Brownism

One of the shadows over the landscape we will explore is that of a man about whom almost nothing is known: Robert Brown. He was a Cambridge man who adopted (he certainly did not invent) a most perverse concept of religiosity: that a congregation was a Church, self-contained with respect to doctrine and government. This idea was so at odds with prevailing opinion about religion and religious government that it was condemned by almost everyone: the court, the Catholics, the Church and the puritans.

You can read what Gardiner has to say about Brownism on pages 36 and 37.

It's interesting that we know almost nothing about Robert Brown, even though the views he published become the prevailing opinion in the army in the late 1640s. He was born in Rulandshire and may have been related to Lord Burleigh. He was active in teaching his ideas around 1581. He may have led a small congregation in Middleburg in Zealand. He later reconciled to the Church of England and accepted a living in Northamptonshire. He is said to have boasted of being committed to 32 separate prison cells. His undisputed writings, if any there were, have disappeared.
Brown himself is of almost no importance to our story, but the allure of the theories he preached proved strong among common people.

Slightly more that what is actually known about Brown can be found in The Rise of Modern Democracy in Old and New England, by Charles Borgeaud, translated by Mrs Hill, pp. 32-34:

Robert Brown had once been a pupil of Cartwright,
at Cambridge; he had developed and carried to
their extreme limit the opinions of his teacher. At
first he settled at Norwich, and organized there a
Church according to his views, but the interference of
the Bishop soon forced him to leave the country.
He took refuge in Holland, followed by part of his
congregation, and settled himself at Middleburg.
There he published, in 1582, the first systematic
statement of the congregational theory, A Booke
Which Sheweth the Life and Manners of all true 
Christians [Brit. Mus. c. 37, E. 57.] 'True Christians are united into a
companie or number of believers who by a willing
covenant made with their God, place themselves
under the government of God and of Christ, keeping the Divine law in a holy Communion.'

It is this particular definition of Brown's which is
new, for the other principles which he maintains, the
election of ministers solely by the congregations, and
the actual sovereignty of the assembly of the faithful,
were already to be found in the writings of Cartwright.
But the one new thing was of grave importance, not only because it destroyed the notion of
the system of National Churches, but because it
necessarily involved a complete separation between
the domains of religion and politics. Robert Brown
declared that the State had no right to interfere with
the internal affairs of the Church; only such things as
affected public order, and the outward manifestations
of religion, were within its province. It has no power
whatsoever 'to compel religion, to plant Churches
by power, and to force a submission to ecclesiastical
government.'

The founder of Congregationalism has gained a
definite place among the first defenders of religious
liberty. And yet it is quite clear that he did not
himself see the full significance of his arguments.
Though he denies the right of a civil magistrate to
interfere in purely religious questions, by a curious
inconsistency frequent in the writers of the age, he
cannot get rid of the prevalent notion which confused
religious society with political society. He believed
that the truths which he proclaimed concerning religious
matters ought to be equally applied to civil
affairs. 'We give these definitions so generall,'
says the author of A Booke concerning Trne Christians 
in so many words, 'that they may be applied also to
the civill State.' He ends by declaring that civil
magistrates, like religious functionaries, ought to be
chosen with the consent of the people.

The harsh measures taken to put down Congregationalism by Elizabeth's government sufficiently
attest the importance which was attached to the
movement. Ministers were even hanged for the
sole crime of having spread the writings of Brown.
The author of the incriminated writings had by this
time made his submission and returned to his
country. He owed his pardon to the protection of
persons in authority. But his disciples did not
follow him in his return to the State Church.
Though imprisoned, banished, and even executed
as felons, they persisted in their schism, and new
congregations under other leaders were founded in
Holland. One of these, that of which John Robinson
was the minister, set sail in 1620 for America.
These were the first colonists of New England, the
famous Pilgrim Fathers.