to his distinguishing merit.'[70] This
general satisfaction which had attended his promotion qualified him the
more for a peacemaker in the Church. At a time when party spirit was
more than usually vehement, it was his rare lot to possess in a high
degree the respect and confidence of men of all opinions. From his
earliest youth he had learnt to appreciate high Christian worth under
varied forms. His father had been a fervent Puritan, his mother a
strenuous Royalist; and he speaks with equal gratitude of the deep
impressions left upon his mind by the grave piety of the one, and of the
admiration instilled into him by the other of the proscribed Liturgy of
the English Church. He went up to Cambridge a Calvinist; he learnt a
larger, a happier, and no less spiritual theology under the teaching of
More and Cudworth. His studies then took a wide range. He delighted in
imaginative literature, especially in Greek poetry, became very fairly
versed in Hebrew and the interpretation of the Old Testament, took much
pleasure in botany and chemistry, and was at once fascinated with the
Newtonian philosophy. He was also an accomplished antiquary. At a later
period, as rector of St. Giles in the Fields, and Friday lecturer at St.
Lawrence Jewry, he gained much fame as one of the most persuasive and
affecting preachers of his age. Tillotson and Clagett were his most
intimate friends; and among his acquaintances were Stillingfleet,
Patrick, Beveridge, Cradock, Whichcot, Calamy, Scot, Sherlock, Wake, and
Cave, including all that eminent circle of London clergy who were at
that time the distinguishing ornament of the English Church, and who
constantly met at one another's houses to confer on the religious and
ecclesiastical questions of the day. There was perhaps no one eminent
divine, at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth
century, who had so much in sympathy with men of either section of the
English Church. He was claimed by the Tories and High Churchmen; and no
doubt, on the majority of subjects his views agreed with theirs,
particularly in the latter part of his life. But his opinions were very
frequently modified by a more liberal training and by more generous and
considerate ideas than were common among them. He voted with them
against occasional Conformity, protested against any enfeebling of the
Test Acts, and took, it must be acknowledged, a far from tolerant line
generally in the debates of 1704-9 relating to