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8. He, having been a close prisoner a long time before the said statute was made, cannot be lawfully convicted of having broken it."

These reasons, however, prevailed not. Whether the treasurer made any use of them, we are not able to learn. But Mr. Johnson was brought to trial; and though his crime was merely that of writing against the established church and the oppressions of the prelates, and was com mitted even some time before the statute was made, he was found guilty by the said statute, and condemned to perpetual banishment from his country. Messrs. Barrow, Greenwood, Penry, and some others, having suffered death on account of their firm attachment to their religious sentiments, Archbishop Whitgift and the other ruling prelates, who were the chief promoters of these barbarous proceedings, became, at length, ashamed of hanging men for propagating their religious principles, and contrived this engine to have the Brownists and other puritans swept out of the land. This act, therefore, condemned them to banishment without discrimination; and the gaols were soon cleared of them. Yet the overbearing, tyrannical prelates took care to have them filled again in the following year.+

Mr. Johnson being condemned to suffer perpetual banish ment, retired to Amsterdam, many of his friends accompanying him, There he formed a church after the model of the Brownists, having the learned Mr. Henry Ainsworth for its doctor or teacher. The grand principle on which this church was founded, may be expressed in Mr. Johnson's own words. "The church," says he, "ought not to be governed by popish canons, courts, classis, customes, or any human inventions,but by the laws and rules which Christ hath appointed in his Testament." "Every particular church, with its pastors, stands immediately under Christ, the arch pastor, without any other ecclesiastical power intervening; whether it be of prelates, synods, or any other invented by man." In 1598, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Ainsworth drew up a confession of their faith in Latin, which they dedicated to the universities of St. Andrews, Leyden, Heidelbery, Geneva, and the other universities of Scotland, Holland, Germany, and France. It was afterwards translated into English, and does not differ much in doctrine from the "Harmony of Confessions."

Strype's Annals, vol. iv. p. 137, 138. + Ainsworth's Counterpoyson, p. 40. Bailie's Dissuasive, p. 35.

+ Paget's Church Gov. p. 211. Life of Ainsworth, p. 18.

Although Mr. Johnson was a learned and religious man, he was rigid in his principles;* and his people entertaining discordant sentiments, it was not long before they split into. parties. That which first occasioned this dissention was Mr. Johnson's marriage to a widow of competent fortune, whom his brother George Johnson and his father thought an improper match in those times of persecution. George Johnson represents her as addicted to luxurious living, excess of finery in dress, and a lover of ease. Frequent disputes, therefore, took place from 1594, the time of marriage, till about 1598, when George Johnson, his father, and some other members who adhered to them, were cut off from the church, chiefly on account of their behaviour in this affair. The greater part, among whom was Mr. Ainsworth, took part with Francis the pastor. Much reproach has, by various writers, been cast upon them on account of this censure.‡ The excommunication of a brother and an aged father, appears an harsh and unnatural proceeding: however, the grounds, circumstances, and ends of it, should be examined before we condemn what was done. Most probably the censure was by the suffrage of the church, and appeared to a majority of its members, to be according to the will of God; and, therefore, they preferred the will of God, more than any natural affection, and regarded the spiritual welfare of those whom they cast out, more than any temporal ease or advantage. Johnson says, "Those whom we have cast out, it hath been partly for revolting from the truth, to the corruptions of other churches, and partly for other sins." And Mr. Ainsworth says, "That George Johnson and his father were cast out for lying, slandering and contention."||

Mr.

Mr. Neal confounds this unhappy controversy with another which happened many years afterwards, between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Ainsworth, about matters of discipline. Mr. Johnson placed the government of the church in the eldership alone; Ainsworth in the whole church, of which the elders are a part. The event, accord

Bishop Hall charges him with saying, "That the ministry and worship of the church of England were taken out of the whore's cup. He styles our church, the daughter of Babylon, the mother of whoredoms and abominations; and says, that the constitution, worship, and government, are directly antichristian."—Apologie against Brownists, p. 742. Edit. 1614.

+ See Art. Ainsworth.

Bailie's Dissuasive, p. 15. § Ibid. p. 37.

Life of Ainsworth, p. 30.
Neal's Hist. of Puritans, vol. ii. p. 44, 45.

ing to the opinion of some, was, that Johnson excommunicated Ainsworth and his part of the church, and that Ainsworth returned the compliment upon the opposite party but for the latter charge there appears no foundation.+ On the contrary, Mr. John Cotton, who was no Brownist, but was contemporary with Ainsworth and Johnson, and lived among those who had been concerned in this affair, observes, "That Mr. Ainsworth and his company did not excommunicate Mr. Johnson and his party, but withdrew, when they could no longer live peaceably together." Ainsworth and those who adhered to him, held a separate assembly at Amsterdam, and the two congregations were afterwards distinguished as Johnsonian and Ainsworthian Brownists. But Mr. Johnson and his friends, at length, removed to Embden, where he afterwards died, and his congregation dissolved.

In the year 1599, there was a long controversy carried on in print, between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Henry Jacob, concerning certain tenets of the Brownists. The same year the whole was collected and published at Middleburgh, by Mr. Johnson, consisting of ninety-one quarto pages, entitled, "A Defence of the Churches and Ministry of England, against the reasons and objections of Maister Francis Johnson, and others of the separation commonly called Brownists. In two Treatises. Published especially for the benefit of those in these parts of the Low Countries." In one of these treatises is a recapitulation of all the chief objections raised by the Brownists against the church of England; from which we may gather a much more complete account of their tenets and doctrines, than from any thing else ever published; and it is truly authentic, because it was written by one of the leaders of the Brownists. It is called, Antichristian Abominations yet retained in England,” and enumerates the following particulars:

"The confusion of all sorts of people in the body of

* Bailie's Dissuasive, p. 15.

