liation, 1635.-7. Spiritual Life and Death, 1636.-8. Judas's Repentance, 1637.-9. The Saints' Spiritual Strength, 1637.-10. The Saints' Qualification and Remains, 1637.-11. Sermons, 1637.12. The Golden Sceptre, with the Church's Marriage and the Church's Carriage, 1639.-13. Divine Love of Christ, 1640. JOB THROGMORTON was a zealous and active puritan, descended from the family of Throgmortons of Coughton in Warwickshire. He was a man of good learning, and master of a very facetious and satirical style; and is said to have been one of the authors of those writings which went under the name of Martin Mar-Prelate ;* but, as the real authors were never discovered, the charge is without foundation. Dr. Sutcliff, a scurrilous and an abusive writer, published many reproaches against Mr. Throgmorton, charging him with being concerned in the wicked plots of Hacket, Coppinger, and Arthington. In reply to the misrepresentations of this opponent, he, about the year 1594, published a work, entitled, "A Defence of Job Throgmorton against the Slanders of Matthew Sutcliff." Notwithstanding this, he was indicted and tried at Warwick, on a supposition of being concerned with the above conspirators; but was acquitted. He was innocent, and therefore he deserved to be acquitted. "A reverend judge in this land," observes Mr. Peirce, " told my lord chancellor, that the matter of the indictment passed against Throgmorton at Warwick, was, in truth, but a frivolous matter, and a thing that he would easily avoid. And the lord chancellor said, not only in his own house, but even to her majesty, and openly in the parliament, that he knew the said Job Throgmorton to be an honest man."+ Mr. Throgmorton was a man of high reputation, and a pious and zealous preacher of the word; but labouring, in the decline of life, under a consumption, and being oppressed with melancholy apprehensions about the safety of his state, he removed to Ashby, near Fausley, in Northamptonshire, to enjoy the counsel and advice of the venerable Mr. John Dod. A little before he died, he asked Mr. Dod, saying, "What will you say of him who is going out of the world, and can find no comfort?" "What will you say of our Saviour Christ," replied Mr. Dod, "who, when he was going out of the world, found no Kennet's Hist. of Eng. vol. ii. p. 550.-Heylin's Hist. of Pres. p. 279. + Peirce's Vindication, part i. p. 142. comfort, but cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This administered consolation to Mr. Throgmorton's troubled mind, and he departed soon after, rejoicing in the Lord. He is denominated "as holy and as choice a preacher as any in England;" and is said to have lived thirty-seven years without a comfortable assurance, and then died, having assurance only an hour before his departure. He died in the year 1628. Sir Clement Throgmorton, a man of great learning and eloquence, and a member of parliament for the county of Warwick, was his son.§ THEOPHILUS BRADBOURN was minister at some place in Norfolk, and a zealous old puritan. He was of strict sabbatarian principles, and zealously maintained the necessity of observing the seventh day as the christian sabbath. In the year 1628, he published a book entitled, "A Defence of the most ancient and sacred ordinance of God, the Sabbath-day," which he dedicated to the king. In this work he maintained, "That the fourth commandment, Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy, was entirely moral, and of indispensable obligation to the end of the world: that the seventh day in the week ought to be observed as an holy day in the christian church, as it was among the Jews before the coming of Christ:--and that it was superstition and evil-worship to observe the Lord's day as the sabbath, seeing there was no command for it." For these opinions, says Fuller, "He fell into the ambush of the high commission, whose well-tempered severity so prevailed with him, that, submitting to a private conference, and perceiving the unsoundness of his own principles, he became a convert, and quietly conformed to the church of England," so far as concerned the sabbatarian controversy.** The publication of Mr. Bradbourn's book roused the jealousy and indignation of the court; therefore, by the command of the king, and under the direction of Archbishop Laud, Dr. White, bishop of Ely, undertook a * Clark's Lives annexed to his Martyrologie, p. 172. + Brooks on Assurance, p. 39. Edit. 1810. MS. Remarks, p. 494. Dugdale's Antiq. of Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 654. Edit. 1730. p. 333. Paget's Heresiography, p. 161: Edit. 1662. ** Fuller's Church Hist. b. xi. p. 144. refutation of it, entitled, " A Treatise of the Sabbath-day: containing a Defence of the Orthodoxall Doctrine of the Church of England, against Sabbatarian Novelty," 1635; which he dedicated to the archbishop. In this dedication he gives the following account of Mr. Bradbourn :—“ A certain minister in Norfolk," says he, "proceeding after the rule of the presbyterian principles, among which this was the principal: That all religious observations and actions, and the ordaining and keeping of holy days, must have a special warrant and commandment in holy scripture, otherwise the same is superstitious;' concluded, that the seventh day of every week, having an express command in the decalogue, by a precept simply and perpetually moral; and the Sunday being not commanded, either in the law or the gospel; therefore the Saturday must be the christian's weekly sabbath, and the Sunday ought to be a working day. "This man," his lordship adds, " was exceeding confident in his way, and defied his adversaries, loading them with much disgrace and contempt. He dedicated his book to the king's majesty himself, and implored his princely aid to set up the ancient sabbath. He likewise admonished the reverend bishops of the kingdom, and the temporal state, to restore the fourth commandment of the decalogue to its original possession. He professed that he would suffer martyrdom, rather than betray