PREFACE.

THE title of this work tells its own tale. All therefore that is necessary in the way of Preface is a grateful acknowledgment of the help and encouragement I have received in the execution of my task. I am indebted to Dr. R. Garnett, of the British Museum, who not only lent me cheerfully the aid he was always ready to accord to students, but took the pains, unasked, to search out MSS. bearing on my subject; to the Rev. Churchill Babington, whose name is well known in connection with the clergy of the latter part of the seventeenth century, and who kindly assisted me with his valuable advice; to the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, whose letters. to me on the subject are among my most treasured relics; and, last but not least, to my Wednesday evening Congregation at Epworth Church, who will recognise in these pages much that they have heard from the pulpit, and who unwittingly emboldened me to present the work to the public, by the interest which they expressed in what they heard.