most punctual in chronology of all our divines. He 1661. had read the most books, and with the best judgment, and had made the most copious abstracts out of them, of any in this age: so that Wilkins used to say, he had the most learning in ready cash of any he ever knew. He was so exact in every thing he set about, that he never gave over any part of study, till he had quite mastered it. But when that was done, he went to another subject, and did not lay out his learning with the diligence with which he laid it in. He had many volumes of materials upon all subjects laid together in so distinct a method, that he could with very little labour write on any of them. He had more life in his imagination, and a truer judgment, than may seem consistent with such a laborious course of study". Yet, as much as he was set on learning, he had never neg n Lloyd, after several translations, was bishop of Worcester. In the year 1712, he told queen Ann he thought it his duty to acquaint her, that the church of Rome would be utterly destroyed, and the city of Rome consumed by fire, in less than four years; which he could prove beyond contradiction, if her majesty would have the patience to hear him upon that subject. The queen appointed. him next day in the forenoon; and a great Bible was brought, which was all he said would be wanting. The bishop of London came with him; and the duke of Shrewsbury, lord Oxford, lord Dartmouth, and Dr. Arbuthnot were ordered to attend by the queen. He shewed a vast memory and command 1661. lected his pastoral care. For several years he had the greatest cure in England, St. Martin's, which he took care of with an application and diligence beyond any about him; to whom he was an example, or rather a reproach, so few following his example. He was a holy, humble, and patient man, ever ready to do good when he saw a proper opportunity even his love of study did not divert him from that. He did, upon his promotion, find a very worthy successor in his cure, Tenison, who carried on and advanced all those good methods that he had begun in the management of that great cure. He endowed schools, set up a public library, and kept many curates to assist him in his indefatigable labours among them. He was a very learned man °, and took much pains to state the notions and practices of heathenish idolatry, and so to fasten that charge on the church of Rome. And, Whitehall lying within that parish, he stood as in the front of the battle all king James's reign; and maintained, as well as managed, that dangerous post with great courage and much judgment, and was held in very high esteem for his whole deportment, which was ever grave and moderate. These have been the greatest divines we have had these forty years P: and may we ever have a succession of such men to if what he said did not prove true; • The dullest, good for no thing man I ever knew. S. P (No very accurate assertion; for Pearson, whom the bishop allows to have been the greatest divine of the age, was alive within thirty years of the bishop's own death, and within twenty of his composing this history. And doctors Cave and South, both of whom were then fill the room of those who have already gone off the 1661. stage, and of those who, being now very old, cannot 191 hold their posts long. Of these I have writ the more fully, because I knew them well, and have lived long in great friendship with them; but most particularly with Tillotson and Lloyd. And, as I am sensible I owe a great deal of the consideration that has been had for me to my being known to be their friend, so I have really learned the best part of what I know from them: [and of the services I may have done the church, to them. And if I have arrived at any faculty of writing clearly and correctly, I owe that entirely to them. For as they (Tillotson and Lloyd) joined with Wilkins, in that noble though despised attempt of an universal character, and a philosophical language; they took great pains to observe all the common errors of language in general, and of ours in particular: and in the drawing the tables for that work, which was Lloyd's province, he looked further into a natural purity and simplicity of style, than any man I ever knew; into all which he led me, and so helped me to any measure of exactness of writing which may be thought to belong to me.] But I owed them much more on the account of those excellent principles and notions, of which they were in a particular manner communicative to me. This set of men contributed more than can be well imagined to reform the way of preaching; which, among the divines of England before them, was overrun with pedantry, a great mixture of quotations from fathers living, not to mention the bishops Beverege, Hooper, and Kidder, would have felt indig nant at Tenison's, if not at preaching prevailed. 1661. and ancient writers, a long opening of a text with the concordance of every word in it, and a giving all the different expositions with the grounds of The way of them, and the entering into some parts of controwhich then versy, and all concluding in some, but very short, practical applications, according to the subject or the occasion. This was both long and heavy, when all was pye-balled 9, full of many sayings of different languages. The common style of sermons was either very flat and low, or swelled up with rhetoric to a false pitch of a wrong sublime. The king had little or no literature, but true and good sense; and had got a right notion of style'; for he was in France at a time when they were much set on reforming their language. It soon appeared that he had a true taste. So this helped to raise the value of these men, when the king approved of the style their discourses generally ran in; which was clear, plain, and short. They gave a short paraphrase of their text, unless where great difficulties required a more copious enlargement; but even then they cut off unnecessary shews of learning, and applied themselves to the matter, in which they opened the nature and reasons of things so fully, and with that simplicity, that their hearers felt an instruction of another sort than had commonly been observed before. So they became very much followed: and a set of these men brought off the city in a great measure from the prejudices they had formerly to the church. 1662. There was a great debate in council, a little be A noble epithet. S. How came Burnet not to learn this style? S. executed fore St. Bartholomew's day, whether the act of 1662. uniformity should be punctually executed, or not. The act of Some moved to have the execution of it delayed uniformity to the next session of parliament. Others were with rigour. for executing it in the main, but to connive at some eminent men, and to put curates into their churches to read and officiate according to the common prayer, but to leave them to preach on, till they 192 should die out. The earl of Manchester laid all these things before the king with much zeal, but with no great force. Sheldon, on the other hand, pressed the execution of the law: England was accustomed to obey laws: so while they stood on that ground, they were safe, and needed fear none of the dangers that seemed to be threatened: he also undertook to fill all the vacant pulpits, that should be forsaken in London, better and more to the satisfaction of the people, than they had been before: and he seemed to apprehend, that a very small number would fall under the deprivation, and that the gross of the party would conform. On the other hand, those who led the party took great pains to have them all stick together: they infused it into them, that if great numbers stood out, that would shew their strength, and produce new laws in their favour; whereas they would be despised, if, after so much noise made, the greater part of them should conform. So it was thought, that many went out in the crowd to keep their friends company. Many of these were distinguished by their abilities and zeal. They cast themselves upon the providence of God, and the charity of their friends, which had a fair appearance, as of men that were ready to suffer persecution for their consciences. This begot esteem, |