"me in my profits." But my ill health, and other circumstances, would not permit me to go with him tho' my heart and good wifhes were ever with him. And I afterwards found that providence intended to make use of me for other very great purposes at home, I mean the restoration of Primitive Chriftianity, as it was left by our Saviour himself throughout the world; which end I ftill endeavour to purfue at this great age, and hope I fhall ever pursue while I live in this world. And may the divine bleffing attend my fincere endeavours! Amen.

However, upon occafion of this mention of Dr. Bray, I must be allowed to take notice of a fact or two in which he was concern'd. The very learned Mr. Mafon had been at Hanover, in his travels, fome time before the fucceffion of that family to our crown; and when he came back, Dr. Bray happened to be with him, and observed to him, how happy and religious our nation would be, when the house of Hanover came! Upon which Mr. Mafon, who had feen what fuch courts were in Germany, as well as in England, told him, "Matters of religion would "not be mended when that family came hither," which made Dr. Bray's blood then rife in indignation against him. Yet when that family had been here fome years, the good doctor was forced to alter his mind; and too fadly to acknowledge the truth of Mr. Mafin's melancholy prediction.

At another time, in king George I's reign, a great noife was made about a club at court, called the Hell Fire Club; and it was faid that a maid of honour to the princess of Wales was one of them. Whereupon, difcourfing with Dr. Bray about that matter, who with all good men had fuch enormities in the utmost deteftation: [tho' by the way this demonftrated but too plainly the truth of Mr. Mafon's prediction.] I told him, that I knew Dr.

Harris,

Harris, the chaplain to the then prince of Wales, now our foveregin, whom I took to be an honest man; and would speak to him about it. It being naturally the chaplain's duty to take cognizance of fuch scandals in their own families. The doctor reply'd," Dr. Harris expects preferment, you "muft therefore take care of it yourself." I allow'd this hint, which at firft I had not thought of, was proper: accordingly I waited myfelf on the lady Gemmimgen, who was with the princefs, and whose brother was my fcholar in the mathematicks, because the princess of Wales then lay-in, and I could not directly come at her royal highnefs. I then informed her of the ftory, on purpose that she might inform the princefs, which fhe did: but upon enquiry, no-body would confefs themselves guilty: tho' the thing at that time was but too notorious. Only fome ftop was, I fuppofe, put to that infamous club for that time. But O, what a fad, but prevalent topick am I now come to! The Expectation of Preferment: More Preferment! the grand thing commonly aimed at both by clergy and laity; and generally the utter ruin of virtue and religion among them both! poison, sweet poifon; first poured upon the church by Conftantine the Great, and greedily fwallowed, both by papifts and proteftants, ever fince. But bleffed be God who hath given me, inftead of that fweet poison, Agur's admirable wifh: Neither poverty nor riches: But bath fed me with food convenient for me. Prov. xxx. 8. Dr. Barrow may have confuted the pope's fupremacy, beyond the poffibility of a reply: but the popes will ftill exercise that fupremacy, and the Romanifts fubmit to it, without any fcruple notwithstanding. Dr. Newton may have proved the unlawfulness of pluralities of cures and non-refidence, to the utmost fatisfaction of every impartial reader: but the clergy,

I 4

clergy, whether bred up in the church of England originally, or brought over from the diffenters, will feldom fcruple taking as many cures as they can compass, or the law of the land, with the utmost ftretch, will allow them notwithstanding. Tho it be very plain that the chriftian religion does not permit clergymen to raise families out of the revenues of the church. See my Account of Chriflian Difcipline, page 57, 58, and Life of Dr. Clarke, page (first edition) 160-163. Nor even as to temporal dignities and revenues, does it appear to me, either that any of the Jewish governors, who were raised up by God, fuch as Mofes, Joshua, and Samuel, before they extorted a king from him, to their own great mischief, had any allowance from the publick at all. Nor indeed that, after their return from Babylon, their governors had any more than forty fhekels or half-crowns a day, i. e. hardly one thousand eight hundred pound a year, befides a table kept for their family. Nehem. v. 14, 15. Nay indeed, it does not appear to me, that that Civil Lift, as we call it, or those courtiers who procure the greateft places for themselves, are at all happier than thofe in a lower.ftation of life. And a great concern it is to fee, fo many both of the clergy and laity, made poor and miserable, only to pamper a few fuch as are not made one jot more happy than they would otherwife have been. Nor do the refidentiaries and rich prebends in cathedral churches, all founded under popery, except when they are given, as they ought all to be, to poor vicars or curates, that really labour in the vineyard of Chrift, and really want them, as they feldom are, do any thing elfe, than give clergymen a pretence for non-refidence on their own cures; and accuftom them to an higher way of living than they would otherwife have been contented with, nay, fometimes fhorten the lives of the poffeffors,

And

And that the reader may be apprized of the little advantage that accrues to religion or learning from fuch prebends in the cathedrals, which are among the principal of our church preferments; I mean after our bishopricks and deanaries, and archdeaconries; take this moft remarkable letter of archbishop Cranmer's to the lord Cromwell, extant in Bp. Burner's Hiftory of the Reformation, records for Vol. III. No. 65, as follows, verbatim.

A letter of Thomas lord archbishop of Canterbury to Cromwell, upon the new foundation of Canterbury. An ORIGINAL.

My very fingular good lord,

A

FTER my moft hearty commendations, thefe fhall be to advertise your lordship, that I have received your letters dated the 27th day of November, and therewith a bill concerning the devife for the new eftablishment, to be made in the metropolitan church of Canterbury: by which your lordship requireth my advice thereupon, by writing, for our mutual confents. Surely, my lord, as touching the books drawn, and the order of the fame, I think that it will be a very substantial and godly foundation: nevertheless, in my opinion, the prebendaries, which will be allow'd 40l. apiece yearly, might be altered to a more expedient ufe. And this is my confideration; for having experience both in times past, and, also, in our days, how the said sect of prebendaries have not only spent their time in much idlenefs, and their fubftance in fuperfluous belly-cheer, I think it not to be a convenient state or degree to be maintained and established. Confidering, first, that commonly a prebendary is neither a learner, nor a teacher, but a good viander, then,

then, by the fame name, they look to be chief, and to bear all the whole rule and preheminence in the college where they be refident: by means whereof the younger, of their own nature, given more to pleasure, good cheer, and pastime,, than to abstinence, study, and learning; fhall eafily be brought from their books to follow the appetite and example of the fame prebendaries, being their heads and rulers: and the ftate of the prebendaries hath been so exceffively abused, that when learned men hath been admitted unto fuch room, many times they have defifted from their good and godly ftudies, and all other virtuous exercise of preaching and teaching. Wherefore, if it may fo ftand with the king's gracious pleasure, I would wish that not only the name of a prebendary were exiled his grace's foundations, but also the superfluous conditions of fuch perfons. I cannot deny but that the beginning of prebendaries was no lefs purposed for the maintenance of good learning and good converfation of living, than religious men were but forafmuch as both be gone from their firft eftate and order, and the one is found like offender with the other, it maketh no great matter if they perish both together: for to fay the truth, it is an eftate which St. Paul, reckoning up the degrees and eftates allowed in his time, could not find in the church of Chrift. And I affure you, my lord, that it will better ftand with the maintenance of chriftian religion, that in the ftead of the fame prebendaries were twenty divines, at ten pound apiece, like as it is appointed at Oxford and Cambridge, and twenty ftudents in the tongues and French, to have ten marks apiece. For if fuch a number be not there refident, to what intent fhould fo many readers be there? and furely it were great pity, that fo many good lectures fhould be there read in vain. For

as