Historic "Independents"
One is surely naive and lacking in historical acumen who thinks the Reformation in England was brought about by Henry VIIIs desire for divorce. We have briefly discussed the work of John Wycilf (late 14th. century); and a less-abridged history would trace the growing desire for political and religious freedom which prepared England for her break with the Pope. The unsettled times are seen by noting that Tyndales New Testament was publicly condemned by the Kings council in 1530, and Tyndale strangled and burned at the stake in 1536. But the break with Rome (about 1534) was followed by an official issue of an English translation of the Bible in 1537. There was yet to come the exploits of Bloody Mary and her execution of Protestant leaders; then the crowning of Queen Elizabeth (1559) and the passing of the Act of Uniformity. The country had become officially protestant with a vengeance, enforcing by law an adherence to a State religion.
Out of this background came the Independents and their distinctive contribution to a free church. As early as 1567 there are traces of small groups in London who opposed the system of national churches. In 1583 two preachers, Thacker and Copping, were put to death for the implied denial of the queens supremacy. Congregationalist Henry Barrowe denied that the Church of England in its national form is the true Church of Christ. He denied that the queen could make laws for the Church which were not first made by Christ. He asserted that each particular church should govern itself, and have an eldership of its own. (Fisher, p. 461.) He was executed (along with fellows Greenwood and Penry) in 1593. What price freedom? But John Robinson is likely considered the founder of Independence as a developed and organized system. Belknap (via Shepherd, Falling Away and Restoration, p. 139) names some of their principles. 1. No church ought to consist of more members than can meet in one place for worship and discipline. 2. A church of Christ is to consist only of such as appear to believe in and obey Him. 3. Any competent number of such have a right, when conscience obliges them, to form themselves into a distinct church. 4. They have a right to choose their own officers. 5. These officers are teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacons. 6. Such elders have no power to rule the church, but by consent of the brethren. 7. All elders and churches are equal in respect to power and privileges. 8. The Lords Supper is to be received sitting at the table. (When in Holland they observed it every Lords Day.) 9. Ecclesiastical censures are wholly spiritual, and not to be accompanied with temporal penalties.
Harassment drove the church at Scrooby, England, to move to Amsterdam, Holland, in 1608. Internal problems moved them on to Leyden in 1609; and some ten years later these pilgrims boarded the Mayflower, and came to the New England coast of our America — landing in December, 1620.
We hope you will preserve these historical sketches, rereading and connecting the series that will run (D.V.) throughout Vol. 12, Plain Talk.