W. WHITAKER. SI very deservedly, since the scripture is the absolute rule, of truth.". From these generous principles, he was induced, with several other excellent divines, to' write against the superstitious and ridiculous practice of bowing at the name of Jesus.+ Upon the same generous principles, he was no friend to episcopacy, but a decided advocate for the eldership, which the puritans sought to have established., "Episcopacy," saith he ', was invented by men as a remedy against sin ; which remedy many wise and holy men have judged to be worse than the disease itself, and so it hath proved by woeful experience."1: In his answer to Campian's ten arguments, he says, " A presbyter and a bishop are by divine right the same ; and if Arius was an heretic for saying so, Jerome certainly was akin to the same heresy."§ And in his reply to Dury, he avows the same sentiment, saying, " Presbyters being by divine right the same as bishops, might -warrantably set other presbyters over the churches."Il He was decidedly of opinion, that all ecclesiastical persons should' confine themselves to their ecclesiastical functions, without the exercise of any tempo- ral authorityit On these accounts, Mr. Strype very-justly observes, that though he was a learned and pious man, a public professor of divinity, and a good writer against the church of Rome; yet" he was no friend to the church of England."** Dr. Whitaker, Dr. Fulke, Dr. Chadderton, Mr. Dod, and other learned puritans, held their private meetings in the university, with a view to their own improvement in a knowledge of the holy scriptures. Our divine married for his first wife, the pions sister of the two famous preachers, Mr. Samuel andMr. Ezekiel Culverwell, and Dr. Lawrence Chadderton married another sister. For his second wife, he married the grave and pious widow of Mr. Dudley Fenner ; and by both of them he bad eight children, to whom he gave a religious education.tt " Itmust be confessed," says Mr. Baker, " he had somewhat of the old leaven," meaning his puritanism. " His marriage into the families of the Culverwells and Fenners, and his acquaintance with Cartwright, Fulke, Chadderton and Dod, might give him. Calamy's Defence of Noncon. vol. i. p. 127. Edit. 1703. Prynne's Cant. Doome, p. 469.-Wood's Aihenm Oxon. vol. i. p. 348. 3. Leighton'. Sion's Plea, p. 18 : from Whitaker. Petition of Prelates Examined, p. 15. Edit. 1641. Calamy's Defence of Noncom. vol. i, p. 71. Eater's MS. Caller. vol. xx. This vol. is not paged. Strype's Whitgift, p. 655. + t Clark's Eccl. Mist, p. 817. 'OL. II.
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