WALKER. 141 Stitions. In the year 160 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 encounterswith Fisher, the famous jesuit, and many others, who were deemed 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 sentimentsin 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 inhis 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 segues tered. He continued a prisoner upwards of two years, but was afterwards released by an order of parliament. His case was laidbefore the house ofcommons 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 star- chamber, 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 41 Fuller's Worthies, part ii. p. 118. 1. Wood's Athena: Oxon. vol. i. p.
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