BROWNE, ROBERT. – Protestant pastor, born at Tolethorp (England) around 1551, died at Achurchum-Thorpe between 1631 and 1633. After studying at Cambridge in Corpus Christi College, in 1571 he began preaching his doctrines at Islington.
B. was in fact the initiator of the principles and norms of ecclesiastical government adopted by the Independents, later called Congregationalists, and introduced the “Congregationalist Regime” among Protestants. According to this regime, the individual congregations form a body independent of every other, possessing the right to elect and depose their pastors, to formulate their “creed” and discipline, without any external authority being able to obstruct the complete doctrinal independence of each member. Accused on account of these doctrines, so contrary to the manner of governing of the official Church of England, he was protected by the Duke of Norfolk, and was thus able to withdraw to Norwich. Persecuted there as well by the Anglican bishop of the diocese, he left England and went to Middelburg in Holland. There he wrote his three treatises, in which he explains the doctrines of the Congregationalists. But his character made him disliked by the faithful over whom he was pastor; consequently, in 1584, he abandoned them and went to Scotland, where he was imprisoned for his doctrines, which were also contrary to the Presbyterian regime. Released from prison, he returned to England in 1586, settling in Northampton, where he was likewise excommunicated by the Anglican bishop. Protected on this occasion as well, he was reconciled with the bishop, and, having definitively separated from the Church he had founded, in 1591 he was appointed Anglican pastor of the small church of Achurchum-Thorpe, where he died, apparently mentally ill.
Mackennal, Shetches in the Evolution of English Congregationalism, London 1901; R. W. Dale, History of English Congregationalism, there 1907. Camillo Crivelli