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THE

LIVES OF THE PURITANS.

JOHN UDAL.-This celebrated puritan was educated in the university of Cambridge, and was a man of excellent parts, great learning, genuine piety, and untarnished loyalty to Queen Elizabeth, but a great sufferer on account of his nonconformity. He was preacher about seven years, at Kingston-upon-Thames; but afterwards deprived, imprisoned, and condemned; and, at last, he died quite heart-broken in prison. Some of his hearers at Kingston, taking offence at his faithful warnings and admonitions, brought complaints against him to those in power, when he was put to silence by the official, Dr. Hone, and committed to prison. But by the unsolicited favour and influence of the Countess of Warwick, Sir Drue Drury, and other excellent persons, he was released, and restored to his ministry.

September 26, 1586, he was convened before the Bishop of Winchester, and the Dean of Windsor, when they entered upon the following conversation :

Bishop. Mr. Udal, you are beholden to my lady of Warwick. She hath been earnest for you, and telleth me, that you will submit yourself.

I am

Udal. I thank God for her ladyship's care. contented, and always have been, to submit to any thing that is just and godly.

B. What you will do, I know not. Hitherto you have not done it; for you refused to swear according to law. U. By your honour's favour, I never refused to swear, so far as the law doth bind me.

B. No! Wherefore then were you committed?

U. You know best. I was contented to swear, if I might first see the articles.

B. That is a slender foundation to stand upon.

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U. It is to me a matter of great importance. For with what conscience can I call the Lord to witness, and protest by his name, that I will answer I know not what?

Dean. Mr. Udal, the things objected against you, I dare say, are against your doctrine, or your life, which are no

secrets.

B. Nay, they charge nothing against his life, but his doctrine only.

U. The greater is the mercy of God towards me. For I have given the greater offence by my life; but it hath pleased him so to keep my sins from their sight, that I might suffer for his sake. Your restraining me from my ministry, makes the world believe, that the slanders raised against me are true; the ignorant call in question the gospel which I have preached; and thus a door is widely opened for every wicked man to contemn the doctrine of our Saviour.

Here the bishop laid all the blame on Mr. Udal, and discovered so hard a heart against the suffering church of God, that Mr. Udal burst into a flood of tears, and was constrained to turn aside, to weep for the space of half an hour. Upon his return, he was addressed as follows:

B. Will you answer the articles charged against you, that these things may be redressed?

U. If I may first see them, I shall be satisfied.

B. Mr. Hartwell, write to the register to let him see them; then go with him to some of the commissioners to swear him.

U. This will be a long course. I pray you, that, in the mean time, I may continue my ministry, for the good of the poor people.

B. That you may not. Now that you are suspended, you must so abide, until you be cleared.

U. Then whatsoever becomes of me, I beseech you, let the poor people have a preacher.

B. That is a good motion, and I will look after it.

Mr. Udal then receiving the letter, departed; and the articles being shewn him, he was taken to Dr. Hammond to be sworn, who said, "You must swear to answer these articles, so far as the law bindeth you." "Do you mean, said Mr. Udal, "that I shall answer them, so far as it appeareth to me, that I am by law required?" And finding that he might, he took the oath, and delivered to the register his answers to all the articles in writing. These articles, with the answers, are now before me, and are

They

thirty-six in number; but too long for insertion. contain the charges which certain ill-disposed persons, in the parish of Kingston, brought against him to the high commission. His answers, indeed, furnished the commissioners with sufficient matter for animadversion, when he underwent his next examination. October 17th he was convened before the high commission, at Lambeth; when Archbishop Whitgift, the Bishops of Winchester and Hereford, Dr. Aubery, Dr. Lewin, Dr. Cosin, Mr. Hartwell, and others, were present. Upon the reading of the articles and his answers, they made their remarks as follows:

Archbishop. You are not to judge, Mr. Udal, who walk disorderly; nor account any so to do, till it be proved.

U. How shall I count him to do otherwise, who giveth himself up to notorious sins; and after being admonished, not only amendeth not, but goeth on more stubborn than before?

B. You must do more than that.

U. You mean, we must present them; and so we have done several; but presentment is of no use.

A. You must expect what will follow, and not appoint your own time.

U. We may do this long enough before we see any redress, so long as things are managed thus. I have seen malefactors presented two or three years ago, but of whose trials we have heard nothing.

