JOHNSON, FRANCIS: English Separatist; b. at Richmond (42 m. n.w. of York), Yorkshire, 1562; d. at Amsterdam Jan. 10, 1618. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge (B. A., 1581), and became fellow. In 1589 he was expelled from the university for preaching in favor of Presbyterian polity, went to Zealand, and became minister of the English Church at Middelburg. In 1591 he was instrumental in destroying the entire edition of a book by Barrow and Greenwood (A Plain Refutation of M. Gifford's Book Entitled "A Short Treatise against the Donatists of England": wherein is discovered: (1) the forgery of the whole ministry; (2) the confusion; (3) false worship; and (4) anti-christian disorder of those parish assemblies called the Church of England; reprinted Amsterdam, 1605), saving, however, two copies for his own use, and by reading them was converted. In 1592, with Greenwood, he organized a congregation in London and was imprisoned in consequence; in 1597 he settled in Amsterdam and became minister of the Separatists living there; because of disagreement with Henry Ainsworth concerning the authority of elders he went to Emden about 1612, but later returned to Amsterdam. He wrote several controversial treatises.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Neal, Hist. of the Puritans, ii. 40-41, London, 1822; B. Brooke, Lives of the Puritans, i. 396-397, ii. 89-90, ib. 1813; H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years, New York, 1880; W. Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, p. 41. n. 4, New York, 1893; DNB, xxx. 9-11.

JOHNSON, FRANKLIN: Baptist; b. at Frankfort, O., Nov. 2, 1836. He was educated at Colgate University, but left before taking his degree, and at Colgate Theological Seminary, from which he was graduated in 1861. He held successive pastorates at the First Baptist Church, Bay City, Mich. (1862-64), Lambertville, N. J. (1864-66), Passaic, N. J. (1866-72), and the Old Cambridge Baptist Church, Cambridge, Mass. (1872-88), interrupted only by a year of study in Germany and travel in Egypt and Palestine in 1868-69. He was president of Ottawa University in 1890-92, and since the latter year has been professor of church history and homiletics in the University of Chicago. In addition to being associate editor of The Watchman in 1876, his writings include: The Gospel According to Matthew, with Notes (New York, 1873); Moses and Israel (1874); Heroes and Judges from the Law-Givers to the King (1875); The Dies Irae (Cambridge, Mass., 1880); The Stabat Mater Dolorosa and the Stabat Mater Speciosa (Boston, 1886); The New Psychic Studies in their Relation to Christian Thought (New York, 1886); The Quotations of the New Testament from the Old Considered in the Light of General Literature (Philadelphia, 1896); The Home Missionaries (Chicago, 1889); Have We the Likeness of Christ? (1902); and The Christian's Relation to Evolution (1904).