THE SEPARATISTS IMPRISONED AND BANISHED. XXVI. 439 these of their livelihood and maintenance, though they CHAP had no offices to lose. But those remained still in the land, and were succoured and sheltered by good people in a competent wise, the most of them, and sundry of them lived as well, as may easily be proved, if not better, than if they had enjoyed their benefices; whereas the other were, a great number of them, forced to fly into foreign lands for shelter, or else might have perished in prisons; and these poor creatures endured, many of them, such hardships (as is well known to some of us) as makes our hearts still ache to remember. We some of us knew Mr. Parker, Doctor Ames, and Mr. Jacob in Holland, when they sojourned for a time at Leyden; and all three boarded together and had their victuals dressed by some of our acquaintance, and then they lived comfortably, and then they were provided for as became their persons. And after Mr. Jacob returned, and Mr. Parker was at Amsterdam, 1 Henry Jacob was born in the county of Kent in 1563, and was educated at Oxford. He became a clergyman of the Church of England, and as Anthony Wood says, was a person most excellently well read in theological authors, but withal was a most zealous Puritan, or as his son Henry used to say, the first Independent in England." He wrote two treatises against Francis Johnson, the Brownist, in defence of the Church of England's being a true church. But flying from the persecution under Bishop Bancroft in 1604, he fell in with John Robinson at Leyden, and conferring with him embraced his peculiar sentiments of church government. On his return to England, he laid in 1616, the foundation of an Independent or Congregational Church. He continued with his people about eight years, From but in 1624 went to Virginia, Also this, that a true church 440 SUFFERINGS OF THE SEPARATISTS. XXVI. CHAP. (where he printed some of his books,) and Mr. Ames disposed of himself to other places, it was not worse with them; and some of us well know how it fared then with divers precious Christians in those times and places. To To speak the truth, the professors in England, though many of them suffered much at the hands of the prelates, yet they had a great advantage of the Separatists; for the Separatists had not only the prelates and their faction to encounter with, (and what harder measure they met with at their hands, above the other, doth sufficiently appear by what is before declared,) but also they must endure the frowns, and many times the sharp invectives, of the forward ministers against them, both in public and private; and what influence they had upon the spirits of the people, is well enough known; also by reason hereof the ministers in foreign countries did look awry at them when they would give help and countenance to the other. YOUNG MEN. Indeed, it seems they have sometimes suffered much hardness in the Low Countries, if that be true that is reported of such a man as Mr. Ainsworth, that he should live for some time with nine pence a week. To which is replied by another, that if people suffered him to live on nine pence a week, with roots boiled, either the people were grown extreme low in estate, or the growth of their godliness was come to a very low ebb. ANCIENT MEN. The truth is, their condition for the most part was for some time very low and hard. low and hard. It was with them as, SUFFERINGS OF THE SEPARATISTS. XXVI. 441 if it should be related, would hardly be believed. CHAP. And no marvel. For many of them had lain long in prisons, and then were banished into Newfoundland, where they were abused, and at last came into the Low Countries, and wanting money, trades, friends or acquaintances, and languages to help themselves, how could it be otherwise? The report of Mr. Ainsworth was near those times, when he was newly come out of Ireland with others poor, and being a single young man and very studious, was content with a little. And yet, to take off the aspersion from the people in that particular, the chief and true reason thereof is mistaken; for he was a very modest and bashful man, and concealed his wants from others, until some suspected how it was with him, and pressed him to see how it was; and after it was known, such as were able mended his condition; and when he was married afterwards, he and his family were comfortably provided for. But we have said enough of these things. They had few friends to comfort them, nor any arm of flesh to support them; and if in some things they were too rigid, they are rather to be pitied, considering their times. and sufferings, than to be blasted with reproach to posterity. 1 YOUNG MEN. Was that Brown, that fell away and made apostasy, the first inventor and beginner of this way? Robert Brown was descended from an ancient and respectable family in Rutlandshire. His father, Anthony Brown, Esquire, of Tolthorp, sheriff of the county, was nearly related to Cecil, Lord Burleigh. He was educated at Cambridge, and preached some time in Benet Church, where the vehe mence of his delivery gained him 442 ROBERT BROWN, THE SEPARATIST. CHAP. ANCIENT MEN. No, verily; for, as one answers this question very well in a printed book, almost forty years ago, that the prophets, apostles, and evangelists have in their authentic writings laid down the ground thereof; and upon that ground is their building reared up and surely settled. Moreover, many of the martyrs, both former and latter, have maintained it, as is to be seen in The Acts and Monuments of the Church. Also, in the days of Queen Elizabeth there was a separated church, whereof Mr. Fitts was pastor,2 and another before that in the time of Queen Mary, of which Mr. Rough3 was of his followers at Middleburg. time. And if the Lord had not forsaken him, he had never so returned back into Egypt, as he did, to live of the spoils of it. And for the wicked things which Mr. Bernard affirmeth he did in this way, it may well be as he saith, and the more wicked things he committed in this course, the less like he was to continue long in it, and the more like to return again to his proper centre, the Church of England, where he should be sure to find companions enough in any wickedness, as it came to pass. See Wood's Athen. Oxon. ii. 17, (ed. Bliss); Fuller's Ch. Hist. iii. 61– 65; Strype's Annals, iii. 15; Neal's Puritans, i. 251; Baylie's Dissuasive, p. 13; Hornii Hist. Eccles. p. 231; Hoornbeek, Summa Controv. p. 739. As for Mr. Robinson's being the author of Independency, Mr. Cotton replies that "the New Testament was the author of it, and it was received in the times of purest, primitive antiquity, many hundreds of years before Mr. Robinson was born." Prince, p. 176. See Cotton's Way, p. 9. 2 See Prince's Annals, p. 302. 3 Rough was burnt. See Neal's Puritans, i. 71. SEPARATISTS BEFORE BROWN. 443 XXVI. pastor or teacher, and Cudbert Simpson a deacon, who CHAP. exercised amongst themselves, as other ordinances, so church censures, as excommunication, &c., and professed and practised that cause before Mr. Brown wrote for it. But he being one that afterwards wrote for it, they that first hatched the name of Puritans' and bestowed it on the godly professors that desired reformation, they likewise out of the same storehouse would needs bestow this new livery upon others that never would own it, nor had reason so to do. Mr. Cotton, likewise, in his Answer to Mr. Baylie, page fourth, shows how in the year 1567 there were a hundred persons who refused the common liturgy, and the congregations attending thereunto, and used prayers and preaching and the sacraments amongst themselves, whereof fourteen or fifteen were sent to prison, of whom the chiefest were Mr. Smith, Mr. Nixon, James Ireland, Robert Hawkins, Thomas Rowland, and Richard Morccroft; and these pleaded their separation before the Lord Mayor, Bishop Sands, and other commissioners on June 20, 1567, about eighty years ago, being many years before Brown. other instances might be given. YOUNG MEN. Divers But if we mistake not, Mr. Brown is accounted by some of good note to be the inventor of that way which is called Brownism, from whom the sect took its name. Moreover, it is said by such of note as aforesaid, that it is not God's usual manner of dealing to leave any of the first publishers or restorers of any truth of his to such fearful apostasy. In 1564. See note 12. 1 on page See Fuller's Ch. Hist. ii. 480, and Neal's Puritans, i. 161 — 164. |