464 LIVES OF THE PURITANS'. . . immateriality of the human soul. A very curious account of this meeting is preserved by Mr. Edwards; and as it will serve for a specimen of the manner in which public disputes were then conducted, as well as afford some amuse- ment to the reader, it shall be inserted. The lord mayor, it appears, had private notice of the meeting, and sent his officers to prevent it. Upon their arrival, they acquainted Mr. Lamb with their errand. He told them he would go up and acquaint the brethren ; which he did, standing in a desk above the people, at one end of the room, and one Batty, a teacher in the same church, at the other. Mr. Lamb told them that the lord mayor had sent to forbid ;their meeting, or rather to request them not to dispute on that day. Batty then stood up and said, " That Mr. Mayor was a limb of antichrist, and a persecutor of-the brethren ; and he questioned what power or authority he had to forbid them: he was sure the parliament gave him no such power, but gave them liberty to use their consciences ; and, for his part, he durst undertake to make it good to Master Mayor, calling my Lord Mayor," says Edwards, " in a most base and scornful manner, Master Mayor." Overton, the moderator on Batty's side, next stood up and said, " Brother Lamb, had Paul done well, if be had desisted from preaching in the name of Jesus, when commanded by the high-priest to forbear ?" To this Mr. Lamb answered in the negative. Upon- which Overton replied, in a most scornful manner, " Nor ought we io obey Master Mayor." " And thus did these men argue the power of my Lord Mayor for an hour's space, till they came to state the question and fall to their dispute. The question was, That God made man, and every part of man, of the dust of the earth; and therefore man, and everypart of man, must return to the dust again, which Batty could not prove ; nor could Lamb tell well how to answer : but they both ran off from scripture to scripture, never clearing any one, thing to the people. When they had rambled a long time, so that neither of them could tell what to say, then another stood up and said, Brother Lamb, or Brother Batty, leave this point to the consideration of the brethren, and take up some other.' After these two had spent four or five hours in this confusion, they sat down and rested ; and then stood up one Mellish, a cobbler, and Lawson, a schoolmaster, both anabaptists, and to work they went. Lawson calls to Mellish, and saith to him, Brother Mellish, speak either categorically or hypothetically.' Mellish answered
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