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while it lasted, and which continue to be felt even now through every member of the government, in the finances as well as in the army and the navy, this is not the place to speak. Happily they now begin to be on all sides acknowledged; and if I am anxious that more complete justice should be done to you in this as in other respects, it is owing not so much to the interest which I take in all that concerns your welfare, as to the firm belief which I entertain that such a sense of your merits, if more universally prevalent, would materially tend in its consequences to improve our public situation, and to make us respectable both at home and abroad.

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But I also know, that among the measures which were in your contemplation, and which you had particularly at heart, there were some which had for their immediate object the providing for the advancement and security of our ecclesiastical establishment, and the counteracting, if not preventing of those disorders, which I have laboured, in the language, and, I trust, in the spirit of Scripture, to mark and to reprove.

To these and many other reasons which might be alleged for prefixing your name to this work, I have to add the personal, and to me most gratifying consideration of that intimacy which has subsisted between us from our early youth, and which your advancement to some of the highest offices in the kingdom, has only contributed to cement and to increase.

That it may please the Almighty to crown you with every blessing, more especially by making you his instrument of good both to the king and the people, and that you may daily more and more cherish and maintain that true faith in Christ, and that entire dependence on the Divine Providence, without which there is and can be no solid peace or happiness, is the sincere wish and prayer of him who is ever,

MY DEAR LORD,

MOST FAITHFULLY, AND

AFFECTIONATELY YOURS,

THO. LE MESURIER.

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EXTRACT

From the last Will and Testament of the late Rev. John Bampton, Canon of Salisbury.

I give and bequeath my lands and estates to the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars, of the University of Oxford, for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said lands or estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, for the time being, shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof; and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established, for ever, in the said University, and to be performed in the manner following:

I direct and appoint that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and

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by no others, in the room adjoining the Printing house, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent term, and the end of the third week in Act term.

Also, I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following subjects: to confirm and establish the Christian faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics; upon the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures; upon the authority of the writings of the primitive fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive church; upon the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; upon the divinity of the Holy Ghost; upon the articles of the Christian faith, as comprehended in the apostles' and Nicene. creeds.

Also, I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be always printed within two months after they are preached, and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one

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