opposition to the Saints here, who would inherit the earth; but all our Courts have given against him, and he is going to seek for justice on your side of the water. The case has already been very expensive to him, and will be more so: success would pay him for all; for he has no prospect of reparation or personal advantage. All I fear is that the money he has raised of his own, and that his friends have raised for him, to carry on his cause, will fall short of what he wants. Perhaps, Sir, it may be in your power to do him some good offices.

"I think it a great honour to be remembered by Mr. Baker, Dr. Dickins, Mr. Micklebourgh, or any other of your friends; and now return my hearty services and acknowledgments to them.

"I am ever, with great esteem and many thanks and the best wishes, reverend Sir, your most unworthy, but most affectionate friend and humble servant, TIMOTHY CUTLER." "REV. SIR, Boston, New England, Oct. 8, 1736. "I am now, agreeably to what I informed you in my last letter, with much concern dismissing the best of sons from my own inspection and assistance into the care of those reverend gentlemen in England who have invited me to it. At this distance of communication I am not able to say where he will be disposed of, nor do I think it proper to determine their conduct of him; but I do conjecture that Oxford will be the place of his residence from the provision of the Rev. Dean Conybeare, who has offered me that favour. Wherever he is, I promise myself the compassions of Dr. Grey towards him, while he behaves himself (as I hope in God he always will) worthy of the same. The idea I have given him of yourself will incline him to visit Cambridge, where I am sure he will be cherished under your wings for the time he shall stay there. In the mean time, dear Sir, if your recommendations will serve him, either in London or Oxford, I must intreat for him the benefit of them.

"And pray, Sir, bestow a share of your goodness on a deserving young man in his company, going over with him for Holy Orders. His name is Christopher Bridge, son of a late worthy Missionary in these parts, who was formerly educated in your Cambridge. He has been an orphan for many years, educated by Dissenting friends, and graduated Master of Arts at Harvard College, and is now upon conviction recovered into the bosom of our Church; and from a man of his abilities and very good life we promise much advantage to our poor Church, if he may but succeed in his desires to serve her. What friends you have belonging to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, are most capable of assisting him, and I humbly hope for your intercesssions to that purpose.

"On many accounts we in New England should lament the languishing state of Religion in Old. This is the reason why we are so little cherished in our infant growing state, so little protected from schismatical ill-will, so little heard in our just complaints, why we have no resident Bishop, and why so much

Heresy

Heresy and Infidelity are imported-likely, I fear, to spread, we wanting that noble strength to oppose it, which is the glory of our original country-But I stop! God be thanked things are not worse than they are!

"I hope in a short time you will enjoy a pipe of Madeira wine to your satisfaction. My wife writes her service with mine to yourself and Mrs. Grey, and the most affectionate wishes. My services are ever due to the worthy Members of your University; and in a very especial manner to those gentlemen who remember me, and whose names you insert in your letters.

"Sir, as soon as I receive one letter from you, I long for another; and I ever am

"Your most affectionate friend and humble servant, T. CUTler. "Oct. 15. I have very lately received your valuable present of Answers to Sir Isaac Newton* and Neal. I humbly thank you for your great and many services to Religion and our excellent Church, and the large share of goodness you have admitted your friends, particularly myself to; but I must not take the pleasure of reading your books till my son is gone.

"Sir, having yet opportunity to open this letter, I am disposed to recite to you a passage in Dean Conybeare's letter to me: 'A proposal started to me by our friend Mr. Burton, now Fellow of Eton College, possesses me much. It is this:-To procure a benefaction of books for the use of the Clergy with you. I have been soliciting this affair amongst some of my friends, from which first trial I flatter myself with some hopes of success You may suppose I design to shew the way in a proper manner; and do not despair in some time to send over an earnest of my good wishes. I depend, at least, upon forgiveness, though this should appear a begging paragraph."

"REV. SIR, Boston, New England, Sept. 24, 1743. "It is with a great deal of pleasure that I just now received your letter; but have been a long time detained from it, it bearing date July 20, 1742. The inclosed books for Mr. Miller and Mr. Checkley I have put into Mr. Miller's hands.

