B. Nay, that is differentia.*

M. Different, quæ non sunt ambigua; but we distinguish those things only which are ambiguous: as, you differ not from the Bishop of London; but I may distinguish between you and the Bishop of London, because you are a man though you were without a bishopric.

B. Here is a tale of a tub. How many predicaments are there?

M. I answer you according to your question, if I say there are enow of seven. Why do you ask me questions so impertinent?

B. How many predicables be there? Where didst thou learn logic?

M. The last time you spoke of good behaviour; but this is something else. I am no logician.

Recorder. Merbury, use my lord more reverently. He is a peer of the realm. I perceive your words are puffed up with pride.

M. I speak only the truth. I reverence him so far as he is reverend; and I pray God to teach him to die.

B. Thou speakest of making ministers. The Bishop of Peterborough was never more overscen in his life than when he admitted thee to be a preacher in Northampton.

M. Like enough so, in some sense. I pray God those scales may fall from his eyes.

B. Thou art a very ass; thou art mad; thou art courageous; nay, thou art impudent. By my troth, I think he is mad: he careth for nobody.

M. Sir, I take exception against swearing judges. I praise God I am not mad, but sorry to see you so much out of temper.

B. Did you ever hear one more impudent.

M. It is not impudency, I trust, to answer for myself. B. Nay, I know thou art courageous; thou art foolhardy.

M. Though I fear not you, yet I fear the Lord.

R. Is he learned?

B. Learned! He hath an arrogant spirit. He can scarce construe Cato, I think.

M. Sir, you do not punish me because I am unlearned. Howbeit, I understand both Greek and Latin. Make trial of me, to prove your disgrace.

What ridiculous trifling was this! Yet this is the prelate whom Mr. Strype extols on account of his great learning, and deep knowledge of divinity.-Strype's Aylmer, p. 255.

VOL. I.

B. Thou takest upon thee to be a preacher, but there is nothing in thee. Thou art a very ass, an idiot, and a fool.

M. I humbly beseech you, sir, have patience, and give this people a better example. Through the Lord, I am what I am. I submit the trial of my sufficiency to the judgment of the learned. But this wandering speech is not logical.

"Hopton. Mr. Merbury, how do you prove all the bishops in England, to be guilty of the death of as many souls as have perished, by the ignorance of the unable ministers which they have made?

M. If they ordain unmeet or unable ministers, they give unto them imposition of hands too hastily, to do which, the apostle saith, they are partakers of other mens' sins.

B. The Greek word importeth nothing but the examination of their lives.

M. It is general enough to include both; and it is before set down in the Epistle as a positive law. "A bishop (a word formerly used in a more general sense) must be apt to teach;" and, according to the apostle, if he be not so approved to your conscience, you communicate with his

sins.

B. What sins are those, I pray thee?

M. Soul-murder.

B. How dost thou prove that?

M. The words of the prophet are, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." And who should teach them knowledge?

B. Knowledge! Have they not the homilies and the catechism? It is more, methinks, than they will learn. M. Yes, or their parish priest either, to any purpose, in many places.

B. Why then, by thy saying, it seems they have too much of this already.

M. And too little of the other.

B. What other?

M. I mean preaching. What can an ignorant minister see in those things more than a book-learned parishioner? B. O! thou wouldst have all preaching. Are not the homilies sermons?

M. God giveth his own blessing to his own appointed means, which is preaching, not reading.

Such was the language from a lord bishop, whom Mr. Strype highly commends as an exact logician, and a man of universal learning l—Strype's Aylmer, p. 240.

B. Mark you what his words insinuate. He condemneth reading in churches; and secmeth to affirm, that they are all damned, whose minister is not a preacher. You see what he is.

Dr. Lewis. By St. Mary, these be pernicious errors. Sir, what say you of them?

M. Mr. Doctor, I allow of the reading of the scriptures in the church; for Christ read Esaias in the temple, and expounded what he read. I am no judge. God hath extraordinary supplies, when he takes away the ordinary means; but it is good for us not to tempt God, but thank. fully to use his ordinary means.

L. Go to the purpose. If I present a man to my lord, whom I take to be a true man, and he prove a thief, am I guilty of his theft? Neither is the bishop guilty of the faults of ministers, of whom there is good hope when he maketh them.

M. Sir, you argue a paribus, but your reason holdeth not. L. Why?

M. You may try him who would be a spiritual thief before you trust him: but you cannot try the other tiil he have stolen something.

