E. PHILIPS-MIDGLEY. 16.3 From this impartial, statement, it may be doubted whether so excellent and Useful a minister of Christ was ever sus- pended and cast into prison upon such trivial and ridiculous chargesbefore. It does not appear how long the good man continued in a state of confinement. If his persecutors considered the above charges so dangerous to the episcopal authority and the church of England, as to justify their proceedings ' he might remaina long time. He died about the year 1603. Mr. Philips most probably never published any thing him- self ; but after his death, in, 1605, Sir Henry Yelverton, afterwards judge, who having been his constant hearer, had taken down some of his sermons as they were delivered, published a volume, entitled, " Two and thirty godly and learned Sermons.". MR. IVIIDGLEY was many years vicar of Rochdale in Lancashire, and a man of high reputation in his time. He is denominated a grave and godly minister, whose praise was great in the gospel.+ In the year 1585, he was ap- pointed by the Bishop of Chester, to be one of the modera- tors of the religious exercises in that diocese.t He was greatly admired and beloved by the puritans. Dr. Chad- derton made mention of him, at the Hampton-court con- ference, in 1603. He requested on that occasion, that the wearing of the surplice, and the use of the cross in baptism, might not be urged upon certain ministers in Lancashire, and particularly upon the vicar of Rochdale. The request was no sooner presented, than ArchbishopWhitgift replied, saying, " You could not have light upon a worse. For not many years ago it was proved before me, that by his irre- verent usage of the eucharist, in dealing the bread out of a basket, every one putting in his hand and taking out a piece, he made many loathe the communion, and refuse to come to church."§ His grace in this statement was certainly mistaken. It could not be Mr. Midgley's " irreverent usage of the eucharist," in the way described, but their own igno- rance, bigotry, and superstition, which produced thoseevils. Mr. Midgley was the pious and laborious minister of Rochdale nearly fifty years, and is said to have been instru- . Wood's Athenw Oxon. vol. i. p. 277. + Clark's Lives annexed to Martyrologie, p. 68. Strype's Annals, vol. ii. Appen. p. 75. 4 Fuller's Church Hist. b. x. p. 50.
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