, as he said, had promised him the first of those prebends
of Canterbury that should fall in his gift: for when he saw that the
archbishop was resolved not to take the oaths, but to forsake the post,
he made an earnest application to me, to secure that for him at
Archbishop Tillotson's hands. I pressed him in it as much as was decent
for me to do, but he said he would not encourage these aspiring men, by
promising any thing, before it should fall; as indeed none of them fell
during his time. Wharton, upon this answer, thought I had neglected him,
looking on it as a civil denial, and said he would be revenged; and so
he published that specimen: upon which, I, in a letter that I printed,
addressed to the present Bishop of Worcester, charged him again and
again to bring forth all that he pretended to have reserved at that
time, for, till that was done, I would not enter upon the examination of
that specimen. It was received with contempt, and Tillotson justified my
pressing him to take Wharton under his particular protection so fully,
that he sent and asked me pardon. He said he was set on to it; and that,
if I would procure any thing for him, he would discover any thing to me.
I despised that offer, but said that I would at any price buy of him
those discoveries that he pretended to have in reserve. But Mr. Chiswell
(at whose house he then lay) being sick, said he could draw nothing of
that from him, and he believed he had nothing. He died about a year
after."--BURNET'S _History of the Reformation_ III, vii. [T. S.]]

Come we now to the reasons, which moved his lordship to set about this
work at this time. He "could delay it no longer, because the reasons of
his engaging in it at first seem to return upon him[17]." He was then
frightened with "the danger of a popish successor in view, and the
dreadful apprehensions of the power of France. England has forgot these
dangers, and yet is nearer to them than ever[18]," and therefore he is
resolved to "awaken them" with his third volume; but in the mean time,
sends this Introduction to let them know they are asleep. He then goes
on in describing the condition of the kingdom[19], after such a manner
as if destruction hung over us by a single hair; as if the Pope, the
devil, the Pretender, and France, were just at our doors.

[Footnote 17: Page 27.]

[Footnote 18: Page 28.]

[Footnote 19: Page 28.]

When the Bishop published his History, there was a popish plot on foot,
the D