A. You say, Christ is the only archbishop. you not call him arch-pastor and arch-shepherd ?

Why do

U. As I am at liberty to call the ministers of Christ by those titles given them by the Holy Ghost, as pastors, shepherds, and watchmen; so, I think, I may Jesus Christ.

A. No, no; the archbishop was in your way, and it troubled you to think of him. But there will be an archbishop when you shall be no preacher at Kingston.

B. The rest of that article is sophistical, or like Apollo the oracle.

U. Perhaps I have taken some advantage of the words, and not answered according to the meaning thereof, as the law requireth.

A. Those elders of which you speak, were bishops, and not any other.

U. In 1 Cor. xii. governors are mentioned as distinct from teachers.

* MS. Register, p. 774-778.

A. That is meant of civil governors, and not of a company of unlearned, simple men, as you would have it.

U. The apostle there speaketh of those who were ordained in the church. But it is of no use to dispute these matters in this place.

A. When you say, that pastors may do nothing by their own discretion, but only by the direction of the word of God, you say true; but in this, you strike at something else.

B. Many things are lawful, and may be done, that have no direct warrant from the word.

U. If that can be proved, it is sufficient, and agreeable to my answer.

B. What occasion had you to speak of such matters as officers, orders, canons, &c. ?

U. Í have not chosen those subjects on purpose, and have spoken upon them only as they came in my way. This I must do, or I could not declare all the council of God.

Dr. Cosin. That you will never do while you live.
U. But I must deliver as much as I know.

A. It is because you would rail against authority.

B. Why do you wish that the public service were abridged? It may all be read in three quarters of an

hour.

U. But I have known it, with other business to be done before sermon, to last about two hours.

A. They who are wearied with it, are your scholars, who ean away with nothing but your sermons.

U. My scholars never keep out till the sermon begins; but if any of them be weary of the service, I never taught them so to be.

A. All the service might be read well enough; but you will stand in your vain repetitions, both in your prayers and your sermons, and make no account of so doing.

U. I pray you have a better opinion of me, unless you know that what you say is true.

A. Nay, I speak not of you alone, but all of your sort: this is your manner. Why should you preach, that some persons make but small account of sermons?

U. Because I know it to be true.

B. Though persons may have been of that mind, they be altered.

may

A. When you spoke of Christ's descent into hell, that which you said is most absurd.

B. The places in Peter and Acts, are monstrously abused by Calvin and others, who hold that opinion. For who ever knew sepulchre mean hell?

U. The original word there used, is often taken for grave, though it also means hell?

Hartwell. Shew me one place, if you can.

U. That I can easily do; for as often as the Hebrew word in the Old Testament, meaneth grave, so does also the Greek.

H. How can that be? The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and not in Greek.

U. Do you not know that the Septuagint is in Greek, in which you will find what I say is true?

A. How can the soul go into the grave?

absurd thing is that!

What an

U. The Hebrew word usually signifieth the whole man t as Gen. xlvi. it is said, "There went seventy souls, that is, seventy persons, into Egypt."

A. Do you then believe that Christ, both soul and body, went into the grave?

U. No. But it is, also, often taken for the body; and whenever it is thus taken, it is so translated in the Septuagint: as Lam. i. 19.

H. I wish I had a book, that I might see it.

A. The human soul of Christ after his death, descended into the place of the damned; and whosoever believeth not this, but denieth it, is an heretic.

U. The church of England is taught, and also believeth, that which you account heresy.

A. No matter for that. We receive nothing for the doctrine of the church of England, but that which is authorized by act of parliament.

U. Then your doctrine is not the doctrine of the church, For one of her articles saith only, that Christ descended into hell, without expressing how.

A. You speak of unpreaching ministers being foisted in by satan, that you may disgrace authority.

B. If a minister be learned, yet hath no utterance, will you disallow him as unfit?

U. Yes, that I will; because the word of God dis alloweth him.

B. Where, I pray you, that I may know it?

U. In 1 Tim. iii. 2., 2 Tim. ii. 24. He must be apt to leach, which implieth not only knowledge, but utterance,

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