+ Life of Ainsworth, p. 31, 33.

Cotton's Congregational Churches, p. 6.

The Johnsonian Brownists commenced a suit, it is said, against the Ainsworthians, for the meeting-house granted to the Brownists at Amsterdam. The Johnsonians pleaded that it belonged to them, being the ancient Brownists, to whom it was originally given: but the Ainsworthians, on the contrary, pleaded it was theirs, seeing they were the true Brownists, holding the ancient faith of that church, from which the Johnsonians are said to have apostatized. How far this account is correct, or how this dispute was ended, we are not able to learn.-Paget's Heresiography, p. 67, 68.

their (the English) church; even the most polluted, and their seed, being members thereof.-Their ministration of the word, sacraments, and government of the church, by virtue of antichristian officers.-The titles of primate, metropolitan, lords, grace, lordship, &c. ascribed to the prelates. The inferior prelates swearing obedience to the metropolitical sees of Canterbury and York.-The inferior ministers, when they enter into the ministry, promising obedience to the prelates, and their ordinances; and when they are inducted to benefices, confirming with an oath.-The deacon's and priest's presentation to a lord bishop, by an archdeacon. Their receiving orders of the prelates, or their suffragans.-Their pontifical, or book of consecrating bishops, and of ordering priests and deacons, taken out of the pope's pontifical, where their abuse of scripture to that end, their collects, epistles, &c. may be seen. Their mak ing, and being made, priests, with blasphemy; the prelates saying to those whom they make priests, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins ye forgive, they are forgiven, &c. -Their confounding of civil and ecclesiastical offices and authorities in ecclesiastical persons.-Their retaining and using in their public worship the apocryphal books, which have in them divers errors, untruths, blasphemies, and con tradictions to canonical scriptures.-Their stinted prayers and liturgy, taken out of the pope's mass-book, with the same order of psalms, lessons, collects, pater-nosters, epistles, gospels, versicles, responds, &c.-The cross in baptism. The hallowed font, and questions to the infants in baptism.-The godfathers and godmothers promising that the child doth believe, forsake the devil and all his works, &c.-Women's baptizing of children; which maintaineth that heresy, that the children are damned which die unbaptized. Their howseling the sick, and ministering the communion to one alone. The ministering it, not withi the words of Christ's institution, but with others taken out of the pope's portuis.-They sell that sacrament for two-pence to all comers.-The receiving of it kneeling, which maketh it an idol, and nourisheth that heresy of receiving their Maker, of worshipping it, &c.—Their ring in marriage, making it a sacramental sign, and marriage an ecclesiastical action; thereby nourishing the popish heresy, that matrimony is a sacrament. Their praying over the dead, making it also a part of the minister's duty, and nourishing the heresy of prayer for the dead. Their churching or purifying of women, then also abusing that

scripture, The sun shall not burn them by day, nor the moon by night. Their Gang-week, and then praying over the corn and grass.-Their forbidding of marriage in Gang week, in Advent, in Leat, and on all the Ember-days; which the apostle calleth a doctrine of devils, 1 Tim. iv. 1—3.Their saints, angels and apostles' days, with their prescript service. Their fasts, and abstaining from flesh, on their eves, on Fridays, Saturdays, Ember-days, and all the days of Lent. Their dispensations from the prelates' courts of faculties to eat flesh at these times. Their dispensations to marry in these times forbidden.-Licenses from the same authority to marry in places exempt.-Dispensations also from thence for boys and ignorant fools to have benefices.Dispensations also for nonresidents.-For having two, three, four, or more benefices.-Tolerations.-Patronages of, and presentations to, benefices, with buying and selling advowsons. Their institution into benefices by the prelates, their inductions, proxies, &c.-Their suspensions, absolutions, degradations, deprivations, &c. The prelates, chancellors, commissioners' courts, having power to excommunicate alone, and to absolve.-Their penance in a white sheet. Their commutation of penance, and absolving one man for another.-The prelate's confirmation, or bishopping of children, to assure them of God's favour, by a sign of man's devising.—The standing at the gospel.-The putting off the cap, and making a leg, when the word Jesus is read. -The ring of peals at burials.-Bead-men at burials, and hired mourners in mourning apparel.-The hanging and mourning of churches and hearses with black at burials.Their absolving the dead, dying excommunicate, before they can have, as they say, Christian burial.-The idol temples. The popish vestments, as rocket, horned cap, tippet, the surplice, and the cope.-The visitations of the lord-bishops and archdeacons.-The prelates' lordly dominion, revenues, and retinue. The priests' maintenance

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* Gang-week, or rogation-week, was that particular season of the year, in which, according to popish custom, was observed “the perambulation of the circnits of parishes." Queen Elizabeth retained the same practice, and enjoined, "That the people should once a year, at the accustomed time, with the minister and substantial men of the parish, "walk round the parish as usual, and at their return to church make the "common prayers; provided that the minister, at certain convenient places, shall admonish the people to give thanks to God for the increase "and abundance of the fruits of the earth, repeating the 103d Psalm ; at "which time also the minister shall inculcate this and such like sentences, "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's land-mark.”—Sparrow's Collection, p. 73.

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