V. His Letter to the Bishop of London, with the Answers. VI. His Letter to Mr. Broughton, and Mr. Broughton's Anfwer, 8vo. price 35. But these two laft letters being on both fides much too warm, and of little confequence, may be omitted hereafter nor need the letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, page 96-100, be here reprinted any more; it having been printed elsewhere: nor need the observations on Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity be reprinted here; they being printed at the end of my fifth volume, The Recognitions of Clement; and the teftimomes there included, more fully in my letter to the earl of Nottingham, and its defence; of which hereafter. Memorandum, that a little before the famous total eclipse of the Sun, April 22, this year, 1715, I published two schemes of that eclipfe: the latter of which is inferted into that larger collection of fchemes; an account of that and of the next total eclipfe of the Sun, May 11, 1724, which I published a little afterward, and together, rolled, amounted to 7s. tho' my own later scheme of the eclipfe, in 1715, was but 2s. 6d. N. B. This moft eminent eclipfe, 1715, was exactly foretold by Mr. Flamsteed, Dr. Halley, and myfelf: its beginning came to one minute, and its end within four of the calculations. And it was, perhaps, more exactly obferved by the French aftronomers in London, and by our own at the royal fociety, and elfewhere, than any other eclipfe ever was. I myself by my lectures before; by the fale of my schemes before and after; by the generous prefents of my numerous and noble audience; who at the recommendation of my great friend, the lord Stanhope, then fecretary of state, gave me a guinea apiece; by the very uncommon prefent of of twenty guineas from another of my great benefactors, the duke of Newcastle; and of five guineas at night from the lord Godolphin; gained in all. about 1207. by it. Which, in the circumstances I then was, and have fince been, deftitute of all. preferment, was a very feasonable and plentiful fupply and, as I reckoned, maintained me and my family for a whole year together. Another remarkable circumftance relating to this eclipfe, that I had from the lord Forfar, deferves to be particularly remembred; which was this: when Mr. Flamsteed's, Dr. Halley's, and my schemes, foretelling, to a minute, when the Sun would begin to be eclipfed, and that it would be total, were cried about every where in London, there happened to be a Mahometan envoy here from Tripoly, who at first thought we were distracted, by pretending to know fo very punctually when God Almighty would totally eclipfe the Sun; which his own muffulmen were not able to do. He concluding thus, that Almighty God would never reveal fo great a fecret to us unbelievers, when he did not reveal it to those whom he esteemed true believers. However, when the eclipfe came exactly as we all foretold, he was afked again, what he thought of the matter now? His antwer was, that he fuppofed we knew this by art magick; otherwife he must have turned Chriftian upon fuch an extraordinary event as this was. N. B. This eclipfe of the Sun, tho' I then did not think of it, appears now to have been a divine fignal for the end of over-bearing perfecution in two of the ten idolatrous and perfecuting kingdoms, which arofe in the fifth century, in the Roman empire, the Britains and the Saxons. See Effay on the Revelation of St. John, fecond edition, * page page 325, 324. As I look upon the numerous and remarkable eclipfes of the aftronomical year 1736, to be the like divine fignals of the end of all fhadow of perfecution there. See the fame place of my Effay on the Revelations; and my intire pamphlet upon that Aftronomical Year, publifhed 1737, of which hereafter. About the fame year, 1715, I published an aftronomical instrument, called The Copernicus, for the ready calculation and exhibition of all eclipfes, both of the Sun and Moon, paft and to come. With a small manual of directions for its ufe. The price of the inftrument was fix guineas; and of the manual only 15. But of this inftrument before, at A. D. 1710. June 14th the fame year, 1715, I fent a letter to Mr. Lydal, affistant to Dr. Sacheverell, on his preaching against me at St. Andrew's, Holborn, when I was prefent. This letter I afterwards printed, and gave away to the parishioners of St. Andrew's, gratis. It has been added at the end of the