry Barrowe.
Among its organizers, there was the seeming determination to treat the Episcopal system as a mere legal appendage. F. J. Powicke, Henry Barrowe, p. 139. Among them was one John Bolton, who had been a member of Mr. Fitz's church in 1571. At the beginning of James the First's reign, 1603, Separatist converts numbered 20,000 souls in England.
Greenwood had become so enamored with Separatist doctrines, that within five years of his graduation he was deprived of his benefice, in 1586, and sent to prison. While there, he was visited by his friend, Henry Barrowe, a young London lawyer, who, through the chance words of a London preacher, had been converted from a wild, gay life to one devout and godly.
Later, when Browne's writings were being secretly distributed in England, both Barrowe and Greenwood had come in contact with the London congregations to whom Browne had preached.
According to both Browne and Barrowe, these officers were to be the mouthpiece of the church in the admission, censure, dismissal, or readmission of members. They were to prepare matters to be brought before the church for action. They were also to adjust matters, when possible, so as to avoid overburdening the church or its pastor and teacher with trivial business.
Neither Browne nor Barrowe felt any need, as did their later followers, to demonstrate their doctrinal soundness, because in all matters of creed they "were in full doctrinal sympathy with the predominantly Calvinistic views of the English Established Church from which they had come out."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking