OF

THE REV. JOSEPH BINGHAM, M. A.

EDITED BY

HIS LINEAL DESCENDANT

THE REV. R. BINGHAM, JUN., M.A.

FORMERLY OF MAGDALEN HALL, OXFORD,

AND

FOR MANY YEARS CURATE OF TRINITY CHURCH, GOSPORT.

A NEW EDITION IN TEN VOLUMES.

VOL. X.

OXFORD:

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

M. DCCC. LV.

Clar. Press.

1. d.10.

TO THE

MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,

THOMAS,

BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE,

LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,

PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, AND METROPOLITAN, AND ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,

IN regard to the eminency of your office and station in the Church, which entitles you more than ordinarily to be a defender of the present constitution, and a patronizer of all honest endeavours that are used to support it, I do with great submission present to your Grace this following Discourse; which contains a modest vindication of the doctrine, worship, government, and discipline of our Church, from the chief objections of Dissenters, and returns answer to them upon the principles of the Reformed Church of France.

The argument, I confess, is something singular: there being few that have trod in the same path before, and none, that I know of, who have set themselves purposely to examine the French Synods with any design to justify the Church of England thereby. But I hope the rareness of the argument will be so far from being a prejudice against it, that it will excite the curiosity of those for whose benefit it is intended, to make a new search into these matters: and when they find so exact an harmony and agreement betwixt the French and English Church upon the chief points controverted, that may perhaps induce them to lay aside their prejudices and mistakes, and a [Dr. Thomas Tenison, from 1694 to 1715. ED.]