It had been possessed by a
remarkable succession of the most able and celebrated preachers, of whom
were the Archbishops Tillotson and Sharp; and it was usually attended by
a variety of persons of the first note and eminence, particularly by
numbers of the clergy, not only of the younger sort, but several also of
long standing and established character.'[1214] On Friday evenings it
was in fact described as being 'not so much a concourse of people, but a
convocation of divines.'[1215] The suburbs, too, of London had their
Lecturers, supported by voluntary contributions, 'the amount of which
put to shame the scanty stipends of the curates.'[1216] At the end of
the period the Lecturers kept their place, but in diminished
numbers;[1217] their relative importance being the more dimmed by the
increase in number of the parochial clergy, and by the migration from
the old city churches to new ones in the suburbs and chapels of ease
where no such foundations existed.

It is almost sad to note in Paterson's 'Pietas Londinensis' the number
of commemorative sermons founded in London parishes under the vain hope
of perpetuating a name for ever. At that time, however, 'all these
lectures were constantly observed on their appointed days.'[1218]
Funeral sermons had for some time been flourishing far too vigorously.
Bossuet and Massillon have left magnificent examples of the noble pulpit
oratory to which such occasions may give rise. But in England, funeral
sermons were too often a reproach to the clergy who could preach them,
and to the public opinion which encouraged them. Just in the same way as
a book could scarcely be published without a dedication which, it might
be thought, would bring only ridicule upon the personage extravagantly
belauded in it, so it was with these funeral sermons. A good man like
Kettlewell might well be 'scandalised with such fulsome panegyrics; it
grieved him to the soul to see flattery taken sanctuary in the
pulpit.'[1219] They had become an odious system, an ordinary funeral
luxury, often handsomely paid for, which even the poor were ambitious to
purchase.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century baptisms during time of
public service were decidedly unfrequent. There had been at one time
such great and widely-spread scruples at the sign of the cross and the
use of sponsors, that many people had preferred, where they found it
possible, to get their children baptized at home, that these adjuncts of
the