RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Browne Bruce
Brewer, 6 vols., London, 1845; C. H. Cooper, Athena; Cantabrigienses, ii. 177-178, London, 1858-61; H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years, 'New York, 1880; W. Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 1-27, ib. 1893; idem, History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, 31-41, ib. 1894; DNB, vii. 57-61; C. Burrage, The True Story ' of Robert Browne (,1550-1603), Father of Congregationalism, Oxford, 1906.
BROWNE, SIR THOMAS : Author of the Religio Medici; b. in Cheapside, London, Oct. 19, 1605; d. at Norwich Oct. 19, 1682. He attended Winchester College and Broadgate Hall (Pembroke College), Oxford (B.A., 1626; M.A., 1629); studied medicine and practised in Oxfordshire; traveled in Ireland, France, and Italy, continued his medical studies at Montpellier and Padua, and received his degree of doctor of medicine at Leyden about 1633; settled at Norwich in 1637, where he gained much repute as a physician and still more as a man of universal knowledge. The Religio Medici was probably written about 1635 and not intended for publication; two unauthorized editions appeared in 1642, which led to an edition with the author's approval, but anonymous, in 1643. The work is peculiar from its blending of deep religious feeling and skeptical views. " It appears to have been composed as a tour de force of intellectual agility, an attempt to combine daring skepticism with implicit faith in revelation." The style is metaphorical and artificial, with many Latinized words, but striking and impressive. Browne also published: Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very Many Received Tenets and commonly Presumed Truths, which Examined prove but Vulgar and Common Errors (London, 1646); Hydriotaphia or Urnburial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658); many of his manuscripts were published posthumously. The best edition of his complete works is by Simon Wilkin (4 vols., London, 1835-36; reprinted, abridged, by Bohn, 3 vols., 1851-52). The Religio Medici, with A Letter to a Friend upon Occasion of the Death of his Intimate Friend (first published 1690) and Christian Morals (1716), and the Hydriotaphia and Garden of Cyrus, have been carefully edited by W. A. Greenhill (London, 1881 and 1896); and the Religio Medici is ed. with introduction by C. H. Herford (New York, 1907).
Bibliography: A rather extended sketch of Browne's life and writings is given in DNB, vii. 64-72, where the literature and list of works is given at some length. Consult also E. Gosse, in English Men of Letters, London, 1905.
BROWNISTS. See Browne, Robert.
BROWNLEE, WILLIAM CRAIG: American (Dutch) Reformed clergyman; b. at Torfoot, Lanarkshire, Scotland, 1783; d. in New York Feb. 10, 1860. He was graduated at Glasgow University; was licensed and emigrated to America in 1808; was pastor at Mt. Pleasant, Washington County, Penn., Philadelphia (1813), and Baskingndge, N. J. (1819); professor of languages in Rutgers College 1825; called to the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church, New York, 1826; made pastor emeritus after a paralytic stroke in 1843. He was a strong opponent of Roman Catholics and Quakers. He published Inquiry into the Principles of Quakers (New York, 1824); The Roman Catholic Contro-
versy (Philadelphia, 1834); Lights and Shadows of Christian Life (New York, 1837); Popery an Enemy to Civil and Religious Liberty (1836); Romanism in the Light of Prophecy and History (1857).
Bibliography: A Memorial was published by the consistory of his Church (New York, 1860).
BROWNSON, ORESTES AUGUSTUS: Roman Catholic convert; b. at Stockbridge, Vt., Sept. 16, 1803; d. at Detroit, Mich., Apr. 17, 1876. His religious career is marked by its many changes. The influences of his boyhood were of the strictest New England orthodoxy; at nineteen he joined a Presbyterian church at Ballston, N. Y.; in 1826 he was ordained (at Jaffrey, N. H.) a Universalist minister; after two or three years he left the Universalists, and, influenced by Robert Dale Owen and his projects, became a socialist, entered politics, and helped form a " Workingmen's Party " in New York. He soon despaired of reform by means of political organization, and in 1831 again began preaching at Ithaca, N. Y., this time as an independent, attracted by the writings of William Ellery Channing. Later he had Unitarian parishes at Walpole, N. H., and Canton, Mass. In 1836 he organized in Boston " The Society for Christian Union and Progress " and continued its minister till 1843, when he gave up preaching. In Oct., 1844, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church in Boston, and did not again change his faith, although he continued independent and combative within the Church and received a recommendation from Rome to be more guarded in his language. He wrote with great zeal and no small ability in advocacy of all of his successive beliefs. He started The Boston Quarterly Review in 1838 and wrote nearly all its numbers till it was merged in The Democratic Review of New York in 1843; from 1844 to 1864 and again 1873-75 he published Brownson's Quarterly Review, at first in Boston, later in New York, where he lived 1855-75. His books were: New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church (Boston, 1836); Charles Elwood, or the Infidel Converted (1840); Essays and Reviews (New York, 1852); The Spirit Rapper; an Autobiography (Boston, 1854); The Convert, or Leaves from my Experience (New York, 1857); The American Republic, its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny (1865).
Bibliography: His son, Henry F. Brownson, has published a collected edition of his Works, 20 vols., Detroit, 1882-87, and his Life, 3 vols., 1898-1900.
BRUCE, ALEXANDER BALMAIN: Church of Scotland; b. at Aberargie (a hamlet in the parish of Abernethy, 7 m. s.e. of Perth), Perthshire, Jan. 30, 1831; d. at Glasgow Aug. 7, 1899. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh (1845-49) and the Divinity Hall of the Free Church of Scotland, which he entered in 1849. After the completion of his theological studies, he was an assistant minister at Ancrum, Roxburghshire, and Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, until 1859, when he accepted a call to the pastorate of Cardross, Dumbartonshire, where he remained nine years. He was then minister of the East Free Church, Broughty Ferry, Forfarshire, from 1868 to 1875,
Bruce Brugraann