collection of papers, about my prosecution in the court of delegates. About the end of the fame year, 1715, I published St. Clement's and St. Irenæus's Vindication of the Apoftolical Conftitutions, from feveral objections made against them; as alfo, An Account of the two ancient Rules for the celebration of Eafter; with a Poftfcript, on occafion of Mr. Turner's difcourfe against the Apoftolical Conftitutions. There was afterwards added a large Supplement, containing Mr. Pfaffius's account of a moft remarkable Fragment of Irenæus's, by him juft before published. And Justin Martyr's account of the Christian Lord's Day Worship, of Baptifm, and the Lord's Supper; with Dr. Grabe's and my notes, to fhew how very agreeable this account is to that in the Conftitutions, 8vo. Price together, I s. N. B. N. B. I well remember, that the very learned Mr. Waffe expreffed a particular regard to this pamphlet, as of great force for the juftification of thefe Conftitutions. It may not, perhaps, be here improper to take particular notice of that branch of this pamphlet which treats of the Wednesday and Friday's ftations, or half fafts, and produces more evidence for their obfervation by the firft Chriftians, than can be produced for their obfervation of the Lord's Day itself, tho' both be undeniable, page 42-48. And to note, that as the proteftants retain hardly any traces of them, or of the other fafts appointed by Christ and his apostles in the Conftitutions, fo do the Roman Catholicks, who profefs a much greater regard to them, fo far as their church enjoins them, than the Proteftants, have, in part, corrupted them alfo, and that, from their known maxim, that liquidum non folvit jejunium, that drinking what is liquid does not break their faft. A memorable example of which I well remember, and will here fet down. I once went to fpeak with the learned Dr. Woodward, the phyfician; it was on a Wednesday, or Friday, I do not know which; he offered me a dish of chocolate, which I refused, telling him that I kept the old rule of Chriftians, and should not take any more food 'till three o'clock in the afternoon: he reply'd, that I might drink chocolate, if it were well mill'd, and thereby made a liquid, and be fafting ftill: and to prove his affertion, he produced a thin book in quarto, written by a cardinal, to that very purpofe. However, neither did the cardinal's authority nor reafon move me to alter my own Chriftian practice; nor did Dr. Halley's argument, in the like cafe, move me, when, on my refufal from him of a glass of wine on a Wednesday, or Friday, for the fame fame reafon, he faid, "He was afraid I had a 66 pope in my belly," which I denied, and added, fomewhat bluntly, that had it not been for the rise now and then of a Luther, and a Whifton, he would himself have gone down on his knees to St. Winifrid and St. Bridget: which he knew not how to contradict. 'Tis much fafer to keep the original.rules of the gofpel, than to invent evafions and diftinctions how we may moft plaufibly break them, which is the way of the moderns perpetually. But now it may not be amifs to digrefs a little, and to give fome account of bifhop Hoadley, our once famous writer of controverfy, and obferve how preferment, or the hopes of it, alter and corrupts the minds of men: I call him and the reft of his brethren, in this paper, bishops, as legally fuch; without determining whether he, or thofe others who have fo often, and fo notoriously, broken the canons of the apoftles, and the known laws of Christianity, both in their coming in, and behaviour afterwards, can be esteemed Chriftian Bishops or not. Now in the year 1711, after I had published my four volumes of Primitive Chriftianity Reviv'd, we had a meeting at Mr. Benjamin Hoadley's (that was his name then, and I do but tranfcribe my own account from The Life of Dr. Clarke, first edition, page 28, 29.) who, upon our debate about the genuineness of the Apoftilical Conftitutions, thus declared his mind, "That without entering into the difpute, whether thefe Confti"tutions were really genuine and apoftolical, or not, he was for receiving them, as much better "than what was already in the church." After five years, in 1716, Mr. Hoadley was made bifhop of Bangor. At which time, I told his lordship, that he had now 500 l. [it proved 800l.] a year, to keep the [primitive] Chriftian Religion out of England. And, I think, that he has fince he was made |