rham.

The Assizes and Sessions, also, are duly kept in the Bishop's House, at
the sole charges of the Bishop.

Also the several expenses for keeping in repair certain banks of rivers
in that Bishopric, and of several Houses belonging to the Bishopric.

Moreover, the yearly Tenths, public taxes, the charges of going to and
waiting at Parliament, being deducted; there will remain, in ordinary
years, to the Bishop to keep hospitality, which must be great, and to
provide for those of his family, but about L1,500 [= L4,500 _now_] yearly.

The like might be said of some other principal Bishoprics.

The great diminution of the revenues of the Clergy, and the little care
of augmenting and defending the patrimony of the Church, is the great
reproach and shame of the English Reformation; and will, one day, prove
the ruin of Church and State.

"It is the last trick," saith St. GREGORY, "that the Devil hath in this
world. When he cannot bring the Word and Sacraments into disgrace by
errors and heresies; he invents this project, to bring the Clergy into
contempt and low esteem."

As it is now in England, where they are accounted by many, the Dross and
Refuse of the nation. Men think it a stain to their blood to place their
sons in that function; and women are ashamed to marry with any of them.

It hath been observed, even by strangers, that the iniquity of the
present Times in England is such, that the English Clergy are not only
hated by the Romanists on the one side, and maligned by the Presbyterians
on the other...; but also that, of all the Christian Clergy of Europe,
whether Romish, Lutheran, or Calvinistic, none are so little _respected,
beloved, obeyed_, or _rewarded_, as the present pious, learned, loyal
Clergy of England; even by those who have always professed themselves of
that Communion.

THE GROUNDS & OCCASIONS OF THE CONTEMPT
OF THE CLERGY AND RELIGION
Enquired into.

_In a_ LETTER _written to_ R.L.

LONDON,
Printed by W. GODBID for N. BROOKE
at the _Angel_ in Cornhill. 1670.

This work is dated August 8, 1670. ANTHONY A. WOOD in his _Life_ (_Ath.
Oxon._ I. lxx. Ed. 1813), gives the following account of our Author.

_February_ 9 [1672] A.W. went to London, and the next day he was kindly
receiv'd by Sir LIOLIN JENKYNS, in his apartment in Exeter house in the
Strand, within the city of Westminster.

Sunday 11 [Feb. 1672], Sir LIOLIN JENKYNS took with him, in the morning,
over the water to Lamb