Dean of Carlisle, that he carried the bucket to extinguish the fires which the other had kindled.  His political sympathies, however, accorded with those of Atterbury, and brought him into close relation with the Nonjurors.  Although he had submitted to the new Constitution, he was a thorough Jacobite in feeling.  His Thirtieth of January sermons were sometimes marked with an extravagance of expression[81] foreign to his usual manner; and he and Atterbury, with whom he had recently edited Lord Clarendon’s History, were the only bishops who refused to sign the declaration of abhorrence of the Rebellion of 1715.[82]

Smalridge and Nelson had a mutual friend,[83] whom they both highly valued, in Dr. Ernest Grabe, a Prussian of remarkable character and great erudition, who had settled in England under the especial favour of King William.  Dissatisfied as to the validity of Lutheran orders, he had at first turned his thoughts to Rome, not unaware that he should find in that Church many departures from the simplicity of the early faith, but feeling that it possessed at all events that primitive constitution which he had learnt to consider essential.  He was just about to take this step, when he met with Spener, the eminent leader of the German Pietists, to whom he communicated his difficulties, and who pointed out to him the Church of England as a communion likely to meet his wants.  He came to this country[84] at the end of the seventeenth century, received a royal pension, took priest’s orders, and continued with indefatigable labour his patristic studies.  It became the great project of his life to maintain a close communication between the English and Lutheran Churches,[85] to bring about in Prussia a restoration of episcopacy, and to introduce there a liturgy composed upon the English model.  It cannot be said that the general course of theological thought in England was at this time very congenial to his aspirations; but his great learning and the earnest sincerity of his ideas were widely appreciated, and within a somewhat confined circle of High Churchmen and Nonjurors he was cordially welcomed, and his services highly valued.  He pushed his conformity to what he considered the usages of the Primitive Church to the verge of eccentricity.  Yet ‘indeed,’ says Kennet, without any sympathy in his practices, but with a kindly smile, ’his piety and our charity may cover all this.’[86]

Dr. Thomas Bray may stand as a fit representative of another class of Nelson’s friends and associates.  So far from agreeing with Nelson in his Nonjuring sentiments, the prospect of the constitutional change had kindled in him enthusiastic expectations.  ‘Good Dr. Bray,’ remarks Whiston, ’had said how happy and religious the nation would become when the House of Hanover came, and was very indignant when Mr. Mason said that matters would not be mended.’[87] He accepted a living which had been vacated by a Nonjuring clergyman, but spent alike his clerical and private