According to your account, Sir, your Edition of Hudibras will be out before this time; so that your Proposals come here too late to have their full effect. I have begun a trial to promote the sale, and shall not be wanting; but the success I cannot vouch for. My son told me he should be a Subscriber, and I hope in time to make myself master of one. Writing for England has hindered my reading your History of the Donatists,' &c. which you have obliged me with. I have dipped into it with pleasure, and it makes me fond of seeing the other book you encourage me to hope for. "You have very much obliged me, Sir, in the person of my He speaks of you with singular honour, satisfaction, and thankfulness; and is disposed to contract more obligations to you for the benefit of your conversation. I submit him to, nay * See the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. II. p. 541.

son.

I beg for him your instructions and watch, as far as you have opportunity for it. God be praised! I hear of no imputations un him for errors in faith or practice, nor am I jealous of him: an honest fellow I think he is; but, as he is in an improving country, I wish he were in a better capacity to improve himself than he now is. The Archbishop speaks favourably of me, and Dr. Sayer* of my sont; and these are encouraging considerations; but, alas! such oftentimes fail.

"Whitefield has plagued us with a witness, especially his friends and followers, who themselves are like to be battered to pieces by that battering-ram they had provided against our Church here. It would be an endless attempt to describe that scene of confusion and disturbance occasioned by him,-the divisions of families, neighbourhoods, and towns; the contrariety of husbands and wives, the undutifulness of children and servants, the quarrels among the teachers, the disorders of the night, the intermission of labour and business, the neglect of husbandry, and of gathering the harvest. Our presses are for ever teeming with books, and our women with bastards, though regeneration and conversion is the whole cry. The Teachers have many of them left their particular cures, and strolled about the country. Some have been ordained by them Evangelizers, and had their Armourbearers and Exhorters; and in many Conventicles and places of rendezvous there has been checquered work indeed, several preaching, and several exhorting or praying at the same time; the rest crying or laughing, yelping, sprawling, fainting; and this revel maintained in some places many days and nights together, without intermission: and then there were the blessed outporings of the Sprit! The New Lights have some overdone themselves by ranting and blaspheming, and are quite demolished; others have extremely weakened their interest; and others are terrified from going the lengths they incline to. On the other

* George Sayer, of Oriel College, Oxford; M. A. 1712, B. and D. D. 1735. He was presented to the Vicarage of Witham in Essex in 1722; Archdeacon of Durham, 1730; and Dean of Bocking, 1741. He died at Brussels, July 29, 1761.

+ Mr. John Cutler (the Doctor's son) was warmly patronized by Dr. Grey and some other friends of his Father.-In a Letter dated Sept. 2, 1742, he asks Dr. Grey if it should be in his way to mention his name to Mr. Potter. "I have served," he says, "his Grace's Peculiar above five years, and I hope I have not behaved myself so as to forfeit all favour from him. Stisted is a living adjoining to Bocking, a peculiar in his Grace's gift. The incumbent (Peter Wagener, M. A.) is a man in years and infirm; but I am afraid it is too good a living for me to expect." And on the 18th of May following he says, "I am much obliged to you for your kind mention of my name to Mr. Potter. The preferment I mentioned was promised some time beforehand to a family acquaintance of the Archbishop. However, I hope I shall not be quite forgot."-Mr. Wagener had been presented to Stisted in 1707; rebuilt the parsonage in 1712; and died in 1742. His successor was Samuel Jackson, M. A.-In 1750 Mr. John Cutler was presented to the Vicarage of Cressing in Essex by Dr. Sayer, in whose gift it was in right of his Vicarage of Witham, to which Church Cressing was originally a Chapel.

hand,

hand, the Old Lights (thus are they distinguished) have been many of them forced to trim, and some have lost their congregations; for they will soon raise up a new Conventicle in any new town where they are opposed; and I do not know but we have fifty in one place or other, and some of them large and much frequented.

"When Mr. Whitefield first arrived here, the whole town was alarmed. He made his first visit to Church on a Friday, and conversed first with many of our Clergy together, and belied them, me especially, when he had done. Being not invited into our pulpits, the Dissenters were highly pleased, and engrossed him; and immediately the bells rung, and all hands went to lecture; and this show kept on all the while he was here. The town was ever alarmed; the streets filled with people, with coaches, and chaises; all for the benefit of that holy man. The Conventicles were crowded; but he chose rather our Common, where multitudes might see him in all his awful postures; besides that in one crowded Conventicle before he came in six were killed in a fright. The fellow treated the most venerable with an air of superiority.-But he for ever lashed and anathematized the Church of England; and that was enough.

