stitions. In the year 1623 he had a public dispute with a popish priest of the name of Smith, before a very large: assembly; and, by the consent of both parties, the account of it was afterwards published. He had many encounters with Fisher, the famous jesuit, and many others, who weredeemed the most able disputants of the Romish persuasion.* Mr. Walker was a divine of sterling piety and strict sabbatarian principles; and he often urged from the pulpit the necessity of an exact observance of the Lord's day. In: the year 1635, having openly avowed his sentiments in one of his sermons, and recommended the holy observance of the sabbath, as opposed to a book published by Bishop White of Ely, and set forth by public authority, he was convened before Archbishop Laud, when he received canonical admonition.+ In the year 1638 he was prosecuted and severely censured in the star-chamber. Having preached a sermon in his own church, to prove "that it is a sin to obey the greatest monarch on earth, in those things which stand opposed to the commands of God," he was committed twelve weeks to the custody of a pursuivant, to whom he paid fees to the amount of twenty pounds. Upon his prosecution, he was shut up ten weeks close prisoner in the Gatehouse, and at last compelled to enter into a bond of a thousand pounds, to confine himself prisoner in his brother's house at Cheswick, when his living was sequestered. He continued a prisoner upwards of two years, but was afterwards released by an order of parliament. His case was laid before the house of commons in 1641, when it was resolved, "That his commitment from the council-table for preaching a sermon, October 14, 1638, and his detainment twelve weeks for the same, is against the law and the liberty of the subject. "That the prosecution of the said Walker in the starchamber, for preaching the said sermon, and his close imprisonment thereupon for ten weeks in the Gatehouse, and the payment of twenty pounds fees, is against law and the liberty of the subject. "That the five passages marked in the sermon, by Mr. Attorney and Sir John Banks, contain no crime, nor deserve any censure, nor he any punishment for them. "That the enforcing the said Walker to enter into the bond of one thousand pounds, for confinement in his * Fuller's Worthies, part ii. p. 118. + Wood's Athena Oxon. vol. i. p. 840. brother's house at Cheswick, and his imprisonment there, is against law. "That the sequestration of the parsonage of the said Walker, by Sir John Lamb, was done without any warrant, and against the law of the land. “That Walker ought to be restored to his parsonage, and the whole profits thereof, from the time of the said sequestration, and to have reparation for all such damages as he hath sustained by these several imprisonments, and his case transmitted to the lords."* Whether Mr. Walker received any reparation for damages we have not been able to learn; but after his release from confinement, he returned to his benefice and ministerial charge in Watling-street, where he continued the rest of his days without further molestation. In the year 1643 he was chosen one of the assembly of divines, where, by his munificent and generous behaviour, he gained a distinguished reputation. The year following he was appointed one of the committee for the examination and ordination of public preachers. The same year he was one of the witnesses against Archbishop Laud at his trial, when he deposed that the archbishop had endeavoured to introduce arminianism and the popish superstitions into the church of England.+ Though Wood reproaches him with having preached' against the king‡ and his party, he united with his brethren, the London ministers, in their protestation against the king's death, declaring that his majesty ought to have been released. He was a member of the first provincial assembly in London, and sometimes chosen moderator. He died in the year 1651, aged seventy years, and his remains' were interred in his own church in Watling-street. Fuller' says, "he was well skilled in the oriental languages, and an excellent logician and divine. He was a man of a holy life, an humble spirit, and a liberal hand, who deserved well of Zion college library; and who, by his example and persuasion, advanced a thousand pounds for the maintenance of * Nalson's Collections, vol. ii. p. 250, 251. + Prynne's Cant. Doome, p. 360, 532. Dr. Grey charges him with the same crime, for the proof of which he appeals to the following passage in one of his sermons : After God had rejected Saul for his disobedience from being king over Israel," says Mr. Walker," and had declared his purpose to him by Samuel, an evil spirit of fury, jealousy, and tyranny, came upon him." The reader will judge what degree of proof it affords.—Grey's Examin. vol. i. p. 399. § Calamy's Contin. vol. ii. p. 743, preaching ministers in his native county." him "a learned man, but a severe puritan." Wood calls His WORKS.-1. The Sum of a Disputation between Mr. Walker, Pastor of St. John the Evan., and a Popish Priest, calling himself Mr. Smith, but indeed Norris, 1623.-2. Fisher's Folly Unfolded; or, the vaunting Jesuit's Challenge Answered, 1624.-3. Socinianism in the Fundamental Point of Justification Discovered and Confuted, 1641. -4. The Doctrine of the Holy Weekly Sabbath, 1641.-5. God made Visible in all his Works, 1641.-6. Sermons preached before the Parliament, 1644, &c. JOHN VICARS was, born in the city of London, in the year 1582, descended from the Vicars in Cumberland, and educated first in Christ-church hospital, London, then in Queen's college, Oxford. Having finished his academical studies, he retired to London, and became usher at Christ'schurch, which he kept till towards the close of life. Wood calls him "a puritanical poet, and a zealous brother in the cause;" and says, that, 66 upon the commencement of the civil wars, he shewed his great forwardness for presbyterianism, hated all people that loved obedience, and affrighted many of the weaker sort, and others, from having any agreement with the king's party, by continually inculcating into their heads strange stories of God's wrath against the cavaliers. Afterwards, when the independents became predominant, he manifested great enmity against them, especially after the king's death." He is said to have "hated all people who loved obedience, as the devil doth holy-water; and he could out-scold the boldest face in Billingsgate, especially if kings, bishops, organs, or maypoles, were to be the objects of their zealous indignation."