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forwards, till no mortal can find out what they mean to ascribe to, or what to detract from, the virtue and merit of a public Confession.

The Remonstrants, however, have had thus far the better of us; they believed their Confession at least when they made this Apology for it. We are driven to make Apologies for, and even to defend, subscription to a Confession which many subscribers do not believe; and concerning which no two thinking men, according to an ingenious and right revererend writer, ever agreed exactly in their opinion, even with regard to any one article of it.*

* Dedication to the Essay on Spirit, p. vi.

SELECTION

FROM

Jamie BISHOP HOADLY'S

WORKS.

BISHOP HOADLY.

JOHN HOADLY, grandfather of BENJAMIN HOADLY, the subject of the present memoir, emigrated to America about the year 1639. His son, Samuel Hoadly, was born two years after at Guilford, Connecticut. The family remained in that place fourteen years, and then went back to England. From that period little is known of the grandfather, except that he became chaplain to the garrison of Edinburgh Castle.

His son Samuel was educated at King James's College, Edinburgh, and at an early age commenced the employment of schoolmaster. He followed this vocation in different places, till he was called to be head master of the public school at Norwich, which station he held during the remainder of his life. He was the friend and correspondent of Graevius, and several of his letters to that eminent critic have been preserved.

BENJAMIN HOADLY, son of Samuel Hoadly, was born at Westerhaven, Kent, November 14th, 1676,

while his father was teacher of a private school in that place. He continued under his father's tuition till he entered the University of Cambridge, as a pensioner of Catherine hall. We hear little of him at the University, except that he took his degrees in due course, was elected a fellow, and discharged the office of tutor with much credit for two years.

During the first years of his life he was of a sickly constitution, and seldom in good health. By an accident also at the University he contracted a lameness, which never left him. He always walked with a cane, or a crutch, and then with difficulty. But his constitution gained vigour as he advanced in age. It was a custom, which he rarely omitted, to exercise daily by riding in the open air. This practice preserved his health and cheerfulness to the close of a long and sedentary life.

He took orders in 1700, and was appointed lecturer at St Mildred in the Poultry, London. This appointment he retained for ten years. The income was very small, and through the kindness of Dr William Sherlock, Dean of St Paul's, he obtained in addition the Rectory of St Peter's Poor, Broadstreet, in 1704. Already he began to be distinguished by his writings and sermons in vindication of natural and revealed religion, and of the principles of civil and religious liberty. So valuable were his services accounted, that, in 1709, he was complimented by a vote of approbation in the House of

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