subscribe to two forms devised by the commissioners. In one of these forms, called forma promissionis, they were required to subscribe and swear, "That they would use the Book of Common Prayer, and the form of administration of the sacraments, invariably and in all points to the utmost of their power, according to the rites, orders, forms, and ceremonies therein prescribed; and that they would not hereafter, preach or speak any thing to the degradation of the said book, or any point therein contained."-In the other form, called forma abjurationis, they were required to subscribe and swear, "That the Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, and of the ordering of priests and deacons, set forth in the time of King Edward VI. and confirmed by authority of parliament, doth contain in it all things necessary to such consecration and ordering, having in it, according to their judgment, nothing that is either superstitious or ungodly; and, therefore, that they who were consecrated and ordered according to the said book, were duly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordained. And that they acknowledge their duty and obedience to their ordinary and diocesan as to a lawful magistrate under the queen's majesty, as the laws and statutes do require; which obedience they do promise to perform, according as the laws shall bind them. In testimony whereof they do hereunto subscribe their names."* Mr. Wake and his brethren, refusing to be tied by these fetters, offered to use the Book of Common Prayer and no other, and promised not to preach against it before the meeting of the next parliament; but they apprehended both the subscription and the oath to be contrary to the laws of God and the realm. In these painful circumstances, being all deprived of their livings, they appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he rejected their appeal. Upon this, having suffered deprivation about two years, they presented a supplication to the queen and parliament; in which, after presenting an impartial statement of the tyrannical oppressions under which they laboured, they give the following reasons for refusing the subscription and the oath :-"That they should thereby have allowed, contrary to their consciences, that it was lawful for women to baptize children :-That they would have exposed themselves to much danger :-That any man, though ever so unable to preach the word, might be made a minister, according to *MS. Register, p. 198. the said book:-And that they should have given their consent to the unlawful form of ordination, wherein are these words, Receive the Holy Ghost, &c." They conclude by expressing their concern for their bereaved flocks, and how desirous they were of being restored to their former labour and usefulness, earnestly soliciting the favour of the queen, and the lords and commons in parliament.❤ Though the case of these pious divines was deserving the utmost compassion, they could not obtain the least redress. They had wives and large families of children, now reduced to extreme poverty and want, and, as they expressed in the above supplication, if God in his providence did not interfere, they should be obliged to go a begging; yet they could procure no relief. The distress of these zealous and laborious servants of Christ, was greatly increased by the ignorance and insufficiency of their successors. They could scarcely read so as to be understood, and the people were left in a great measure untaught. Instead of two sermons every Lord's day, which each of them had regularly delivered, the new incumbents did not preach more than once in a quarter of a year, and frequently not so often. The numerous parishioners among whom they had laboured, signed petitions to the bishop for the restoration of their former ministers; but all to no purpose. They must subscribe and take the oath, or be buried in silence.+ It does not appear how long Mr. Wake remained under the ecclesiastical censure, or whether he was ever restored to his benefice. He was living in the year 1593, and at that time minister at St. John's Hospital in Northampton.‡ He was a divine of good learning, great piety, and a zealous, laborious, and useful preacher. He was father to Sir Isaac Wake, a learned and eloquent orator at Oxford, afterwards ambassador to several foreign courts, and a member of parliament.§ WILLIAM WHITAKER, D. D.-This most celebrated divine was born at Holme, in the parish of Burnley, in Lancashire, in the year 1547, and descended from an ancient and a respectable family. His mother was Elizabeth Nowell, sister to Dr. Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, who married Thomas Whitaker, in 1530, and survived her MS. Register, p. 202. + Ibid. p. 198, 199. marriage the wonderful period of seventy-six years. Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, young Whitaker was sent for to London by the dean his uncle. He was by this means taken from his parents, by whom he had been nursed in the superstitions of popery, and trained up in the public school founded by Dr. Colet, who was Nowell's pious predecessor. There he so profited in good literature, and gave such presages of his excellent endowments, that at the age of eighteen, his pious kinsman sent him to the university of Cambridge, and he was admitted into Trinity college; where his further progress being answerable to his beginning, he was first chosen scholar, then fellow of the house. He soon procured high esteem and great fame by his learned disputations and other exercises, which were performed to the great admiration of the most eminent persons in that seat of learning. He was a person of extraordinary talents and uncommon application, and it was his general practice, and that of several other eminent persons of his time, to stand while employed in study.