Job Throgmorton

Job Throgmorton was a zealous and active puritan, descended from the family of Throgmortons of Coughton in Warwickshire. He was a man of good learning, and master of a very facetious and satirical style; and is said to have been one of the authors of those writings which went under the name of Martin Mar-Prelate but, as the real authors were never discovered, the charge is without foundation. Dr. Sutcliff, a scurrilous and an abusive writer, published many reproaches against Mr. Throgmorton, charging him with being concerned in the wicked plots of Hacket, Coppinger, and Arthington. In reply to the misrepresentations of this opponent, he, about the year 1594, published a work, entitled, " A Defence of Job Throgmorton against the Slanders of Matthew Sutcliff." Notwithstanding this, he was indicted and tried at Warwick, on a supposition of being concerned with the above conspirators ; but was acquitted. He was innocent, and therefore he deserved to be acquitted. " A reverend judge in this land," observes Mr. Peirce, " told my lord chancellor, that the matter of the indictment passed against Throgmorton at Warwick, was, in truth, but a frivolous matter, and a thing that he would easily avoid. And the lord chancellor said, not only in his own house, but even to her majesty, and openly in the parliament, that he knew the said Job Throgmorton to be an honest man."t

Mr. Throgmorton was a man of high reputation, and a pious and zealous preacher of the word; but labouring, in the decline of life, under a consumption, and being oppressed with melancholy apprehensions about the safety of his state, he removed to Ashby, near Fausley, in Northamptonshire, to enjoy the counsel and advice of the venerable Mr. John Dod. A little before he died, he asked Mr. Dod, saying, " What will you say of him who is going out of the world, and can find no comfort ?" " What will you say of our Saviour Christ," replied Mr. Dod, " who, when he was going out of the world, found no

• Kennet's Hist, of Eng. vol. ii. p. 550.—Hrylin's Hist, of Pret, p. 279, t Feirce's Vindication, part i. p. 142.

comfort, but cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' This administered consolation to Mr. Throgmorton's troubled mind, and he departed soon after, rejoicing in the Lord.* He is denominated " as holy and as choice a preacher as any in England;" and is said to have lived thirty-seven years without a comfortable assurance, and then died, having assurance only an hour before his departure.t He died in the year 1628.t Sir Clement Throgmorton, a man of great learning and eloquence, and a member of parliament for the county of Warwick, was his san.S