164 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. Mental in the conversionof thousands of souls ; yet hewas silenced and deprived by the Bishop of Chester for noncon- formity.. He was the happy means in the conversion of Mr. Richard Rothwell, another worthy puritan divine. Mr. 'Midgley's son was also vicar of Rochdale, and a man of distinguished eminence. He presented 44 The Abridgment ofthe Lincolnshire Ministers' Reasons" to Bishop Morton, Who afterwardspublished an answer to it. Both fitther and son were deprived for nonconformity. The latter, after his deprivation, turned physician, and was afterwards prose- cuted for refusing to kneel at the sacrament. WILLIAM HURBOCK, A. M.-Hewas born in the county. of Durham, in the year 1560, and educated first in Mag- dalen-hall, then in Corpus Christi college, Oxford. After- wards entering upon the sacred function, says the Oxford historian, he was in great repute for his learning 4 and he might have added, that he was a divine of distinguished worth, on account of his christian piety, his excellent preaching, and his manifold labours ; and that he was highly esteemed and admired by some of the most worthy per- sons in the nation. Mr. Strype denominates him one of Mr. Cartwright's fraternity, yet a modest nonconformist. In the year 1590, Mr. Hubbock was cited before Arch- bishop Whitgift, andother high commissioners, atLambeth, when he was charged with having preached a sermon at Oxford, in which he made some reflections upon a certain great person (this was the archbishop,) which the commis- sioners held to be undutiful and seditious. Hewas therefore required, as a just punishment of his crime, to enter into bonds that hewould preach nomore, nor come again within ten miles of Oxford. Upon the proposal of thesedemands, he thus replied, in the presence of his judges : " I cannot, with a safe conscience, enter into any such- bonds, nor do any thing by which I should willingly exclude myself from theexercise of my ministry. Nevertheless, if I must be put to silence, I had rather be committed to prison, than thus silence myself; especially unless I had committed some fault, by preaching some false doctrine, or by publishing some offence, for which I justly deserved to be punished." Whitgift, at the same time, required him to subscribe, sig- nifying, that, if he would comply, he should be dismissed, Burges's Answer Rejoined, p. 218. Edit. 1631. + Paget's Defence, Pref. Wood's Athense Oxon. vol. p. 281.
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