"After him came one Tennent-a monster! impudent and noisy; and told them all they were damn'd! damn'd! damn'd! This charmed them! and in the most dreadful winter that I ever saw, people wallowed in the snow night and day for the benefit of his beastly brayings; and many ended their days under these fatigues. Both of them carried more money out of these parts than the poor could be thankful for.

"Many more visited us; but one Davenport was a nonpareille. -the madder the better;-the less reason the more spiritual.But, Sir, I stop here, and leave you the trouble to find out a little more by what I now send you. The book I have obtained for you was a present from my reverend brother Davenport in this town. The author, Dr. Chauncy, told me that he could have printed more flagrant accounts, if his intelligencers would have allowed him. This has turned to the growth of the Church in many places; and its reputation universally; and it suffers no otherwise, than as religion in general does, and that is sadly enough.

"I am ashamed, Sir, to remember you of your generous present of all the volumes of Dean Moss's Sermons, saving the two last which I am fond of.

"I have heard that Dr. Dickins is dead. I am sorry for the news; but hope to hear the contrary from you in your next letter, which you have encouraged me to expect. My service and best wishes to your lady, fire-side, and all friends that know any thing of me. I am also sorry to hear that the reverend Dr. Ashton is very much broken by infirmity. You will be very happy, Sir, if my wishes take place respecting this or another world. Of the latter I make no doubt. Include in your prayers, worthy Sir, Your very much obliged and affectionate humble servant, TIMOTHY CUTLER."

From

From the Rev. EBENEZER Miller *. "REV. SIR, Braintres, Oct. 6, 1743. "You know by Mr. Whitefield's Journals that he has been here. The Clergy of the Church of England were unanimous in their resolution not to suffer him to go into their pulpits; so that a Dissenting Preacher of considerable note, in a paragraph of a letter that was printed, said, that he came to his own, and his own received him not; but we (the Dissenters) received him as an Angel of God.' The effects of his and his followers' preaching in this country are extravagant beyond description, and almost beyond belief. I think the party is on the decline; but Whitefield is soon expected here; and how he may revive the dying work, I cannot say. But I believe he will not be received with the same respect as formerly by the Dissenters themselves; he having raised such contentions and caused such divisions among them, and inclined many of the more wise and thinking among them to the Church. Yours, &c. Eb. Miller.''

From the Rev. Dr. HENRY DAWSON†.

DEAR SIR,

1748.

"I send Dr. Warren's youngest son § to Jesus College, in hopes of his having a Rustat Scholarship there. Should that prospect not succeed to expectation||, I know not what will become of him; and indeed, at best, there is at present a dull prospect, but it is all we can think of. He brings with him, for you, your Remarks on Sir Isaac Newton,' which my neighbour Mr. Barnes, the purchaser of the Doctor's books, very readily gives you, upon my acquainting him with your desire to have it. I have not yet had any time to look into the Doctor's papers; but I scarce think he had any Sermons designed for the press; and if there were, the publick has lately been so much solicited for the same family, that I question whether it would turn to account to print any: but, if I find any thing that appears to be intended for publication, I shall let all his friends know it. I hope, Sir, to hear of your good health, which will always be a great pleasure to

"Your most obliged and most humble servant, H. DAWSON."

From AMBROSE DICKINS T, Esq.

"DEAR SIR, Weston, near Northampton, Sept. 26, 1749. "The long experience which I have had of your friendship and humanity encourages me to trouble you with this, and I Of whom see before, p. 280.

+ Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge; LL. B. 1715; LL. D. 1720. The Rev. Dr. Richard Warren, Archdeacon of Suffolk, who will be more fully noticed hereafter.

Afterwards the Rev. Dr. John Warren, successively Bishop of St. David's and of Bangor; of whom see "Literary Anecdotes," Vill. 430.

It did not take place. He was entered at Gonvile and Caius College. Serjeant Surgeon to King George the Second. He was of Trinity Hall, Cambridge; LL. B. 1738.

VOL. IV.

X

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