John Brown

John Brown was born, one of four children, in the hamlet of Carpow, near Abernethy, Perthshire, Scotland, to John Brown the elder (d. c.1733), a poor but pious weaver and salmon fisher, and his wife Catherine née Millie (d. c.1735). His parents died when he was still young, meaning that he only obtained 'a few months at Abernethy elementary school, of which one month, without his parents' permission, he devoted to Latin'. (Wright 2004). Finding work as a herdsman, his education largely consisted of having to read to his employer, an illiterate sheepfarmer (and elder at Alexander Moncrieff's Secession Church in Abernethy) named John Ogilvie. Brown used his spare moments to teach himself Latin, Greek, and Hebrew out of bible translations. He later added Syriac, Persian, Ethiopic, and Arabic, as well as the main modern European languages. Meeting hostility from his less learned neighbours, he applied for the position of 'chapman' (travelling salesman) in Fife, Kinross-shire, and the Lothians, a pursuit much frustrated by his 'consuming interest in books'.

Brown served with the government's Fife regiment during 'the '45', at Blackness and then Edinburgh Castles, before becoming a schoolteacher (Gairney Bridge, near Kinross 1747–8; the Spittal, near Penicuik). Though he did not have a university degree, he was accepted for theological training for the ministry of the Associate Synod church, following the less rigid Erskines into the Associate Synod. Brown studied under Ebenezer Erskine at Stirling and then James Fisher at Glasgow (1748–50).

Brown was licensed by the Associate Presbytery of Edinburgh on 14 November 1750, and on 4 July 1751 ordained to Haddington, Haddingtonshire, where he served until his death in 1787. Brown gained a reputation as a tireless pastor, not just preaching/ teaching four times on a Sunday but visiting and providing pastoral care for his charge. In 1756 he introduced twice yearly communion celebration (see his Apology for the More Frequent Administration of the Lord's Supper, 1804). From 1767-1787 he was also the Associate Synod's (unpaid) theological professor, teaching about thirty students a year every August and September in all the subjects of the curriculum. He shaped a whole generation of Associate Synod ministers.

Brown was also a prolific writer, generating from his preparation for teaching a series of letters (Gospel Preaching, Behaviour of Ministers..., etc. 1782), and Practical Piety Exemplified in the Lives of Thirteen Eminent Christians (1783). His first publication (An Help for the Ignorant 1758) explained the Westminster confession and catechisms for children. His widely read General History of the Christian Church (1771), A Compendious History of the British Churches (1784), and A Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion (1782) demonstrated his interest in history and philosophy. His historical work however drew criticism for the way it handled evidence and sources. Polemical works addressed sabbatarianism, heresy, blasphemy and other themes. Like most of his reformed colleagues, the Roman hierarchy was an abomination. His The Self-Interpreting Bible (1778) and A Dictionary of the Holy Bible (1769) however were useful tools for generations of beginning bible scholars, demonstrating 'exemplary directness, clarity, and accuracy in explaining key terms and concepts'. His heavily annotated Self-Interpreting Bible sought 'to make the Bible accessible to the humblest reader'. (Wright 2004) Many of his students, going out as missionaries or migrants, took his works with him, and his lectures influenced the Countess of Huntingdon's College at Trefeca in Wales. In 1784 he declined an invitation to a chair in the Dutch Reformed church's new college in New York.

Though reprinted a number of times, Brown's history was more in the nature of compilation and compression than of original work. His extended works, such as the Compendious History of the Church of England..., were later compressed into a more popular (and cheaper) version entitled A Compendious History of the British Churches (1784). The history of the Churches, he wrote, ‘must certainly be peculiarly necessary to instruct us concerning the many divine favours received, and the many sins ungratefully committed in our land’ (Brown 1784, Preface). This was moral history writ large, tracing the rise and fall of nations and churches on the basis of their righteousness or sin before God. While Brown claimed that he 'aimed' at impartiality, the nature of his 'moral history' and his distance from the sources made it unachievable. Advancing age and lack of sources also made his initial project, of also producing a 'compendious' account of the Protestant churches of 'France, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Denmark, to which that of the Waldenses… was to have been the Introduction.' For Brown, the Waldensians were thus the 'preface' to the story of a continuous line of 'confessors', who maintained the purity of the faith in the face of 'papist' corruption. Basing his work on the Moreland collection, on the Cromwell and other 17th century correspondence, and on Catholic sources, he sought to peer through Roman propaganda, and discern a pure line of practice which essentially conflated all the non-conforming forerunners (Albigensians, Berengerians, Arnoldists, through to the Lollards, etc) as common participants in an expanded community which he calls 'the Waldensians'. Apart from a short reference to 'Peter Waldo' of Lyons, it takes Brown some 14 pages to reach the story of the Waldenses of the valleys of northern Italy. As he notes of the Waldensian resistance up until the disaster of 1686, 'Thus the Waldenses, who had, under God, given birth to all the Protestant churches, were at last obliged to flee for refuge amongst them.' (Brown 1784: 23) The 'voice' of the text is a clear echo of Old Testament lamentational literature, and of the martyrologist John Foxe rather than of the formal history beginning to emerge as a norm for 'historians' in the enlightenment. And of course, Scotland, played a key role in this divine economy, with Brown tracing back the 'Convenanter' spirit to 'Dinoth and his British bre- thren', who, 'as well as Aidan and Finan, Scotch Presbyters, boldly withstood the introduction of the Papal power or manner of worship into Britain.' (Brown 1784, p. 30)

In September 1753 Brown married Janet Thomson (1732/3–1771), daughter of a Musselburgh merchant; the couple had several children, two of whom (John and Ebenezer) also entered the ministry. Following his wife's death, in 1771, Brown married Violet Croumbie (1744/5–1822), daughter of a Stenton merchant. His children by this marriage included a minister (Thomas), a pioneer of itinerating libraries (Samuel), and a future secretary of the Scottish Missionary Society and author (William). Brown died at his manse in Haddington, on 19 June 1787 and was buried four days later in Haddington churchyard.

Sources

Brown, John (1784). A compendious history of the British churches in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America : with an introductory sketch of the history of the Waldenses, to which is added, an historical account of the secession, Edinburgh: Balfour, 1784, reprint of 1820.

Wright, D. F. (2004). 'Brown, John [known as John Brown of Haddington] (1722–1787)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, https://doi-org.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/10.1093/ref:odnb/3622, accessed 10 May 2021.