HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

• were at Oxford. Prideanx was in the close of Norwich, andWhitby in the close of Salisbury. But it was chiefly by theLondon clergy, who were always spoken of as a class apart,that the fame of their profession for learning and eloquencewas upheld. The principal pulpits of the metropolis wereoccupied about this time by a crowd of distinguished men,from among whom was selected a large proportion of therulers of the Church. Sherlock preached at the Temple,Tillotson at Lincoln’s Inn, Wake and Jeremy Collier atGray’s Inn, Burnet at the Rolls, Stillingfleet at St. Paul’sCathedral, Patrick at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, Fowler atSt. Giles’s, Cripplegate, Sharp at St. Giles’s in the Fields,Tenison at St. Martin’s, Sprat at St. Margaret’s, Beveridgeat St. Peter’s in Cornhill. Of these twelve men, all of highnote in ecclesiastical history, ten became Bishops, and fourArchbishops. Meanwhile almost the only important theolo-gical works which came forth from a rural parsonage werethose of George Bull, afterwards Bishop of St. David’s; andBull never would have produced those works, had he notinherited an estate, by the sale of which he was enabled tocollect a library, such as probably no other country clergy-man in England possessed. *

Thus the Anglican priesthood was divided into two sec-tions, which, in acquirements, in manners, and in socialposition, differed widely from each other. One section,trained for cities and courts, comprised men familiar with allancient and modern learning; men able to encounter Hobbesor Bossuet at all the weapons of controversy; men who could,in their sermons, set forth the majesty and beauty of Chris-tianity with such justness of thought, and such energy oflanguage, that the indolent Charles roused himself to listen,

* Nelson’s Life of Bull. As to the extreme difficulty which the coun-try clergy found in procuring boohs, see the Life of Thomas Bray, thefounder of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.