‡ He is warmly censured for calling the ceremonies of the church" a stinking heap of atheistical and Roman rubbish ;' and for saying, "Throw away the rubbish with the Lord's enemies. Vex the Midianites, abolish the Amalekites: let popery find no favour."s Mr. Vicars was a most furious adversary to the independents. The title of one of his pieces written against them will afford a curious specimen of the length to which the different parties at that time carried their animosity. It is * Fuller's Worthies, part ii. p. 118.-Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol. i. P. 840. + Wood's Athenæ, vol. ii. p. 85, 86. Foulis's Hist, of Plots, p. 179. as follows: " Coleman-street Conclave visited; and that grand Impostor, the Schismatics Cheater in Chief, (who hath long slily lurked therein,) truly and duly discovered; containing a most palpable and plain Display of Mr. John Goodwin's self-conviction, (under his own hand writing,) and of the notorious Heresies, Errors, Malice, Pride, and Hypocrisy of this most huge Garagantua in falsely pretended Piety, to the lamentable misleading of his too credulous soul-murdered Proselytes of Coleman-street, and elsewhere: collected principally out of his own big-braggadochio wave-like swelling and swaggering Writings, full fraught with six-footed Terms, and fleshlie rhetorical Phrases, far more than solid and sacred Truths, and may fitly serve, (if it be the Lord's will,) like Belshazzar's Hand-writing on the Wall of his Conscience, to strike Terror and Shame into his own Soul and shameless Face, and to undeceive his most miserably cheated, and inchanted or bewitched Followers," 1648. Facing the title is John Goodwin's picture, with a wind-mill over his head, and a weather-cock upon it: the devil is represented blowing the sails; and there are other hieroglyphics or emblems about him, "designed," says Wood, to shew the instability of the man." The late Mr. Toplady, in the fervour of his zeal against arminianism, seems highly delighted with what he calls "this facetious title."+ To us, however, it affords a lamentable proof of the degradation to which even good men sometimes subject themselves, when they suffer their passions to get the better of their reason. Such language, in the present day, would in justice be treated with silent contempt. Though it does not appear at what place Mr. Vicars laboured in the ministry, one of his name was beneficed at Stamford in Lincolnshire, and prosecuted for nonconformity. He was apprehended by a pursuivant and cast into prison, upon the bare accusation of a drunken, popish innkeeper, where he continued many weeks before any articles were exhibited against him. He was afterwards bailed, but forced to enter into bonds not to go ten miles from London. And when he was carried before his spiritual judges, he was again cast into prison, sentenced to pay a great fine, and deprived of his living, upon the most frivolous charges, which were disproved by many respectable witnesses.+ * Athenæ Oxon. vol. ii. p. 85. Toplady's Historic Proof, vol. i. p. 41. This, in all probability, was the same person. Mr. Vicars died August 12, 1652, aged seventy-two years. His remains were interred in the church of Christ-church hospital, and over his grave was a large monumental inscription, which, with the church, was destroyed by the conflagration in 1666. His WORKS.—1. A Prospective Glass to look into Heaven; or, the Celestial Canaan Described, 1618.-2. The Soule's Sacred Soliloquie, 1618.-3. England's Hallelujah; or, Great Britain's grateful Retribution for God's gracious Benediction in our many and famous Deliverances, 1631.–4. Quintessence of Cruelty; or, the Popish Powder-plot related, 16...-5. England's Remembrancer; or, a thankful Acknowledgement of Parliamentarie Mercies to the English Nation, 1641.-6. The Sinfulness and Unlawfulness of making the Picture of Christ's Humanity, 1641.-7. God in the Mount; or, England's Remembrancer, being a Panegerick Piramides erected to the Honour of England's God, 1642.--8. A Looking Glass for Malignants; or, God's Hand against God-haters, 1643.-9. God in the Mount; or England's Remembrancer, being the First and Second Part of a Parliamentary Chronicle, 1644.-10. God's Arke overtopping the World's Waves; or, a Third Part of Parliamentary Chronicle, 1646.-11. The Burning-bush not consumed; or, the Fourth and Last Part of a Parliamentary Chronicle, 1646.-The three last articles were collected and published together, entitled, Magnalia Dei Anglicana; or, England's Parliamentary Chronicle, 1646.-12. Coleman-street Conclave Visited, as noticed above, 1648.—13. The Schismatick Sifted, 16...-14. Soul-saving Knowledge, &c., 16...-15. The Picture of a Puritan, 16...-16. Dagon Demolished; or, Twenty admirable Examples of God's severe Justice and Displeasure against the Subscribers of the late Engagement against the King and the whole House of Peers, 1660.-He also published several Translations of the Works of learned Men, among which was "Mischief's Mysterie; or, Treason's Master-piece, the Powder-plot, invented by Hellish Malice, prevented by Heavenly Means," 1617. This was licensed; and a new edition afterwards being wanted, he waited upon Dr. Baker, chaplain to Archbishop Laud, requesting to have the license renewed, when the doctor refused, saying, "We are not so angry with the papists now as we were twenty years ago."† 66 PATRICK YOUNG, A. M.-This celebrated scholar was born at Seaton in Scotland, August 29, 1584, and educated in the university of St. Andrews, where he took his degrees in arts, and was afterwards incorporated at Oxford. He was the son of Sir Peter Young, joint tutor with Buchanan to James I., and afterwards employed by the king in various negociations, and rewarded with a pension. Upon the |