INDEPENDENTS

A Protestant sect; so called because they maintain that every single congregation of Christians which meet in any one place for public worship forms a church or independent religious society in itself, unconnected with, and not amenable to, any other church or congregation. They consequently condemn every thing like a national establishment of religion, whether episcopal or pre.«byterian; and insist that each congregation of Christians has inherent and indefeasible power in itself to exercise ecclesiastical government, to fix their own tenets and form of religious worship, and to adopt 592 INDEPENDENTS. their own standard of church discipline, without being responsible to bishops, presbyteries, or synods, or even to the state itr.elf. The Independents were not at any time, and are not at this day, remarkable for any peculiarity of religious creed. They have always maintained, speaking generally, Calvin is tic doctrines; their only peculiarity consisting in their maintenance of independent ecclesiastical government. Of the history of this sect it may be proper to give a brief account. On the reformation of religion in England, the great body of Protestants adopted, under the auspices of the government, the episcopal form of church polity, which was in consequence established as the national religion. But there were not a few who conscientiously thought that this polity too nearly resembled that which had been supplanted; and objected, besides, to the vestments adopted by the clergy in the celebration of divine worship, to the liturgy, and above all to the sign of the cro used in baptism, as unscriptural and erroneous. These non-conformists, or di entients from the established faith, are known in history under the name of P«ritans, as the followers of Nov at i an had been denominated in the third century. They were evidently so called in derision, in consequence of the superior purity and sanctity they a umed, and of the greater deference they showed to scripture authority, both as to doctrine and the form of religious worship. But while they forsook the national church, and condemned many of her tenets, they did not agree among themselves. They were, in truth, unanimous in nothing but in resisting the constitution of the predominant hierarchy. Some of them were in favour of presbytery, or ecclesiastical government vested in a gradation of church courts, such as Calvin had established in Geneva, and as Knox had introduced into Scotland, Others were against every form of state religion, or union of churches under the same ecclesiastical government; but regarded each congregation of Christians as being jure divine a complete and independent church, competent to judge, decide, and act for itself, without any external interference or responsibility whatever. Of this latter opinion, which constitutes the pure principle of English Independency, the author and great advocate was Robert Brown, wlio was originally a clergym.an of the Protestant episcopal church, from which he seceded, and avowed his new doctrines about the year 1580. (Neat's Hist. o/ihe Puritans, \olA.ch.\i. London, 1822.) Brown is represented by Neal as a vehement and popular declaimer, and insinuating in his manners; and hence he succeeded in detaching many from the episcopal faith, and in establishing several separate churches. He not only advocated the leading principles of Independency as we have stated them above, but taught that the priesthood was neither a distinct order in the Christian church, nor conferred an indelible character; that every person regarded by the majority of a congregation as qualified to teach might be set apart for that office by the election of his brethren, and by imposition of the'ir hands; in like manner, by their authority, he might be discharged from that function, and reduced to the rank of a private Christian. He also maintained that the right of the pastors to preach was not peculiar to them; on the contrary, that any member who thought proper to exhort or instruct the brethren enjoyed the inherent right of doing so, or of" prophesying" before the whole a embly. Hence it happened that after the stated pastor had finished his services, the ordinary members were allowed to communicate in public their sentiments on any religious subject. (Ibid.; And Moshei?n's C/i. Hist. vol.v.3bb-6. London, 1822.) But while Brown enforced these views, and claimed liberty of conscience to himself, he was not willing to allow similar privileges to other sects, particularly the Church of England. " The Brownists," for so the Puritans were now called, " did not differ from the Church of England in any articles of faith; but were very rigid and narrow in points of discipline. They denied the Church of England to be a true church, and her ministers to be rightly ordained. They maintained the discipline of the Church of England to be popish and anti-Christian, and all her ordinances and sacraments invalid. Hence they forbade their people to join with them in prayer, in hearing, or in any part of public worship; nay, they not only renounced communion with the Church of England, but with all other reformed churches, except such as should be of their own model." (Neal, i. 303.) Brown and his followers, as they had imbibed such extreme views, cannot be expected' to have been allowed to live undisturbed in the dark times to which we refer. He, in truth, suffered severely for his principles, both for some works he published, and for the ecclesiastical doctrines which he travelled throughout England in propagating. He was committed, as he afterwards boasted, to no fewer than thirty-two prisons in succe ion, in some of which he could not see his hand at noonday. Nor were his adherents more mercifully treated: many of them were fined and imprisoned, and some put to death. (Neal, i. 313.) Under these circumstances, a body of the party, with Brown at their head, fled to Holland, [s. 605]