L. What trial would you have more than this: he is a honest man, and in time likely to prove learned?

M. Then, in the mean time, the people perish. You will not commit your sucking child to a dry nurse, be she eyer so honest.

L. A good life is a good sermon; and such ministers slay no souls, though they be not so exquisite.

M. To teach by example only, is good in a matron whom silence best becometh; but the apostle telleth Titus, that "ministers must be able by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers."

B. This fellow would have a preacher in every parish church!

M. So would St. Paul.

B. Where wouldst thou have them?

M. In Cambridge, in Oxford, in the inns of court, yea, and some in prison, if more were wanted. We doing our part, the Lord would do his.

B. I thought where thou wouldst be. But where is the living for them?

M. A man might cut a large thong out of your hide, and that of the other prelates, and it would never be missed.

B. Go thou on to contrive. Thou shalt orderly dispose of our livings.

M. That is more than you can do yourselves. If rich livings be the fault, they are to blame who have too much. Whatever be the cause, the church feeleth the smart.

Mullins. Sir, in the beginning of her majesty's reign, there was a defect of able men; and the church was con strained to take such as it could get, upon the recommendation of noblemen.

M. I speak of later times. As for noblemen, they are no suretics for us; and as to the defect, it cannot wholly dispense with the word. A minister must be able to teach. Mull. Then you would have a preacher, or none at all; and so the church would be unserved.

M. It would be better to have nothing, than that which God would not have.

B. How dost thou prove that God would not have them, when we can get no better?

M. Doth he not say, "Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest unto me?"

B. Thou are an overthwart, proud, puritan knave.* Thou wilt go to Northampton; and thou wilt have thine own sayings till thou die. But thou shalt repent.

M. I am no puritan. I beseech you to be good to me. I have been twice in prison already; but I know not why. B. Where was he before?

Keeper of the Gatehouse. With me, my lord.

B. Have him to the Marshalsca. There he shall cope with the papists.

M. I must go where it pleaseth God. But remember God's judgments. You do me open wrong. I pray God forgive you.+

Mr. Merbury was then carried to the Marshalsea; but how long he remained in prison we are not able to learn. Notwithstanding the cruelty with which the good man was treated, he was not a person of severe principles, but. acted with great moderation; and afterwards, with liberty of interpretation, became much more conformable.+ A minister of the same name was afterwards

This prelate was much accustomed to use foul language. He called Bishop Bonner, because he was remarkably corpulent, "My Lord Lubber of London."-Strype's Aylmer, p. 275. Baxter's Second Plea, p. 41.

+ Parte of a Register, p. 381-386.

beneficed in the city of London; but whether he was the same person appears rather doubtful.*

WILLIAM WHITTINGHAM, A. M.-This excellent divine was born in the city of Chester, in the year 1524, and. educated in Brazen-nose college, Oxford. In 1545, he became fellow of All-Souls college. Afterwards, being accounted one of the best scholars in the university, he was translated to Christ-church, then founded by Henry VIII. In the year 1550, he travelled into France, Germany, and Italy, and returned towards the close of the reign of Edward VI. Upon the accession of Queen Mary, and the commencement of her bloody persecution, he fled from the storm, and retired to Frankfort, where he settled among the first of the English exiles. Here he was the first who took the charge of the congregation, but afterwards resigned to Mr. John Knox. Mr. Whittingham and his brethren having comfortably settled their church at Frankfort, invited their brethren, who had taken refuge in other places, to come to them, and participate of their comforts: but on the arrival of Dr. Cox and his friends, instead of union and comfort, they were soon deeply involved in discord and contention; and many of them, in a short were time, obliged to leave the place. Our historian observes, that when Dr. Cox and others with him came to Frankfort, they began to break that order which was agreed upon: first, by answering aloud after the minister, contrary to the determination of the church; and being admonished thereof by the seniors of the congregation, he, with the rest who came with him, made answer, that they would do as they had done in England, and that they would have the face of the English church. And the Sunday following, one of his company, without the consent and knowledge of the congregation, got up suddenly into the pulpit, read the litany, and Dr. Cox with his company answered aloud, whereby the determination of the church was broken."+ These imperious exiles having, by very ungenerous and unchristian methods, procured the use of the church, Mr. Whittingham said, he did not doubt that it was lawful for him and others to join themselves to some other church. But Dr. Cox sought that it might not be suffered. Then Mr. Whittingham observed, that it would be great cruelty to force men, contrary to their consciences, Newcourt's Repert. Eccl. vol. i. p. 406, 422, 519. + Troubles at Frankeford, p. 31.