‡ As a proof of his great proficiency, and as a token of gratitude to his generous kinsman, he translated Nowell's Catechism into Greek, which he performed with the greatest accuracy, and presented it to him. He, at the same time, translated into Latin the English Liturgy, and Bishop Jewel's Reply to Harding, by which he obtained a distinguished reputation. Indeed, his great fame was not confined to the learned in Cambridge; but having taken his various degrees with great applause in that university, he was incorporated doctor in divinity at Oxford. Upon the preferment of Dr. William Chadderton to the bishopric of Chester, our learned divine succeeded him in the office of regius professor in the university of Cambridge. He was, indeed, very young for such a place; yet, on account of his great literary accomplishments, he was unanimously chosen to this high office, though some * Churton's Life of Nowell, p. 64.-Dean Nowell was prolocutor of the lower house of convocation, in 1562, when the articles of religion were agreed upon. In 1564, when the debates ran high about the use of the clerical garments, he discovered great moderation. He consented to the use of them, but with a protestation that he wished them taken away, for the following reasons:-1. "For fear of the abuse they might occasion.2. To express more strongly a detestation of the corruptions and superstitions of the papists.-3. For a fuller profession of christian liberty.-4. To put an end to the disputes among brethren."-Biog. Britan. vol. v. p. 3258. Edit. 1747. Clark's Eccl. Hist. p. 814. + Knight's Life of Colet, p. 397. Edit. 1724. were much vexed to see a man, whom they deemed unfit for the situation, preferred before those who were more advanced in years. He no sooner entered upon his official duties, in the delivery of public lectures, than he gave the most perfect satisfaction to all his hearers. There was in him nothing wanting which could be found in the best divine, and the most accomplished professor. He at once discovered much reading, a sharp judgment, a pure and easy style, with sound and solid learning, by which his fame spread in every direction, and multitudes resorted to his lectures, and reaped from them incalculable advantage.* To qualify himself for these public exercises, he directed his studies, with uncommon application, to all the useful branches of human learning. He was a great proficient in the knowledge of philosophy. With uncommon diligence he studied the sacred scriptures, to which he invariably appealed, not only in matters of faith, but in the determination of all doubts and controversies. He turned over most of the modern commentators and faithful interpreters of the word of God. With incredible industry, and in the space of a few years, he read over most of the fathers, both Greek and Latin. He attended to his studies with the greatest regularity, and appointed himself every morning what exercises he should pursue during the day; and if he was at any time interrupted in his engagements, he always protracted his studies to a late hour, and so deprived himself of his natural rest and sleep, in order to finish his appointed task. By this course of labour and watching he very much increased in learning, but greatly impaired his health, which he never after perfectly recovered. In the public exercises in the schools, his great learning and singular eloquence gained the admiration of all his auditors. When he read in rhetoric and philosophy, he seemed to be another Basil; when he catechised, another Origen; and when he preached his Conceo ad Clerum, it abounded with sanctity and all kinds of learning. In the office of professor, he delivered public lectures first upon various select parts of the New Testament, then he entered upon the controversies between the papists and protestants. He first encountered the vain-glorious Campian, who set forth his ten arguments, proudly boasting that he had utterly ruined the protestant religion. Whitaker so learnedly and so completely refuted the haughty Jesuit, * Clark's Eccl. Hist. p. 816, that all his boasting vanished into smoke. Afterwards came forwards Dury, another Jesuit, who undertook to answer Whitaker, and to vindicate Campian. As Campian had set forth his work with great ostentation and youthful confidence; so Dury carried on the controversy with much railing and scurrility. Whitaker admitted his opponent to have the pre-eminence in calumny and abuse; but he refuted all his arguments, and discovered all his fallacies, with such good sense and sound judgment, that it is said, "the truth was never more fully cleared by any man.' His next antagonist was Nicolas Saunders, who boasted that by forty demonstrative arguments, he had proved that the pope was not antichrist. Whitaker examined these arguments, and answered them with great learning and solidity, retorting many of them upon the author himself. After this, Rainolds, another apostate, pretended to reply, and, with subtilty and malice, represented the English divines to be at variance among themselves; and by this means, he endeavoured to expose protestantism to the greater hatred and contempt. But our learned Whitaker at once perceived, and with great judgment, exposed his crafty insinuations and falsehoods; yet, he declared that the book was so vain and foolish, that he scarcely thought the author worthy of an answer.* Dr. Whitaker was afterwards preferred to the mastership of St. John's college, Cambridge, though not without much opposition from the ill-affected in the university, of which Fuller gives the following curious account:" He was appointed by the queen's mandamus; and Dr. Cap-coat, the vice-chancellor, went along with him, being attended by a goodly company, solemnly to induct him to his place, when he met with an unexpected opposition. They could not gain admittance. The gates were shut, partly manned and partly boyed against him. The vice-chancellor retreated to Trinity college; and after consulting the lawyers, he, according to their advice, created Dr. Whitaker master of St. John's in his own chamber, by virtue of the queen's mandate. This done, he re-advanceth to St. John's, and with a POSSE ACADEMIE, demands admission. The Johnians having intelligence by their emissaries, that the property of the person was altered, and Dr. Whitaker invested with the mastership, and knowing the queen would * Clark's Eccl. Hist. p. 15-17. |