RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Brown Browne
succession to the friars of London and the south of England; he was nominated to the see of Dublin, vacant by the murder of Archbishop Allen, was consecrated the same year, and arrived in Ireland in 1536. He worked diligently to introduce the Reformation in Ireland and to further the cause of the king; he was deposed under Mary. His opponents have described him as avaricious, profligate, and unlearned.
Bibliography: A sketch and useful references to souraes are in DNB, vii. 43-45.
BROWNE, GEORGE FORREST: Bishop of Bristol; b. at York Dec. 4, 1833. He was educated at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1856), where he was fellow and lecturer in 1863- 1865. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1859, and after being chaplain of St. Catherine's College and theological tutor at Trinity College, Glenalmond, Scotland, was rector of Ashley, Hants, from 1869 to 1875. He was a member of the Council of the Senate of Cambridge University in 1874- 1878 and again in 1880-92, and was Disney professor of archeology in the same university from 1887 to 1892. He was treasurer of St. Paul's in 1891-99 and canon in 1892-97, and in 1895 was consecrated bishop suffragan of Stepney, being translated to the see of Bristol two years later. He was also Bell lecturer in the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1862 and secretary to the Cambridge Local Examinations seven years later, and is president of the Alpine Club. He has written: Ice Caves of France and Switzerland (London, 1865); The Venerable Bede (1879); University Sermons; The Ilam Crosses (1889); Lessons from Early English Church History (1893); The Church at Home before Augustine (1894); Augustine and his Companions (1895); Off the Mill (1895); Conversion of the Heptarchy (1896); Theodore and Wilfrith (1897); History of St. Catherine's College (1902); and Life and Works of St. Aldhelm (1903).
BROWNE, JOHN: English Congregationalist; b. at North Walsham (15 m. n. of Norwich), Norfolk, Feb. 6, 1823; d. at Wrentham (33 m. n.e. of Ipswich), Suffolk, Apr. 4, 1886. He studied at Coward College and University College, London 1839-44 (B.A., London University, 1843); was minister at Lowestoft. Suffolk, 1844; at Wrentham, 1848 till his death. His chief publication was the History of Congregationalism and Memorials of the Churches in Norfolk and Suffolk (London, 1877), which is of great importance for the beginnings of English Congregationalism.
BROWNE, PETER: Protestant Irish bishop; b. in County Dublin soon after 1660; d. Aug. 25, 1735. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin; was consecrated bishop of Cork and Ross 1710. He opposed the custom of drinking healths in a series of pamphlets (1713 sqq.) which won him much notoriety, but has more enduring fame as an antideistical writer; in reply to John Toland he published A Letter in Answer to a Book Entitled Christianity not Mysterious (Dublin, 1697), and afterward elaborated his argument in The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding (London, 1728), a critique of Locke's Essay; in Things
Divine and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human (1733) he asserts that knowledge of God's essence and attributes can be only " analogical " and not direct.
BROWNE, ROBERT: Leader of the English Separatists (from whom they received their popular name of Brownists), and generally considered the founder of the Congregationalists; b. at Tolethorp (3 m. n. of Stamford), Rutlandshire, about 1550; d at Northampton after June 2, 1631. He was of good family and had influential relatives on both his father's and his mother's side, including the great chancellor, Lord Burghley. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (B.A., 1572). It is said that in 1571 he was domestic chaplain to Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, and that the duke took his part in some obscure trouble with the ecclesiastical authorities; but this is doubtful. He taught school for three years (seventeenth century writers say in or near London) and made " enemies " by freely speaking his mind concerning "many things amiss, and the cause of all to be the woeful and lamentable state of the Church." In 1578 or 1579 he returned to Cambridge. At this time his views seem to have ripened. Holding that the true Church consisted only of such as led Christian lives and did not properly include all baptized persons, he declared that " the kingdom of God was not to be begun by whole parishes, but rather of the worthiest, were they never so few." He publicly harangued against " the calling and authorizing of preachers by bishops," preached constantly to Puritan audiences (acceptably, it would appear) although he had no bishop's license^ and, when his brother obtained a license for him, disdained it. Naturally he was silenced, and illness compelled him temporarily to comply with the bishop's mandate.
About 1580 Browne went to Norwich, attracted thither by a friend, Robert (or Richard) Harrison (q.v.), who became his coworker. Here he organized his first church and soon extended the field of his operations as far as Bury St. Edmunds. The bishop of Norwich complained of him as a preacher of "corrupt and contentious doctrine" and likely to mislead " the vulgar sort of people," but Burghley protected him. Nevertheless Norwich was made so uncomfortable for the little band that about Jan., 1582, most of them, with their pastor, emigrated to Middelburg in Zealand. Browne's impulsive and imperious character, as well as the principles of the congregation, did not promote unity. After two years of continual discussion and division, with four or five families, he left for Scotland. They arrived in Edinburgh Jan., 1584, and at once commenced the propagation of their peculiar doctrines. They " held opinion of separation from all kirks where excommunication was not rigorously used against open offenders not repenting; they would not admit witnesses [sponsors] in baptism, and sundry other opinions they had." Within a week Browne was summoned before the session of the kirk; he was imprisoned, but only for a short time; and soon, unhindered, if not covertly encouraged by the secular authorities, he traveled
Browne Bruce