In Wiltshire, John Norris, an English disciple of Malbranche, held the living of Bemerton; and, while he practised the quiet virtues of the parish priest, he selected for the pulpit, subjects of a moral and spiritual nature, rather than the more distinctive truths connected with our redemption by Christ; not but that there is a tone in Norris’s teaching in unison with habits of thought cultivated by modern Evangelicals.[397] His published discourses, for the most part, are plain and practical; yet sometimes his handling of topics is such as to make his readers think that he shot over the heads of the Wiltshire farmers and peasantry. In Suffolk, William Burkett, Rector of Milden, added to his ministerial excellence, large-hearted efforts for the French refugees, and for preaching the Gospel in America. He secured a long reputation by his _Expository Notes on the New Testament_, which strongly reflect the opinions of others, and whilst decidedly Arminian, are more practical than critical. Of a well-known Kentish clergyman, Stanhope, Vicar of Lewisham, in no sense a party man, Evelyn remarks: “He is one of the most accomplished preachers I ever heard, for matter, eloquence, action, and voice.”[398] [Sidenote: 1688–1702.] In closing this list of distinguished clergymen, I would refer to two men known as ecclesiastical archæologists, rather than as preachers and pastors. John Strype, Incumbent of Low Leyton, in Essex, then between fifty and sixty years of age, was just beginning that career as a biographer and historian, which he prolonged for so many years afterwards, and for which he had so laboriously amassed materials during the previous portion of his life. His memoirs of Cranmer, Smith, and Aylmer, which issued from the press under William III., and the large correspondence of the author at the time, preserved in the University Library at Cambridge, indicate, in connection with his diligence of research, his busy care respecting ecclesiastical affairs. Working hard upon black-letter books and hardly decipherable MSS., he was ready as a rural Dean, at the call of his Diocesan, to arrange for clerical meetings, or to preach visitation sermons.[399] Henry Wharton at the same time, though a young man, was closing his course as a laborious editor and critic, in fact, a martyr to excessive study; and, in turning over the _Strype Correspondence_, I was much touched by the following passage, in a letter written to Strype by one of Wharton’s friends, in reference to a visit paid him at Canterbury:--“One day he opened his trunk and drawers, and showed me his great collections concerning the state of our Church, and with a deep sigh told me that all his labours were at an end, and that his strength would not permit him to finish any more of the subject.”[400] [Sidenote: DISTINGUISHED CLERGYMEN.]