such a worthy cause, so firmly supported by the common principles of all who have in preaching or writing treated of the sabbath. While he was in this heat, crying in all places where he came, victory, victory, he chanced to light upon an unkind accident: which was to be convened and called to an account before your grace (meaning Laud) and the honourable court of high commissioners. At his appearance, your grace did not confute him with fire and fagot, with halter, axe, or scourging; but according to the usual proceedings of your grace, and of that court, with delinquents who are overtaken with error in simplicity. There was yielded unto him a deliberate, patient, and full hearing, together with a satisfactory answer to all his main objections. "The man perceiving," his lordship further observes, "that the principles which the sabbatarian dogmatists had lent him, were not orthodox; and that all who were present at the hearing approved the confutation of his error; he began to suspect that the holy brethren who had lent him his principles, and yet persecuted his conclusion, might perhaps be deceived in the first, as he had been in the last. Therefore, laying aside all his former confidence, he submitted himself to a private conference; which by God's blessing so far prevailed, that he became a convert, and freely submitted himself to the orthodox doctrine of the church of England, concerning both the sabbath and the Lord's day. This reverend prelate, in writing against one of the puritans, could not help following his passions or his ignorance, by ungenerously, and with great falsehood, reproaching them as a body. Within the compass of a few pages he stigmatizes the puritans "a new presbyterian sect-these zealots-these senators-these ecclesiastical senators-these novel senators-these presbyterian senators -these presbyterian rulers-these presbyterian dictatorsthese presbyterian backbiters."* WILLIAM HINDE, A. M.-This pious divine was born at Kendal in Westmoreland, in the year 1569, and educated in Queen's college, Oxford, where he was chosen perpetual fellow. He was highly respected and beloved by Dr. John Rainolds, whose doctrine made so deep an impression upon his mind, that he became the doctor's great and constant admirer. About the year 1603, he left the university, and became minister of Bunbury in Cheshire, where he continued to the end of his days. He was a minister highly esteemed, and, on account of his great piety and frequent preaching, was much followed by persons of serious godliness. The Oxford historian denominates him "a close and severe student, an eminent preacher, and an excellent theological disputant;" and observes, that he had several contests with Dr. Morton, bishop of Chester, about conformity, being esteemed the ringleader of the nonconformists in that county. Having endured many troubles in the cause of puritanism, he died at Bunbury, in the month of June, 1629, aged sixty years; and his remains were laid in the chancel of his own church. His WORKS.-1. The office and use of the Moral Law of God in the days of the Gospel, justified and explained at large by Scriptures, Fathers, and other Orthodox Divines, 1623.-2. A faithful Remonstrance of the Holy Life and Happy Death of John Bruen of BruenStapleford, in the county of Chester, Esquire, 1641.-3. Path to Piety, a Catechism.-He also revised, corrected, and published Dr. Rainolds's "Discovery of the Man of Sin," 1614. And Mr. Robert Cleaver's "Exposition on the last Chapter of Proverbs," 1614. * White's Treatise, Dedica. + Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol, i. p. 456, 457.-Biog. Britan. vol. v. p. 3181. Edit. 1747. HINDE PINKE-BENEFIELD. 365 WILLIAM PINKE, A. M.-This learned person was born in Hampshire in the year 1599, and educated in Magdalenhall, Oxford, where he took his degrees. Soon after he entered upon the ministerial work he was chosen reader of philosophy in Magdalen college, which he performed with great admiration and applause. In the year 1628 he was chosen fellow of the college. He was accounted a person of close studies, exemplary piety, a strict conversation, and a thorough puritan. Wood says, "he possessed a singular dexterity in the arts, a depth of judgment, an acuteness of wit, and great skill in the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic languages, for which he was much noticed and reverenced by the collegians.' He died much lamented in the 1629, aged thirty years. His remains were interred in Magdalen college chapel. He wrote "The Trial of a Christian's sincere Love to Christ, in four sermons," 1630. This was often printed. He left behind him numerous manuscripts ready for the press, though probably they were never printed. year SEBASTIAN BENEFIELD, D. D.-This learned divine was born at Prestbury in Gloucestershire, August 12, 1569, and educated in Corpus Christi college, Oxford, where he was afterwards chosen fellow. In 1599 he was elected reader of rhetoric to the college, and the year following admitted to the reading of the sentences. In 1608 he took his doctor's degree, and in about five years was chosen Margaret professor to the university. He filled the divinity chair with distinguished reputation for the space of fourteen years, then resigned it, and retired to the rectory of Messey-Hampton in Gloucestershire, where he spent the remainder of his days in great retirement and devotion. Some persons accused him of being a schismatic, most probably on account of his puritanism and nonconformity. But Dr. Ravis, bishop of London, acquitted him of the imputation, declaring him to be free from schism, and abounding in science. Wood says," he was so excellent a scholar, disputant, and theologian, and so well read in the fathers and schoolmen, that he had scarcely his equal in the university. He was a person of admirable piety, strictness, and sincerity; a lover of the opinions of John Calvin, especially that of predestination, and was denominated a downright doctrinal * Wood's Athene Oxon. vol. i. p. 463. |