what archbishop Usher thought the true primitive bishop, the primus inter pares, the first among his equals. This president, or chairman, in the council of elders, Dr. Campbell supposes to be the angel to whom the epistles to the seven churches of Asia were addressed; for the church of Ephesus had more than one elder, who were all called bishops. Besides the pastors, independent churches elect some from among the brethren, to the office of deacons; whose duty is to take care of the poor, and in general, of the temporalities of the society.

In tracing the history of this communion, what others would call the origin, independents consider only the revival of their churches. They conceive that the New Testament represents the first Christian churches as formed upon their principles, which were stifled by the early corruptions of Christianity, when the spirit of the world established the domination of a few over the consciences of their brethren. As soon as their emancipation from the yoke of Rome, and the reformation of doctrine, had left to Christians sufficient leisure to attend to discipline, the presbyterian system presented itself as a complete restoration of the primitive regimen of the church. It was, indeed, as considerable a step from the Roman hierarchy as Christians could be expected to take at once; but some, when advanced thus far, beheld the scene still opening upon them, and inviting them to pursue their course to a mode of discipline as much beyond the presbyterian, as presbytery was preferable to prelacy.

Slander herself wrote the first records of the independents. Fuller', who was an episcopalian, and no Fuller's Church History.

friend to the new sect, acknowledges that “little can be known of them, but from pens which avowedly wrote against them." Various malignant reflections are thrown out against the principles of the independents, on account of the person who is supposed to be their first author. But amidst the ferment of religious contentions, the most impetuous spirits will, sometimes, gain the precedency, in point of time and publicity, while they are yet far behind others in the maturity of their sentiments, or the firmness of their hold. It is generally supposed, that the idea of independency first occurred to one who had not principles to pursue the plan: but it is more probable, that many were cultivating in secret the system, which was first announced to the public, in a crude form, by Robert Brown, from whom the earliest independents were called Brownists.

He descended from an ancient and honourable family in Rutlandshire, and was educated at Corpus Christi college, Cambridge. Amidst the confusion which reigns in his history, it is difficult to speak with certainty; but he seems to have chosen, for the first scene of his labours, the city of Norwich, where many Dutch emigrants were settled. Here, in the year one thousand six hundred and eighty, among foreigners and natives, he diffused his independent principles with all the zeal, which a new and important discovery usually kindles; and all the stern severity which, at that period, every party displayed. He has been reviled as an intolerant bigot, for

One of his ancestors was, by a charter of King Henry the eighth, indulged with the singular privilege of wearing his cap in the presence of the king, or his heirs, or any lords spiritual or temporal; and not to put it off but for his own ease or pleasure.

denying the church of England to be a true church, her ministers to be rightly ordained, or her sacraments valid. But all this is no more than has been retorted upon those who separate from the establishment, by elegant scholars in the nineteenth century, which is thought so much more enlightened and liberal than the age in which Brown lived.

Induced, probably, by the opposition which his principles experienced at home, he removed to Middleburgh, in Zealand, where he formed a church upon his own plan. It was not long, however, before he returned to England, where he was assisted in propagating his sentiments by one Harrison. After having been, by his own declaration, confined to thirty-two prisons, in some of which he could not see his hand at noon; he conformed to the establishment which he had condemned, and died with a very indifferent character, rector of Achurch in Northamptonshire.

But the principles were immortal, and so rapid was their diffusion, that Sir Walter Raleigh said in the parliament of the thirty-fifth year of Elizabeth : "I am afraid there are near twenty thousand of these men; and when they are driven out of the kingdom, who shall support their wives and children?" The field of their labours was rendered fertile by their blood. Elias Thacker and John Copping were hanged at St. Edmund's Bury, for the crime of dispersing what were termed schismatical pamphlets, containing the principles of the Brownists. But several more of these people being imprisoned, the Justices, at the quarter-sessions, were moved by their complaints, and gained the triumph of mercy over t * Neale's History of Puritans.

The names of Sir

the bishops' cruel measures. Robert Jermin, and Sir John Higham; of Robert Ashfield, and Thomas Bradley, Esquires, deserve honourable mention as the leaders in this generous action".

While groaning under the arm of power, which pressed most heavily on them for renouncing that communion with the establishment which other puritans yet maintained, they were joined by many eminent men, who risked all that was dear to them in life, in support of what appeared to them the true Christian polity. Among these was a gentleman of the temple, whose name was Barrow, who became so eminent among them, that they were frequently called Barrowists. Ainsworth, a name as dear to learning as to religion, the rabbi of his age, was driven from his country, of which he formed the brightest ornament, for the unpardonable sin of adopting these schismatical opinions. He retired to Holland, where a Mr. Johnson, another independent exile, formed a church, of which Ainsworth was chosen teacher. These two, pursued by calumnies to a foreign shore, published there a confession of faith of the people called Brownists. The rich store of oriental learning, displayed in Ainsworth's Annotations on the Pentateuch and the Psalms, has preserved it to this day, high in the esteem of many who have never heard of his writings in defence of independent principles.

" Neale.

* This celebrated divine was, in his exile for conscience sake, reduced to live on a few boiled roots, having but ninepence a day for his support. He hired himself as porter to a bookseller, at Amsterdam, who soon discovered the superior learning of his ser

The independents in London, and its vicinity, formed themselves into a church, in the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-two, at the house of a Mr. Fox, in Nicholas-lane. They chose Mr. Francis Johnson, pastor; Mr. Greenhood, teacher; Messrs. Bowman and Lee, deacons; and Messrs. Studley and Kingston, elders. Several persons were baptized without godfathers or godmothers; and the Lord's Supper was celebrated by the members of the church, who sat or stood, as they judged proper. 'Aware that they were hunted after by the blood hounds of the high commission, they often changed their place of meeting; but were, at last, discovered at Islington, on the very spot where the protestants met, during the popish persecutions in the reign of Mary.

Fifty-six of them were sent prisoners to different jails about London, where they had the melancholy consolation of finding many of their brethren confined for the same crime of worshipping God in the way they judged most acceptable to him. When vant, and published his fame, as a man who had more learning in his head than he carried on his shoulders. His death has been variously represented. He had found in the streets of Amsterdam a diamond of great value, for which the Jew who owned it, offered him any acknowledgment which he might require. Though poor, his principles were too elevated to demand a price for giving up what he had no right to keep; so that he only requested a conference with some of the Jewish rabbis on the prophecies of the Old Testament, concerning the Messiah. Some affirm, that the Jew, finding his interest insufficient to procure the conference which he had promised, to free himself from the obligation, poisoned Ainsworth. But others maintain, that the parties met, when Ainsworth so confounded the Jews, that they revenged themselves by his death. He died about the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-two.